CHAPTER III.
My life at school was like that of any other school-boy. I shall not record, even if I could remember, how often I was flogged when I did not deserve it, or how often I escaped when I did. Five years of my life passed away, of which I have nothing to relate but that I learned to whip a top, and to play at ball and marbles, each in their season; that I acquired in due course the usual quantity of Greek and Latin; and perpetrated in my time, I presume, the usual quantity of mischief. But in the fourth year of my schoolboy life, an opportunity for unusual mischief occurred. An accident happened, which, however trifling in itself, can never be effaced from my memory. Every particular connected with it, is indeed as fresh in my recollection as it was the day after it happened. It was a circumstance which awakened long dormant associations, and combined them with all the feelings and principles of party spirit, which had first been inculcated by my father at home, and which had been exercised so well and so continually by my companions at school, as to have become the governing power of my mind.
Schoolboys, as well as men, can find or make a party question, and quarrel out of any thing or out of nothing. There was a Scotch pedlar, who used to come every Thursday evening to our school to supply our various wants and fancies. The Scotch pedlar died, and two candidates offered to supply his place, an English lad of the name of Dutton, and a Jew boy of the name of Jacob. Dutton was son to a man who had lived as butler in Mowbray’s family. Lord Mowbray knew the boy to be a rogue, but thought he was attached to the Mowbrays, and at all events was determined to support him, as being somehow supposed to be connected with his family. Reminding me of my early declaration at my father’s table against the naturalization of the Jews, and the bon-mot I had made, and the toast I had drunk, and the pledge I had given, Mowbray easily engaged me to join him against the Jew boy; and a zealous partisan against Jacob I became, canvassing as if my life had depended upon this point. But in spite of all our zeal, noise, violence, and cabal, it was the least and the most simple child in the school who decided the election. This youngster had in secret offered to exchange a silver pencil-case for a top, or something of such inadequate value: Jacob, instead of taking advantage of the child, explained to him that his pencil-case was worth twenty tops. On the day of election, this little boy, mounted upon the top of a step-ladder, appeared over the heads of the crowd, and in a small clear voice, and with an eagerness which fixed attention, related the history of his pencil-case, and ended by hoping with all his heart that his friend Jacob, his honest Jacob, might be chosen. Jacob was elected. Mowbray and I, and all our party, vexed and mortified, became the more inveterate in our aversion to the successful candidate; and from this moment we determined to plague and persecute him, till we should force him to give up. Every Thursday evening, the moment he appeared in the school-room, or on the play-ground, our party commenced the attack upon “the Wandering Jew,” as we called this poor pedlar; and with every opprobrious nickname, and every practical jest, that mischievous and incensed schoolboy zealots could devise, we persecuted and tortured him body and mind. We twanged at once a hundred Jew’s-harps in his ear, and before his eyes we paraded the effigy of a Jew, dressed in a gabardine of rags and paper. In the passages through which he was to pass, we set stumbling-blocks in his way, we threw orange-peel in his path, and when he slipped or fell, we laughed him to scorn, and we triumphed over him the more, the more he was hurt, or the more his goods were injured. “We laughed at his losses, mocked at his gains, scorned his nation, thwarted his bargains, cooled his friends, heated his enemies—and what was our reason? he was a Jew.”
But he was as unlike to Shylock as it is possible to conceive. Without one thought or look of malice or revenge, he stood before us Thursday after Thursday, enduring all that our barbarity was pleased to inflict; he stood patient and long-suffering, and even of this patience and resignation we made a jest, and a subject of fresh reproach and taunt.
How I, who was not in other cases a cruel or an ill-natured boy, could be so inhuman to this poor, unprotected, unoffending creature I cannot conceive; but such in man or boy is the nature of persecution. At the time it all appeared to me quite natural and proper; a just and necessary war. The blame, if blame there were, was divided among so many, that the share of each, my share at least, appeared to me so small, as not to be worth a moment’s consideration. The shame, if we had any, was carried away in the tide of popular enthusiasm, and drowned and lost in the fury and noise of the torrent. In looking back upon this disgraceful scene of our boyish days—boyish indeed I can scarcely call them, for I was almost, and Mowbray in his own opinion was quite, a man—I say, in looking back upon this time, I have but one comfort. But I have one, and I will make the most of it: I think I should never have done so much wrong, had it not been for Mowbray. We were both horribly to blame; but though I was full as wrong in action, I flatter myself that I was wrong upon better or upon less bad motives. My aversion to the Jew, if more absurd and violent, was less interested and malignant than Mowbray’s. I never could stand as he did to parley, and barter, and chaffer with him—if I had occasion to buy any thing, I was high and haughty, and at a word; he named his price, I questioned not, not I—down was thrown my money, my back was turned—and away! As for stooping to coax him as Mowbray would, when he had a point to gain, I could not have done it. To ask Jacob to lend me money, to beg him to give me more time to pay a debt, to cajole and bully him by turns, to call him alternately usurer and my honest fellow, extortioner and my friend Jacob—my tongue could not have uttered the words, my soul detested the thought; yet all this, and more, could Mowbray do, and did.
Lord Mowbray was deeply in Jacob’s debt, especially for two watches which he had taken upon trial, and which he had kept three months, making, every Thursday, some fresh excuse for not paying for them; at last Jacob said that he must have the money, that his employer could wait no longer, and that he should himself be thrown into prison. Mowbray said this was only a trick to work upon his compassion, and that the Jew might very well wait for his money, because he asked twice as much for the watches as they were worth. Jacob offered to leave the price to be named by any creditable watchmaker. Lord Mowbray swore that he was as good a judge as any watchmaker in Christendom. Without pretending to dispute that point, Jacob finished by declaring, that his distress was so urgent that he must appeal to some of the masters. “You little Jewish tell-tale, what do you mean by that pitiful threat? Appeal to the higher powers if you dare, and I’ll make you repent it, you usurer! Only do, if you dare!” cried he, clenching his hand and opening it, so as to present, successively, the two ideas of a box on the ear, and a blow on the stomach. “That was logic and eloquence,” added Mowbray, turning to me. “Some ancient philosopher, you know, or I know, has compared logic to the closed fist, and eloquence to the open palm. See what it is, Harrington, to make good use of one’s learning.”
This was all very clever, at least our party thought so, and at the moment I applauded with the rest, though in my secret soul I thought Jacob was ill used, and that he ought to have had justice, if he had not been a Jew. His fear of a prison proved to be no pretence, for it surmounted his dread of Mowbray’s logic and eloquence, and of all the unpopularity which he was well aware must be the consequence of his applying to the higher powers. Jacob appealed, and Lord Mowbray was summoned to appear before the head master, and to answer to the charge. It was proved that the price set upon the two watches was perfectly fair, as a watchmaker, who was examined on this point, declared. The watches had been so damaged during the two months they had been in his lordship’s possession, that Jacob declined taking them back. Lord Mowbray protested that they were good for nothing when he first had them.
Then why did he not return them after the first week’s trial, when Jacob had requested either to have them back or to be paid for them? His lordship had then, as half a dozen of the boys on the Jew’s side were ready to testify, refused to return the watches, declaring they went very well, and that he would keep them as long as he pleased, and pay for them when he pleased, and no sooner.
This plain tale put down the Lord Mowbray. His wit and his party now availed him not; he was publicly reprimanded, and sentenced to pay Jacob for the watches in a week, or to be expelled from the school. Mowbray would have desired no better than to leave the school, but he knew that his mother would never consent to this.
His mother, the Countess de Brantefield, was a Countess in her own right, and had an estate in her own power;—his father, a simple commoner, was dead, his mother was his sole guardian.
“That mother of mine,” said he to us, “would not hear of her son’s being turned out—so I must set my head to work against the head of the head master, who is at this present moment inditing a letter to her ladyship, beginning, no doubt, with, ‘I am sorry to be obliged to take up my pen,’ or, ‘I am concerned to be under the necessity of sitting down to inform your ladyship.’ Now I must make haste and inform my lady mother of the truth with my own pen, which luckily is the pen of a ready writer. You will see,” continued he, “how cleverly I will get myself out of the scrape with her. I know how to touch her up. There’s a folio, at home, of old Manuscript Memoirs of the De Brantefield family, since the time of the flood, I believe: it’s the only book my dear mother ever looks into; and she has often made me read it to her, till—no offence to my long line of ancestry—I cursed it and them; but now I bless it and them for supplying my happy memory with a case in point, that will just hit my mother’s fancy, and, of course, obtain judgment in my favour. A case, in the reign of Richard the Second, between a Jew and my great, great, great, six times great grandfather, whom it is sufficient to name to have all the blood of all the De Brantefields up in arms for me against all the Jews that ever were born. So my little Jacob, I have you.”
Mowbray, accordingly, wrote to his mother what he called a chef-d’oeuvre of a letter, and next post came an answer from Lady de Brantefield with the money to pay her son’s debt, and, as desired and expected, a strong reproof to her son for his folly in ever dealing with a Jew. How could he possibly expect not to be cheated, as, by his own confession, it appeared he had been, grossly? It was the more extraordinary, since he so well recollected the ever to be lamented case of Sir Josseline de Brantefield, that her son could, with all his family experience, be, at this time of day, a dupe to one of a race branded by the public History of England, and private Memoirs of the De Brantefields, to all eternity!
Mowbray showed this letter in triumph to all his party. It answered the double purpose of justifying his own bad opinion of the tribe of Israel, and of tormenting Jacob.
The next Thursday evening after that on which judgment had been given against Mowbray, when Jacob appeared in the school-room, the anti-Jewish party gathered round him, according to the instructions of their leader, who promised to show them some good sport at the Jew’s expense.
“Only give me fair play,” said Mowbray, “and stick close, and don’t let him off, for your lives don’t let him break through you, till I’ve roasted him well.”
“There’s your money,” cried Mowbray, throwing down the money for the watches—“take it—ay, count it—every penny right—I’ve paid you by the day appointed; and, thank Heaven and my friends, the pound of flesh next my heart is safe from your knife, Shylock!”
Jacob made no reply, but he looked as if he felt much.
“Now tell me, honest Jacob,” pursued Mowbray, “honest Jacob, patient Jacob, tell me, upon your honour, if you know what that word means—upon your conscience, if you ever heard of any such thing—don’t you think yourself a most pitiful dog, to persist in coming here to be made game of for twopence? ‘Tis wonderful how much your thoroughbred Jew will do and suffer for gain. We poor good Christians could never do as much now—could we any soul of us, think you, Jacob?”
“Yes,” replied Jacob, “I think you could, I think you would.”
Loud scornful laughter from our party interrupted him; he waited calmly till it was over, and then continued, “Every soul of you good Christians would, I think, do as much for a father, if he were in want and dying, as mine is.” There was a silence for the moment: we were all, I believe, struck, or touched, except Mowbray, who, unembarrassed by feeling, went on with the same levity of tone as before: “A father in want! Are you sure now he is not a father of straw, Jacob, set up for the nonce, to move the compassion of the generous public? Well, I’ve little faith, but I’ve some charity—here’s a halfpenny for your father, to begin with.”
“Whilst I live, my father shall ask no charity, I hope,” said the son, retreating from the insulting alms which Mowbray still proffered.
“Why now, Jacob, that’s bad acting, out o’ character, Jacob, my Jew; for when did any son of Israel, any one of your tribe, or your twelve tribes, despise a farthing they could get honestly or dishonestly? Now this is a halfpenny—a good halfpenny. Come, Jacob, take it—don’t be too proud—pocket the affront—consider it’s for your father, not for yourself—you said you’d do much for your father, Jacob.”
Jacob’s countenance continued rigidly calm, except some little convulsive twitches about the mouth.
“Spare him, Mowbray,” whispered I, pulling back Mowbray’s arm; “Jew as he is, you see he has some feeling about his father.”
“Jew as he is, and fool as you are, Harrington,” replied Mowbray, aloud, “do you really believe that this hypocrite cares about his father, supposing he has one? Do you believe, boys, that a Jew pedlar can love a father gratis, as we do?”
“As we do!” repeated some of the boys: “Oh! no, for his father can’t be as good as ours—he is a Jew!”
“Jacob, is your father good to you?” said one of the little boys.
“He is a good father, sir—cannot be a better father, sir,” answered Jacob: the tears started into his eyes, but he got rid of them in an instant, before Mowbray saw them, I suppose, for he went on in the same insulting tone.
“What’s that he says? Does he say he has a good father? If he’d swear it, I would not believe him—a good father is too great a blessing for a Jew.”
“Oh! for shame, Mowbray!” said I. And “For shame! for shame, Mowbray!” echoed from the opposite, or, as Mowbray called it, from the Jewish party: they had by this time gathered in a circle at the outside of that which we had made round Jacob, and many had brought benches, and were mounted upon them, looking over our heads to see what was going on.
Jacob was now putting the key in his box, which he had set down in the middle of the circle, and was preparing to open it.
“Stay, stay, honest Jacob! tell us something more about this fine father; for example, what’s his name, and what is he?” “I cannot tell you what he is, sir,” replied Jacob, changing colour, “nor can I tell you his name.”
“Cannot tell me the name of his own father! a precious fellow! Didn’t I tell you ‘twas a sham father? So now for the roasting I owe you, Mr. Jew.” There was a large fire in the school-room; Mowbray, by a concerted movement between him and his friends, shoved the Jew close to the fire, and barricadoed him up, so that he could not escape, bidding him speak when he was too hot, and confess the truth.
Jacob was resolutely silent; he would not tell his father’s name. He stood it, till I could stand it no longer, and I insisted upon Mowbray’s letting him off.
“I could not use a dog so,” said I.
“A dog, no! nor I; but this is a Jew.”
“A fellow-creature,” said I.
“A fine discovery! And pray, Harrington, what has made you so tender-hearted all of a sudden for the Jews?”
“Your being so hard-hearted, Mowbray,” said I: “when you persecute and torture this poor fellow, how can I help speaking?”
“And pray, sir,” said Mowbray, “on which side are you speaking?”
“On the side of humanity,” said I.
“Fudge! On whose side are you?”
“On yours, Mowbray, if you won’t be a tyrant.”
“If! If you have a mind to rat, rat sans phrase, and run over to the Jewish side. I always thought you were a Jew at heart, Harrington.”
“No more a Jew than yourself, Mowbray, nor so much,” said I, standing firm, and raising my voice, so that I could be heard by all.
“No more a Jew than myself! pray how do you make that out?”
“By being more of a Christian—by sticking more to the maxim ‘Do as you would be done by.’”
“That is a good maxim,” said Jacob: a cheer from all sides supported me, as I advanced to liberate the Jew; but Mowbray, preventing me, leaped upon Jacob’s box, and standing with his legs stretched out, Colossus-like, “Might makes right,” said he, “all the world over. You’re a mighty fine preacher, Master Harrington; let’s see if you can preach me down.”
“Let’s see if I can’t pull you down!” cried I, springing forward: indignation giving me strength, I seized, and with one jerk pulled the Colossus forward and swung him to the ground.
“Well done, Harrington!” resounded from all sides. Mowbray, the instant he recovered his feet, flew at me, furious for vengeance, dealing his blows with desperate celerity. He was far my overmatch in strength and size; but I stood up to him. Between the blows, I heard Jacob’s voice in tones of supplication. When I had breath I called out to him, “Jacob! Escape!” And I heard the words, “Jacob! Jacob! Escape!” repeated near me.
But, instead of escaping, he stood stock still, reiterating his prayer to be heard: at last he rushed between us—we paused—both parties called to us, insisting that we should hear what the Jew had to say.
“Young Lord—,” said he, “and dear young gentleman,” turning to me, “let poor Jacob be no more cause now, or ever, of quarrel between you. He shall trouble you never more. This is the last day, the last minute he will ever trouble you.”
He bowed. Looking round to all, twice to the upper circle, where his friends stood, he added, “Much obliged—for all kindness—grateful. Blessings!—Blessings on all!—and may—”
He could say no more; but hastily taking up his box, he retired through the opening crowd. The door closed after him. Both parties stood silent for a moment, till Mowbray exclaimed, “Huzza! Dutton for ever! We’ve won the day. Dutton for Thursday! Huzza! Huzza! Adieu! Adieu!—Wandering Jew!”
No one echoed his adieu or his huzzas. I never saw man or boy look more vexed and mortified. All further combat between us ceased, the boys one and all taking my part and insisting upon peace. The next day Mowbray offered to lay any wager that Jacob the Jew would appear again on the ensuing Thursday; and that he would tell his father’s name, or at least come provided, as Mowbray stated it, with a name for his father. These wagers were taken up, and bets ran high on the subject. Thursday was anxiously expected—Thursday arrived, but no Jacob. The next Thursday came—another, and another—and no Jacob!
When it was certain that poor Jacob would appear no more—and when his motive for resigning, and his words at taking leave were recollected—and when it became evident that his balls, and his tops, and his marbles, and his knives, had always been better and more reasonable than Dutton’s, the tide of popularity ran high in his favour. Poor Jacob was loudly regretted; and as long as schoolboys could continue to think about the same thing, we continued conjecturing why it was that Jacob would not tell us his father’s name. We made many attempts to trace him, and to discover his secret; but all our inquiries proved ineffectual: we could hear no more of Jacob, and our curiosity died away.
Mowbray, who was two or three years my senior, left school soon afterwards. We did not meet at the university; he went to Oxford, and I to Cambridge.
CHAPTER IV.
When the mind is full of any one subject, that subject seems to recur with extraordinary frequency—it appears to pursue or to meet us at every turn: in every conversation that we hear, in every book we open, in every newspaper we take up, the reigning idea recurs; and then we are surprised, and exclaim at these wonderful coincidences. Probably such happen every day, but pass unobserved when the mind is not intent upon similar ideas, or excited by any strong analogous feeling.
When the learned Sir Thomas Browne was writing his Essay on the Gardens of Cyrus, his imagination was so possessed by the idea of a quincunx, that he is said to have seen a quincunx in every object in nature. In the same manner, after a Jew had once made an impression on my imagination, a Jew appeared wherever I went.
As I was on my road to Cambridge, travelling in a stagecoach, whilst we were slowly going up a steep hill, I looked out of the window, and saw a man sitting under a hawthorn-bush, reading very intently. There was a pedlar’s box beside him; I thought I knew the box. I called out as we were passing, and asked the man, “What’s the mile-stone?” He looked up. It was poor Jacob. The beams of the morning sun dazzled him; but he recognized me immediately, as I saw by the look of joy which instantly spread over his countenance. I jumped out of the carriage, saying that I would walk up the hill, and Jacob, putting his book in his pocket, took up his well-known box, and walked along with me. I began, not by asking any question about his father, though curiosity was not quite dead within me, but by observing that he was grown very studious since we parted; and I asked what book he had been reading so intently. He showed it to me; but I could make nothing of it, for it was German. He told me that it was the Life of the celebrated Mendelssohn, the Jew. I had never heard of this celebrated man. He said that if I had any curiosity about it, he could lend me a translation which he had in his pack; and with all the alacrity of good-will, he set down the box to look for the book.
“No, don’t trouble yourself—don’t open it,” said I, putting my hand on the box. Instantly a smile, and a sigh, and a look of ineffable kindness and gratitude from Jacob, showed me that all the past rushed upon his heart.
“Not trouble myself! Oh, Master Harrington,” said he, “poor Jacob is not so ungrateful as that would come to.”
“You’re only too grateful,” said I; “but walk on—keep up with me, and tell me how your affairs are going on in the world, for I am much more interested about them than about the life of the celebrated Mendelssohn.”
Is that possible! said his looks of genuine surprised simplicity. He thanked me, and told me that he was much better in the world than formerly; that a good friend of his, a London jeweller of his own tribe, who had employed him as a pedlar, and had been satisfied with his conduct, had assisted him through his difficulties. This was the last time he should go his rounds in England as a pedlar; he said he was going into another and a much better way of business. His friend, the London jeweller, had recommended him to his brother, a rich Israelite, who had a valuable store in Gibraltar, and who wanted a young man to assist him, on whom he could entirely depend. Jacob was going out to Gibraltar in the course of the next week. “And now, Mr. Harrington,” said he, changing his tone and speaking with effort, as if he were conquering some inward feeling, “now it is all over, Mr. Harrington, and that I am leaving England, and perhaps may never see you again; I wish before I take leave of you, to tell you, sir, who my father was—was, for he is no more. I did not make a mystery of his name merely to excite curiosity, as some of the young gentlemen thought, nor because I was ashamed of my low birth. My father was Simon the old clothes-man. I knew you would start, Mr. Harrington, at hearing his name. I knew all that you suffered in your childhood about him, and I once heard you say to Lord Mowbray who was taunting you with something about old Simon, that you would not have that known, upon any account, to your school-fellows, for that they would plague you for ever. From that moment I was determined that I would never be the cause of recalling or publishing what would be so disagreeable to you. This was the reason why I persisted in refusing to tell my father’s name, when Lord Mowbray pressed me so to declare it before all your school-fellows. And now, I hope,” concluded he, “that Mr. Harrington will not hate poor Jacob, though he is the son of—”
He paused. I assured him of my regard: I assured him that I had long since got rid of all the foolish prejudices of my childhood. I thanked him for the kindness and generosity he had shown in bearing Mowbray’s persecution for my sake, and in giving up his own situation, rather than say or do what might have exposed me to ridicule.
Thanking me again for taking, as he said, such a kind interest in the concerns of a poor Jew like him, he added, with tears in his eyes, that he wished he might some time see me again: that he should to the last day of his life remember me, and should pray for my health and happiness, and that he was sorry he had no way of showing me his gratitude. Again he recurred to his box, and would open it to show me the translation of Mendelssohn’s Life; or, if that did not interest me, he begged of me to take my choice from among a few books he had with him; perhaps one of them might amuse me on my journey, for he knew I was a reading young gentleman.
I could not refuse him. As he opened the packet of books, I saw one directed to Mr. Israel Lyons, Cambridge. I told Jacob that I was going to Cambridge. He said he should be there in a few days, for that he took Cambridge in his road; and he rejoiced that he should see me again. I gave him a direction to my college, and for his gratification, in truth, more than for my own, I borrowed the magazine containing the life of Mendelssohn, which he was so anxious to lend me. We had now reached the coach at the top of the hill; I got in, and saw Jacob trudging after me for some time; but, at the first turn of the road, I lost sight of him, and then, as my two companions in the coach were not very entertaining, one of them, a great fat man, being fast asleep and snoring, the other, a pale spare woman, being very sick and very cross, I betook myself to my magazine. I soon perceived why the life of Mendelssohn had so deeply interested poor Jacob. Mendelssohn was a Jew, born like himself in abject poverty, but, by perseverance, he made his way through incredible difficulties to the highest literary reputation among the most eminent men of his country and of his age; and obtained the name of the Jewish Socrates. In consequence of his early, intense, and misapplied application in his first Jewish school, he was seized at ten years old with some dreadful nervous disease; this interested me, and I went on with his history. Of his life I should probably have remembered nothing, except what related to the nervous disorder; but it so happened, that, soon after I had read this life, I had occasion to speak of it, and it was of considerable advantage in introducing me to good company at Cambridge. A few days after I arrived there, Jacob called on me: I returned his book, assuring him that it had interested me very much. “Then, sir,” said he, “since you are so fond of learning and learned men, and so kind to the Jews, there is a countryman of mine now at Cambridge, whom it will be well worth your while to be acquainted with; and who, if I may be bold enough to say so, has been prepossessed in your favour, by hearing of your humanity to poor Jacob.”
Touched as I was by his eagerness to be of use to me, I could not help smiling at Jacob’s simplicity and enthusiasm, when he proceeded to explain, that this person with whom he was so anxious to make me acquainted was a learned rabbi, who at this time taught Hebrew to several of the gownsmen of Cambridge. He was the son of a Polish Jew, who had written a Hebrew grammar, and was himself author of a treatise on fluxions (since presented to, and accepted by the university), and moreover the author of a celebrated work on botany. At the moment Jacob was speaking, certainly my fancy was bent on a phaeton and horses, rather than on Hebrew or fluxions, and the contrast was striking, between what he conceived my first objects at Cambridge would be, and what they really were. However, I thanked him for his good opinion, and promised to make myself acquainted with his learned countryman. To make the matter secure, as Jacob was to leave Cambridge the next day, and as the rabbi was at the house of one of his scholars in the country, and was not to return to Cambridge till the ensuing week, Jacob left with me a letter for him, and the very parcel which I had seen directed to Mr. Israel Lyons: these I engaged to deliver with my own hands. Jacob departed satisfied—happy in the hope that he had done me a service; and so in fact it proved. Every father, and every son, who has been at the university, knows how much depends upon the college companions with whom a young man first associates. There are usually two sets: if he should join the dissipated set, it is all over with him, he learns nothing; but if he should get into the set with whom science and literature are in fashion, he acquires knowledge, and a taste for knowledge; with all the ardour inspired by sympathy and emulation, with all the facility afforded by public libraries and public lectures—the collected and combined information of the living and the dead—he pursues his studies. He then fully enjoys the peculiar benefits of a university education, the union of many minds intent upon the same object, working, with all the advantages of the scientific division of labour, in a literary manufactory.
When I went to deliver my packet to Mr. Lyons, I was surprised by seeing in him a man as different as possible from my preconceived notion of a Jewish rabbi; I never should have guessed him to be either a rabbi, or a Jew. I expected to have seen a man nearly as old as Methuselah, with a reverend beard, dirty and shabby, and with a blue pocket handkerchief. Instead of which I saw a gay looking man, of middle age, with quick sparkling black eyes, and altogether a person of modern appearance, both in dress and address. I thought I must have made a mistake, and presented my packet with some hesitation, reading aloud the direction to Mr. Israel Lyons—“I am the man, sir,” said he; “our honest friend Jacob has described you so well, Mr. Harrington—Mr. William Harrington Harrington (you perceive that I am well informed)—that I feel as if I had had the pleasure of being acquainted with you for some time. I am very much obliged by this visit; I should have done myself the honour to wait upon you, but I returned only yesterday from the country, and my necessary engagements do not leave as much time for my pleasures as I could wish.”
I perceived by the tone of his address, that, though he was a Hebrew teacher, he was proud of showing himself to be a man of the world. I found him in the midst of his Hebrew scholars, and moreover with some of the best mathematicians, and some of the first literary men in Cambridge. I was awe-struck, and should have been utterly at a loss, had it not been for a print of Mendelssohn over the chimney-piece, which recalled to my mind the life of this great man; by the help of that I had happily some ideas in common with the learned Jew, and we; entered immediately into conversation, much to our mutual relief and delight. Dr. Johnson, in one of his letters, speaking of a first visit from a young gentleman who had been recommended to his acquaintance, says, that “the initiatory conversation of two strangers is seldom pleasing or instructive;” but I am sure that I was both pleased and instructed during this initiatory conversation, and Mr. Lyons did not appear to be oppressed or encumbered by my visit. I found by his conversation, that though he was the son of a great Hebrew grammarian, and himself a great Hebrew scholar, and though he had written a treatise on fluxions, and a work on botany, yet he was not a mere mathematician, a mere grammarian, or a mere botanist, nor yet a dull pedant. In despite of the assertion, that
To flourish best on barren ground,"
this Hebrew scholar was a man of a remarkably fertile genius. This visit determined my course, and decided me as to the society which I kept during the three happy and profitable years I afterwards spent at Cambridge.
Mr. Israel Lyons is now no more. I hope it is no disrespect to his memory to say that he had his foibles. It was no secret among our contemporaries at Cambridge that he was like too many other men of genius, a little deficient in economy—shall I say it? a little extravagant. The difficulties into which he brought himself by his improvidence were, however, always to him matters of jest and raillery; and often, indeed, proved subjects of triumph, for he was sure to extricate himself, by some of his many talents, or by some of his many friends.
I should be very sorry, however, to support the dangerous doctrine, that men of genius are privileged to have certain faults. I record with quite a different intention these facts, to mark the effect of circumstances in changing my own prepossessions.
The faults of Israel Lyons were not of that species which I expected to find in a Jew. Perhaps he was aware that the Hebrew nation is in general supposed to be too careful, and he might, therefore, be a little vain of his own carelessness about money matters. Be this as it may, I confess that, at the time, I rather liked him the better for it. His disregard, on all occasions, of pecuniary interest, gave me a conviction of his liberal spirit. I was never fond of money, or remarkably careful of it myself; but I always kept out of debt; and my father gave me such a liberal allowance, that I had it in my power to assist a friend. Mr. Lyons’ lively disposition and manners took off all that awe which I might have felt for his learning and genius. I may truly say, that these three years, which I spent at Cambridge, fixed my character, and the whole tone and colour of my future life. I do not pretend to say that I had not, during my time at the university, and afterwards in London, my follies and imprudences; but my soul did not, like many other souls of my acquaintance, “embody and embrute.” When the time for my quitting Cambridge arrived, I went to take leave of my learned friend Mr. Israel Lyons, and to offer him my grateful acknowledgments. In the course of the conversation I mentioned the childish terror and aversion with which I had been early taught to look upon a Jew. I rejoiced that, even while a schoolboy, I had conquered this foolish prejudice; and that at the university, during those years which often decide our subsequent opinions in life, it had been my good fortune to become acquainted with one, whose superior abilities and kindness of disposition, had formed in my mind associations of quite an opposite nature. Pleased with this just tribute to his merit, and with the disposition I showed to think candidly of persons of his persuasion, Mr. Lyons wished to confirm me in these sentiments, and for this purpose gave me a letter of introduction to a friend, with whom he was in constant correspondence, Mr. Montenero, a Jewish gentleman born in Spain, who had early in life quitted that country, in consequence of his horror of tyranny and persecution. He had been fortunate enough to carry his wealth, which was very considerable, safely out of Spain, and had settled in America, where he had enjoyed perfect toleration and freedom of religious opinion; and as, according to Mr. Lyons’ description of him, this Spanish Jew must, I thought, be a most accomplished and amiable person, I eagerly accepted the offered letter of introduction, and resolved that it should be my first business and pleasure, on arriving in London, to find and make myself acquainted with Mr. Montenero.
CHAPTER V.
People like myself, of lively imagination, may have often felt that change of place suddenly extinguishes, or gives a new direction to, the ardour of their enthusiasm. Such persons may, therefore, naturally suspect, that, as “my steps retired from Cam’s smooth margin,” my enthusiasm for my learned rabbi might gradually fade away; and that, on my arrival in London, I should forget my desire to become acquainted with the accomplished Spanish Jew. But it must be observed that, with my mother’s warmth of imagination, I also had, I will not say, I inherited, some of my father’s “intensity of will,”—some of that firmness of adhesion to a preconceived notion or purpose, which in a good cause is called resolution, in a bad cause obstinacy; and which is either a curse or a blessing to the possessor, according to the degree or habit of exercising the reasoning faculty with which he may be endowed.
On my arrival in London, a variety of petty unforeseen obstacles occurred to prevent my accomplishing my visit to the Spanish Jew. New and never-ending demands upon my time arose, both in and out of my own family, so that there seemed a necessity for my spending every hour of the day and night in a manner wholly independent of my will. There seemed to be some fatality that set at nought all my previous plans and calculations. Every morning for a week after my arrival, I regularly put my letter of introduction to Mr. Montenero into my pocket, resolving that I would that day find him out, and pay my visit; but after walking all the morning, to bear and to forbear various engagements, to execute promised commissions, and to fulfil innumerable duties, I regularly came home as I went out, with my letter in my pocket, and with the sad conviction that it was utterly impossible to deliver it that day. These obstacles, and this contrariety of external circumstances, instead of bending my will, or making me give up my intention, fixed it more firmly in my mind, and strengthened my determination. Nor was I the least shaken from the settled purpose of my soul, by the perversity with which every one in our house opposed or contemned that purpose. One morning, when I had my letter and my hat in my hand, I met my father, who after looking at the direction of the letter, and hearing that I was going on a visit to a Spanish Jew, asked what business upon earth I could have with a Jew—cursed the whole race—rejoiced that he had five-and-twenty years ago voted against their naturalization in England, and ended as he began, by wondering what in the name of Heaven could make me scrape acquaintance with such fellows. When, in reply, I mentioned my friend, Mr. Israel Lyons, and the high character he had drawn of Mr. Montenero, my father laughed, saying that he would answer for it my friend Israel was not an Israelite without guile; for that was a description of Israelite he had never yet seen, and he had seen a confounded deal of the world. He decided that my accomplished Spanish Jew would prove an adventurer, and he advised me, a young man, heir to a good English fortune, to keep out of his foreign clutches: in short, he stuck to the advice he gave me, and only wished I would stick to the promise I gave him, when I was ten years old, to have no dealings with the Jews. It was in vain that I endeavoured to give my explanation of the word dealings. My father’s temper, naturally positive, had, I observed, become, as he advanced in years, much more dogmatic and intolerant. I avoided contradicting his assertions; but I determined to pursue my own course in a matter where there could be nothing really wrong or improper. That morning, however, I must, I perceived, as in duty bound, sacrifice to my father; he took me under the arm, and carried me away to introduce me to some commonplace member of parliament, who, as he assured me, was a much fitter and more profitable acquaintance for me than any member of the synagogue could possibly be.
The next morning, when, firm to my purpose, I was sallying forth, my mother, with a face of tender expostulation and alarm, stopped me, and entreated me to listen to her. My mother, whose health had always been delicate, had within these three last years fallen into what is called a very nervous state, and this, with her natural timidity and sensibility, inclined her now to a variety of superstitious feelings—to a belief in presentiments and presages, omens and dreams, added to her original belief in sympathies and antipathies. Some of these her peculiarities of opinion and feeling had perhaps, at first, only been assumed, or yielded to in her season of youth and beauty, to interest her admirers and to distinguish herself in society; but as age advanced, they had been confirmed by habit and weakness, so that what in the beginning might have been affectation, was in the end reality. She was alarmed, she said, by the series of strange coincidences which, from my earliest childhood, had occurred, seeming to connect my fate, in some extraordinary manner, with these Jews. She recalled all the circumstances of my illness when I was a child: she confessed that she had retained a sort of antipathy to the idea of a Jew—a weakness it might be—but she had had dreams and presentiments, and my fortune had been told her while I was at Cambridge; and some evil, she had been assured, hung over me within the five ensuing years—some evil connected with a Jew: in short, she did not absolutely believe in such prophecies, but still it was extraordinary that the first thing my mind should be intent upon, in coming to town, should be a Spanish Jew, and she earnestly wished that I would avoid rather than seek the connexion.
Knowing my mother’s turn for the romantic, I had anticipated her delight at the idea of making acquaintance with a noble-minded travelled Spaniard; but unluckily her imagination had galloped off in a contrary direction to mine, and now my only chance was to make her hear reason, and a very bad chance I knew this to be. I endeavoured to combat her presentiment, and to explain whatever appeared extraordinary in my love and hatred of the Jews, by recalling the slight and natural circumstances at school and the university, which had changed my early prejudice; and I laboured to show that no natural antipathy could have existed, since it had been completely conquered by humanity and reason; so that now I had formed what might rather appear a natural sympathy with the race of Israel. I laboured these points in vain. When I urged the literary advantages I had reaped from my friendship with Mr. Israel Lyons, she besought me not to talk of friendship with persons of that sort. I had now awakened another train of associations, all unfavourable to my views. My mother wondered—for both she and my father were great wonderers, as are all, whether high or low, who have lived only with one set of people—my mother wondered that, instead of seeking acquaintance in the city with old Jews and persons of whom nobody had ever heard, I could not find companions of my own age and rank in life: for instance, my schoolfellow and friend, Lord Mowbray, who was now in town, just returned from abroad, a fine young officer, “much admired here by the ladies, I can assure you, Harrington,” added my mother. This, as I had opportunity of seeing, was perfectly true; four, nearly five years had made a great apparent change in Mowbray for the better; his manners were formed; his air that of a man of fashion—a military man of fashion. He had served a campaign abroad, had been at the siege of Gibraltar, had much to say, and could say it well. We all know what astonishing metamorphoses are sometimes wrought even on the most hopeless subjects, by seeing something of the world, by serving a campaign or two. How many a light, empty shell of a young man comes home full, if not of sense, at least of something bearing the semblance of sense! How many a heavy lout, a dull son of earth, returns enlivened into a conversable being, who can tell at least of what it has seen, heard, and felt, if not understood; and who for years, perhaps for ever afterwards, by the help of telling of other countries, may pass in his own for a man of solid judgment! Such being the advantages to be derived by these means, even in the most desperate cases, we may imagine the great improvement produced in a young man of Lord Mowbray’s abilities, and with his ambition both to please and to shine. In youth, and by youth, improvement in appearance and manner is easily mistaken for improvement in mind and principle. All that I had disliked in the schoolboy—the tyrannical disposition—the cruel temper—the insolent tone—had disappeared, and in their place I saw the deportment which distinguished a gentleman. Whatever remained of party spirit, so different from the wrangling, overbearing, mischievous party spirit of the boy, was in the man and the officer so happily blended with love of the service, and with l’esprit de corps, that it seemed to add a fresh grace, animation, and frankness to his manner. The evil spirit of persecution was dislodged from his soul, or laid asleep within him, and in its place appeared the conciliating spirit of politeness. He showed a desire to cultivate my friendship, which still more prepossessed me in his favour.
Mowbray happened to call upon me soon after the conversation I had with my mother about the Spanish Jew. I had not been dissuaded from my purpose by her representations; but I had determined to pay my visit without saying any thing more about the matter, and to form my own judgment of the man. A new difficulty, however, occurred: my letter of introduction had disappeared. I searched my pockets, my portfolios, my letter-case, every conceivable place, but it was not to be found. Mowbray obligingly assisted me in this search; but after emptying half a dozen times over portfolios, pockets, and desks, I was ashamed to give him more trouble, and I gave up the letter as lost. When Mowbray heard that this letter, about which I was so anxious, was an introduction to a Jewish gentleman, he could not forbear rallying me a little, but in a very agreeable tone, upon the constancy of my Israelitish taste, and the perfect continuance of my identity.
“I left you, Harrington, and I find you, after four years’ absence, intent upon a Jew; boy and man you are one and the same; and in your case, ‘tis well that the boy and man should an individual make; but for my part, I am glad to change my identity, like all other mortals, once in seven years; and I hope you think I have changed for the better.”
It was impossible to think otherwise, especially at that moment. In a frank, open-hearted manner, he talked of his former tyrannical nature, and blamed himself for our schoolboy quarrel. I was charmed with him, and the more so, when he entered so warmly or so politely into my present distress, and sympathized with my madness of the moment. He suggested all that was possible to be done to supply the loss of the letter. Could not I get another in its stead? The same friend who gave me one letter of introduction could write another. No; Mr. Israel Lyons had left Cambridge, and I knew not where to direct to him. Could not I present myself to Mr. Montenero without a letter? That might be rather an awkward proceeding, but I was not to be stopped by any nice observances, now that I had set my mind upon the matter. Unluckily, however, I could by no means recollect the exact address of Mr. Montenero. I was puzzled among half a dozen different streets and numbers: Mowbray offered to walk with me, and we went to each of these streets, and to all the variety of numbers I suggested, but in vain; no Mr. Montenero was to be found. At last, tired and disappointed, as I was returning home, Mowbray said he thought he could console me for the loss of my chance of seeing my Spanish Jew, by introducing me to the most celebrated Jew that ever appeared in England. Then turning into a street near one of the play-houses, he knocked at the door of a house where Macklin the actor lodged. Lord Mowbray was well acquainted with him, and I was delighted to have an opportunity of seeing this celebrated man. He was at this time past the meridian of ordinary life, but he was in the zenith of his extraordinary course, and in the full splendour and vigour of his powers.
“Here,” said Mowbray, presenting me to Macklin, “is a young gentleman, who is ambitious of being acquainted with the most celebrated Jew that ever appeared in England. Allow me to introduce him to the real, original Jew of Venice: