'This is the Jew That Shakspeare drew!'

Whose lines are those, Harrington? do you know?"

"Yours, I suppose."

"Mine! you do me much honour: no, they are Mr. Pope's. Then you don't know the anecdote?

"Mr. Pope, in the decline of life, was persuaded by Bolingbroke to go once more to the play-house, to see Mr. Macklin in the character of Shylock. According to the custom of the time, Pope was seated among the critics in the pit. He was so much struck and transported with admiration, that in the middle of the play, he started up, and repeated that distich.

"Now, was not I right when I told you, Harrington, that I would introduce you to the most celebrated Jew in all England, in all Christendom, in the whole civilized world?"

No one better than Mowbray knew the tone of enthusiastic theatric admiration in which the heroes of the stage like, or are supposed to like, to be addressed. Macklin, who was not asy to please, was pleased. The lines, or as Quin insisted upon their being called, the cordage of his face relaxed. He raised, turned, and settled his wig, in sign of satisfaction; then with a complacent smile gave me a little nod, and suffered Lord Mowbray to draw him out by degrees into a repetition of the history of his first attempt to play the character of Shylock. A play altered from Shakespeare's, and called "The Jew of Venice," had been for some time in vogue. In this play, the Jew had been represented, by the actors of the part, as a ludicrous and contemptible, rather than a detestable character; and when Macklin, recurring to Shakespeare's original Shylock, proposed, in the revived Merchant of Venice, to play the part in a serious style, he was scoffed at by the whole company of his brother actors, and it was with the utmost difficulty he could screw the manager's courage to the sticking-place, and prevail upon him to hazard the attempt. Take the account in Macklin's own words. [Footnote: Vide Macklin's Life.]

"When the long expected night at last arrived, the house was crowded from top to bottom, with the first company in town. The two front rows of the pit, as usual, were full of critics. I eyed them," said Macklin, "I eyed them, sir, through the slit in the curtain, and was glad to see them there; as I wished, in such a cause, to be tried by a special jury. When I made my appearance in the green-room, dressed for the part, with my red hat on my head, my piqued beard, my loose black gown, and with a confidence which I had never before assumed, the performers all stared at one another, and evidently with a stare of disappointment. Well, sir, hitherto all was right, till the last bell rung; then, I confess, my heart began to beat a little: however, I mustered up all the courage I could, and recommending my cause to Providence, threw myself boldly on the stage, and was received by one of the loudest thunders of applause I ever before experienced. The opening scenes being rather tame and level, I could not expect much applause; but I found myself listened to: I could hear distinctly in the pit, the words 'Very well—very well indeed! this man seems to know what he is about.' These encomiums warmed me, but did not overset me. I knew where I should have the pull, which was in the third act, and accordingly at this period I threw out all my fire; and as the contrasted passions of joy for the merchant's losses, and grief for the elopement of Jessica, open a fine field for an actor's powers, I had the good fortune to please beyond my most sanguine expectations. The whole house was in an uproar of applause; and I was obliged to pause between the speeches to give it vent, so as to be heard. The trial scene wound up the fulness of my reputation. Here I was well listened to, and here I made such a silent yet forcible impression on my audience, that I retired from this great attempt most perfectly satisfied. On my return to the green-room, after the play was over, it was crowded with nobility and critics, who all complimented me in the warmest and most unbounded manner; and the situation I felt myself in, I must confess, was one of the most flattering and intoxicating of my whole life. No money, no title, could purchase what I felt. By G—, sir, though I was not worth fifty pounds in the world at that time, yet let me tell you, I was Charles the Great for that night."

The emphasis and enthusiasm with which Macklin spoke, pleased me— enthusiastic people are always well pleased with enthusiasm. My curiosity too was strongly excited to see him play Shylock. I returned home full of the Jew of Venice; but, nevertheless, not forgetting my Spanish Jew.—At last, my mother could no longer bear to see me perplex and vex myself in my fruitless search for the letter, and confessed that while we were talking the preceding day, finding that no arguments or persuasions of hers had had any effect, she had determined on what she called a pious fraud: so, while I was in the room—before my face—while I was walking up and down, holding forth in praise of my Jewish friend whom I did know, and my Jewish friend whom I did not know, she had taken up Mr. Israel Lyons' letter of introduction to Mr. Montenero, and had thrown it into the fire.

I was very much provoked; but to my mother, and a mother who was so fond of me, what could I say? After all, I confessed there was a good deal of fancy in the case on my side as well as on hers. I endeavoured to forget my disappointment. My imagination turned again to Shylock and Macklin; and, to please me, my mother promised to make a large party to go with me to see the Merchant of Venice the next night that Macklin should act; but, unfortunately, Macklin had just now quarrelled with the manager, and till this could be made up, there was no chance of his condescending to perform.

Meantime my mother having, as she thought, fairly got rid of the Jews, and Mowbray having, as he said, cured me of my present fit of Jewish insanity, desired to introduce me to his mother and sister. They had now just come to town from the Priory—Brantefield Priory, an ancient family-seat, where, much to her daughter's discomfiture, Lady de Brantefield usually resided eight months of the year, because there she felt her dignity more safe from contact, and herself of more indisputable and unrivalled consequence, than in the midst of the jostling pretensions and modern innovations of the metropolis. At the Priory every thing attested, recorded, and flattered her pride of ancient and illustrious descent. In my childhood I had once been with my mother at the Priory, and I still retained a lively recollection of the antique wonders of the place. Foremost in my memory came an old picture, called "Sir Josseline going to the Holy Land," where Sir Josseline de Mowbray stood, in complete armour, pointing to a horrid figure of a prostrate Jew, on whose naked back an executioner, with uplifted whip, was prepared to inflict stripes for some shocking crime.—This picture had been painted in times when the proportions of the human figure were little attended to, and when foreshortening was not at all understood: this added to the horrible effect, for the executioner's arm and scourge were of tremendous size; Sir Josseline stood miraculously tall, and the Jew, crouching, supplicating, sprawling, was the most distorted squalid figure, eyes ever beheld, or imagination could conceive.

After having once beheld it, I could never bear to look upon it again, nor did I ever afterwards enter the tapestry chamber:—but there were some other of the antique rooms in which I delighted, and divers pieces of old furniture which I reverenced. There was an ancient bed, with scolloped tester, and tarnished quilt, in which Queen Elizabeth had slept; and a huge embroidered pincushion done by no hands, as you may guess, but those of the unfortunate Mary, Queen of Scots, who, during her captivity, certainly worked harder than ever queen worked before or since.

Then there was an old, worm-eaten chair, in which John of Gaunt had sat; and I remember that while Lady de Brantefield expressed her just indignation against the worms, for having dared to attack this precious relique, I, kneeling to the chair, admired the curious fretwork, the dusty honeycombs, which these invisible little workmen had excavated. But John of Gaunt's chair was nothing to King John's table. There was a little black oak table, too, with broken legs, which was invaluable—for, as Lady de Brantefield confidently affirmed, King John of France, and the Black Prince, had sat and supped at it. I marvelled much in silence—for I had been sharply reproved for some observation I had unwittingly made on the littleness and crookedness of a dark, corner-chimneyed nook shown us for the banqueting-room; and I had fallen into complete disgrace for having called the winding staircases, leading to the turret-chambers, back stairs.

Of Lady de Brantefield, the touch-me-not mistress of the mansion, I had retained a sublime, but not a beautiful idea—I now felt a desire to see her again, to verify my old notion.

Of Lady Anne Mowbray, who at the time I had been at the Priory, was a little child, some years younger than myself, I could recollect nothing, except that she wore a pink sash, of which she was very vain, and that she had been ushered into the drawing-room after dinner by Mrs. Fowler, at the sight of whom my inmost soul had recoiled. I remember, indeed, pitying her little ladyship for being under such dominion, and longing to ask her whether Fowler had told her the story of Simon the Jew. But I could never commune with Lady Anne; for either she was up in the nursery, or Fowler was at her back in the drawing-room, or little Lady Anne was sitting upright on her stool at her mother's feet, whom I did not care to approach, and in whose presence I seldom ventured to speak—consequently my curiosity on this point had, from that hour, slumbered within me; but it now wakened, upon my mother's proposing to present me to Lady Anne, and the pleasure of asking and the hope of obtaining an answer to my long-meditated question, was the chief gratification I promised myself from the renewal of our acquaintance with her ladyship.



CHAPTER VI.

My recollection of Lady de Brantefield proved wonderfully correct; she gave me back the image I had in my mind—a stiff, haughty-looking picture of a faded old beauty. Adhering religiously to the fashion of the times when she had been worshipped, she made it a point to wear the old head-dress exactly. She was in black, in a hoop of vast circumference, and she looked and moved as if her being Countess de Brantefield in her own right, and concentring in her person five baronies, ought to be for ever present to the memory of all mankind, as it was to her own.

My mother presented me to her ladyship. The ceremony of introduction between a young gentleman and an old lady of those times, performed on his part with a low bow and look of profound deference, on hers, with back stepping-curtsy and bridled head, was very different from the nodding, bobbing trick of the present day. As soon as the finale of Lady de Brantefield's sentence, touching honour, happiness, and family connexion, would permit, I receded, and turned from the mother to the daughter, little Lady Anne Mowbray, a light fantastic figure, bedecked with "daisies pied," covered with a profusion of tiny French flowers, whose invisible wire stalks kept in perpetual motion as she turned her pretty head from side to side. Smiling, sighing, tittering, flirting with the officers round her, Lady Anne appeared, and seemed as if she delighted in appearing, as perfect a contrast as possible to her august and formidable mother. The daughter had seen the ill effect of the mother's haughty demeanour, and, mistaking reverse of wrong for right, had given reserve and dignity to the winds. Taught by the happy example of Colonel Topham, who preceded me, I learned that the low bow would have been here quite out of place. The sliding bow was for Lady Anne, and the way was to dash into nonsense with her directly, and full into the midst of nonsense I dashed. Though her ladyship's perfect accessibility seemed to promise prompt reply to any question that could be asked; yet the single one about which I felt any curiosity, I could not contrive to introduce during the first three hours I was in her ladyship's company. There was such a quantity of preliminary nonsense to get through, and so many previous questions to be disposed of: for example, I was first to decide which of three colours I preferred, all of them pronounced to be the prettiest in, the universe, boue de Paris, oeil de l'empereur, and a suppressed sigh.

At that moment, Lady Anne wore the suppressed sigh, but I did not know it—I mistook it for boue de Paris—conceive my ignorance! No two things in nature, not a horse-chestnut and a chestnut-horse, could be more different.

Conceive my confusion! and Colonels Topham and Beauclerk standing by. But I recovered myself in public opinion, by admiring the slipper on her ladyship's little foot. Now I showed my taste, for this slipper had but the night before arrived express from Paris, and it was called a venez-y voir; and how a slipper, with a heel so high, and a quarter so low, could be kept on the foot, or how the fair could walk in it, I could not conceive, except by the special care of her guardian sylph.

After the venez-y voir had fixed all eyes as desired, the lady turning alternately to Colonels Topham and Beauclerk, with rapid gestures of ecstasy, exclaimed, "The pouf! the pouf! Oh! on Wednesday I shall have the pouf!"

Now what manner of thing a pouf! might be, I had not the slightest conception. "It requireth," said Bacon, "great cunning for a man in discourse to seem to know that which he knoweth not." Warned by boue de Paris and the suppressed sigh, this time I found safety in silence. I listened, and learned, first that un pouf was the most charming thing in the creation; next, that nobody upon earth could be seen in Paris without one; that one was coming from Mademoiselle Berlin, per favour of Miss Wilkes, for Lady Anne Mowbray, and that it would be on her head on Wednesday; and Colonel Topham swore there would be no resisting her ladyship in the pouf, she would look so killing.

"So killing," was the colonel's last.

I now thought that I had Lady Anne's ear to myself; but she ran on to something else, and I was forced to follow as she skimmed over fields of nonsense. At last she did stop to take breath, and I did get in my one question: to which her ladyship replied, "Poor Fowler frighten me? Lord! No. Like her? oh! yes—dote upon Fowler! didn't you?—No, you hated her, I remember. Well, but I assure you she's the best creature in the world; I could always make her do just what I pleased. Positively, I must make you make it up with her, if I can remember it, when she comes up to town—she is to come up for my birthday. Mamma, you know, generally leaves her at the Priory, to take care of all the old trumpery, and show the place—you know it's a show place. But I tell Colonel Topham, when I've a place of my own, I positively will have it modern, and all the furniture in the very newest style. I'm so sick of old reliques! Natural, you know, when I have been having a surfeit all my life of old beds and chairs, and John of Gaunt and the Black Prince. But the Black Prince, I remember, was always a vast favourite of yours. Well, but poor Fowler, you must like her, too—I assure you she always speaks with tenderness of you; she is really the best old soul! for she's growing oldish, but so faithful, and so sincere too. Only flatters mamma sometimes so, I can hardly help laughing in her face; but then you know mamma, and old ladies, when they come to that pass, must be flattered to keep them up—'tis but charitable—really right. Poor Fowler's daughter is to be my maid."

"I did not know Fowler had a daughter, and a daughter grown up."

"Nancy Fowler! not know! Oh! yes, quite grown up, fit to be married—only a year younger than I am. And there's our old apothecary in the country has taken such a fancy to her! But he's too old and wiggy—but it would make a sort of lady of her, and her mother will have it so—but she sha'n't— I've no notion of compulsion. Nancy shall be my maid, for she is quite out of the common style; can copy verses for one—I've no time, you know—and draws patterns in a minute. I declare I don't know which I love best— Fowler or Nancy—poor old Fowler, I think. Do you know she says I'm so like the print of the Queen of France. It never struck me; but I'll go and ask Topham."

I perceived that Fowler, wiser grown, had learned how much more secure the reign of flattery is, than the reign of terror. She was now, as I found, supreme in the favour of both her young and old lady. The specimen I have given of Lady Anne Mowbray's conversation, or rather of Lady Anne's mode of talking, will, I fancy, be amply sufficient to satiate all curiosity concerning her ladyship's understanding and character. She had, indeed, like most of the young ladies her companions—"no character at all."

Female conversation in general was, at this time, very different from what it is in our happier days. A few bright stars had risen, and shone, and been admired; but the useful light had not diffused itself. Miss Talbot's and Miss Carter's learning and piety, Mrs. Montague's genius, Mrs. Vesey's elegance, and Mrs. Boscawen's [Footnote: See Bas-Bleu.] "polished ease," had brought female literature into fashion in certain favoured circles; but it had not, as it has now, become general in almost every rank of life. Young ladies had, it is true, got beyond the Spectator and the Guardian: Richardson's novels had done much towards opening a larger field of discussion. One of Miss Burney's excellent novels had appeared, and had made an era in London conversation; but still it was rather venturing out of the safe course for a young lady to talk of books, even of novels; it was not, as it is now, expected that she should know what is going on in the literary world. The Edinburgh and Quarterly Reviews, and varieties of literary and scientific journals, had not

"Allured to brighter worlds, and led the way."

Before there was a regular demand and an established market, there were certain hawkers and pedlars of literature, fetchers and carriers of bays, and at every turn copies of impromptus, charades, and lines by the honourable Miss C——, and the honourable Mrs. D——, were put into my hands by young ladies, begging for praise, which it was seldom in my power conscientiously to bestow. I early had a foreboding—one of my mother's presentiments—that I should come to disgrace with Lady Anne Mowbray about some of these cursed scraps of poetry. Her ladyship had one—shall I say?—peculiarity. She could not bear that any one should differ from her in matters of taste; and though she regularly disclaimed being a reading lady, she was most assured of what she was most ignorant. With the assistance of Fowler's flattery, together with that of all the hangers-on at Brantefield Priory, her temper had been rendered incapable of bearing contradiction. But this defect was not immediately apparent: on the contrary, Lady Anne was generally thought a pleasant, good-humoured creature, and most people wondered that the daughter could be so different from the mother. Lady de Brantefield was universally known to be positive and prejudiced. Her prejudices were all old-fashioned, and ran directly counter to the habits of her acquaintance. Lady Anne's, on the contrary, were all in favour of the present fashion, whatever it might be, and ran smoothly with the popular stream. The violence of her temper could, therefore, scarcely be suspected, till something opposed the current: a small obstacle would then do the business—would raise the stream suddenly to a surprising height, and would produce a tremendous noise. It was my ill fortune one unlucky day to cross Lady Anne Mowbray's humour, and to oppose her opinion. It was about a trifle; but trifles, indeed, made, with her, the sum of human things. She came one morning, as it was her custom, to loiter away her time at my mother's till the proper hour for going out to visit. For five minutes she sat at some fashionable kind of work—wafer work, I think it was called, a work which has been long since consigned to the mice; then her ladyship yawned, and exclaiming, "Oh, those lines of Lord Chesterfield's, which Colonel Topham gave me; I'll copy them into my album. Where's my album?—Mrs. Harrington, I lent it to you. Oh! here it is. Mr. Harrington, you will finish copying this for me." So I was set down to the album to copy—Advice to a Lady in Autumn.

"Asses' milk, half a pint, take at seven, or before."

My mother, who saw that I did not relish the asses' milk, put in a word for me.

"My dear Lady Anne, it is not worth while to write these lines in your album, for they were in print long ago, in every lady's old memorandum-book, and in Dodsley's Collection, I believe."

"But still that was quite a different thing," Lady Anne said, "from having them in her album; so Mr. Harrington must be so very good." I did not understand the particular use of copying in my illegible hand what could be so much better read in print; but it was all-sufficient that her ladyship chose it. When I had copied the verses I must, Lady Anne said, read the lines, and admire them. But I had read them twenty times before, and I could not say that they were as fresh the twentieth reading as at the first. Lord Mowbray came in, and she ran to her brother:—"Mowbray! can any thing in nature be prettier than these verses of Lord Chesterfield? Mowbray, you, who are a judge, listen to these two lines:

'The dews of the evening moat carefully shun, Those tears of the sky for the loss of the sun.'

Now, here's your friend, Mr. Harrington, says it's only a prettiness, and something about Ovid. I'm sure I wish you'd advise some of your friends to leave their classics, as you did, at the musty university. What have we to do with Ovid in London? You, yourself, Mr. Harrington, who set up for such a critic, what fault can you find, pray, with

'Keep all cold from your breast, there's already too much?'"

By the lady's tone of voice, raised complexion, and whole air of the head, I saw the danger was imminent, and to avoid the coming storm, I sheltered myself under the cover of modesty; but Mowbray dragged me out to make sport for himself.

"Oh! Harrington, that will never do. No critic! No judge! You! with all your college honours fresh about you. Come, come, Harrington, pronounce you must. Is this poetry or not?

'Keep all cold from your breast, there's already too much.'"

"Whether prose or poetry, I pronounce it to be very good advice."

"Good advice! the thing of all others I have the most detested from my childhood," cried Lady Anne; "but I insist upon it, it is good poetry, Mr. Harrington."

"And equally good grammar, and good English, and good sense," cried her brother, in an ironical tone. "Come, Harrington, acknowledge it all, man— all equally. Never stop half way, when a young—and such a young lady, summons you to surrender to her your truth, taste, and common sense. Gi' her a' the plea, or you'll get na good of a woman's hands."

"So, sir!—So, my lord, you are against me too, and you are mocking me too, I find. I humbly thank you, gentlemen," cried Lady Anne, in a high tone of disdain; "from a colonel in the army, and a nobleman who has been on the continent, I might have expected more politeness. From a Cambridge scholar no wonder!"

My mother laid down her netting in the middle of a row, and came to keep the peace. But it was too late; Lady Anne was deaf and blind with passion. She confessed she could not see of what use either of the universities were in this world, except to make bears and bores of young men.

Her ladyship, fluent in anger beyond conception, poured, as she turned from her brother to me, and from me to her brother, a flood of nonsense, which, when it had once broken bounds, there was no restraining in its course. Amazed at the torrent, my mother stood aghast; Mowbray burst into unextinguishable laughter: I preserved my gravity as long as I possibly could; I felt the risible infection seizing me, and that malicious Mowbray, just when he saw me in the struggle—the agony—sent me back such an image of my own length of face, that there was no withstanding it. I, too, breaking all bounds of decorum, gave way to visible and audible laughter; and from which I was first recovered by seeing the lady burst into tears, and by hearing, at the same moment, my mother pronounce in a tone of grave displeasure, "Very ill-bred, Harrington!" My mother's tone of displeasure affecting me much more than the young lady's tears, I hastened to beg pardon, and I humbled myself before Lady Anne; but she spurned me, and Mowbray laughed the more. Mowbray, I believe, really wished that I should like his sister; yet he could not refrain from indulging his taste for ridicule, even at her expense. My mother wondered how Lord Mowbray could tease his sister in such a manner; and as for Harrington, she really thought he had known that the first law of good-breeding is never to say or do any thing that can hurt another person's feelings.

"Never intentionally to hurt another's feelings, ma'am," said I; "I hope you will allow me to plead the innocence of my intentions."

"Oh, yes! there was no malicious intent: Not guilty—Not guilty!" cried Mowbray. "Anne, you acquit him there, don't you, Anne?"

Anne sobbed, but spoke not.

"It is little consolation, and no compensation, to the person who is hurt," said my mother, "that the offender pleads he did not mean to say or do any thing rude: a rude thing is a rude thing—the intention is nothing—all we are to judge of is the fact."

"Well, but after all, in fact," said Mowbray, "there was nothing to make any body seriously angry."

"Of that every body's own feelings must be the best judge," said my mother, "the best and the sole judge."

"Thank Heaven! that is not the law of libel yet, not the law of the land yet," said Mowbray; "no knowing what we may come to. Would it not be hard, ma'am, to constitute the feelings of one person always sole judge of the intentions of another? though in cases like the present I submit. Let it be a ruled case, that the sensibility of a lady shall be the measure of a gentleman's guilt."

"I don't judge of these things by rule and measure," said my mother: "try my smelling-bottle, my dear." Very few people, especially women of delicate nerves and quick feelings, could, as my mother observed, bear to be laughed at; particularly by those they loved; and especially before other people who did not know them perfectly. My mother was persuaded, she said, that Lord Mowbray had not reflected on all this when he had laughed so inconsiderately.

Mowbray allowed that he certainly had not reflected when he had laughed inconsiderately. "So come, come. Anne, sister Anne, be friends!" then playfully tapping his sister on the back, the pretty, but sullen back of the neck, he tried to raise the drooping head; but finding the chin resist the upward motion, and retire resentfully from his touch, he turned upon his heel, and addressing himself to me, "Well! Harrington," said he, "the news of the day, the news of the theatre, which I was bringing you full speed, when I stumbled upon this cursed half-pint of asses' milk, which Mrs.. Harrington was so angry with me for overturning—"

"But what's the news, my lord?" said my mother.

"News! not for you, ma'am, only for Harrington; news of the Jews."

"The Jews!" said my mother.

"The Jews!" said I, both in the same breath, but in very different tones.

"Jews, did I say?" replied Mowbray: "Jew, I should have said."

"Mr. Montenero?" cried I.

"Montenero!—Can you think of nothing but Mr. Montenero, whom you've never seen, and never will see?"

"Thank you for that, my lord," said my mother; "one touch from you is worth a hundred from me."

"But of what Jew then are you talking? and what's your news, my lord?" said I.

"My news is only—for Heaven's sake, Harrington, do not look expecting a mountain, for 'tis only a mouse. The news is, that Macklin, the honest Jew of Venice, has got the pound, or whatever number of pounds he wanted to get from the manager's heart; the quarrel's made up, and if you keep your senses, you may have a chance to see, next week, this famous Jew of Venice."

"I am heartily glad of it!" cried I, with enthusiasm.

"And is that all?" said my mother, coldly.

"Mr. Harrington," said Lady Anne, "is really so enthusiastic about some things, and so cold about others, there is no understanding him; he is very, very odd."

Notwithstanding all the pains my mother took to atone for my offence, and notwithstanding that I had humbled myself to the dust to obtain pardon, I was not forgiven.

Lady de Brantefield, Lady Anne, and some other company, dined with us; and Mowbray, who seemed to be really sorry that he had vexed his sister, and that he had in the heyday of his spirit unveiled to me her defects of temper, did every thing in his power to make up matters between us. At dinner he placed me beside Anne, little sister Anne; but no caressing tone, no diminutive of kindness in English, or soft Italian, could touch her heart, or move the gloomy purpose of her soul. Her sulky ladyship almost turned her back upon me, as she listened only to Colonel Topham, who was on the other side. Mowbray coaxed her to eat, but she refused every thing he offered—would not accept even his compliments—his compliments on her pouf—would not allow him to show her off, as he well knew how to do, to advantage; would not, when he exerted himself to prevent her silence from being remarked, smile at any one of the many entertaining things he said; she would not, in short, even passively permit his attempts to cover her ill-humour, and to make things pass off well.

In the evening, when the higher powers drew off to cards, and when Lady Anne had her phalanx of young ladies round her; and whilst I stood a defenceless young man at her mercy, she made me feel her vengeance. She talked at me continually, and at every opening gave me sly cuts, which she flattered herself I felt sorely.

Mowbray turned off the blows as fast as they were aimed, or treated them all as playful traits of lover-like malice, tokens of a lady's favour.

"Ha! a good cut, Harrington!—Happy man!—Up to you there, Harrington! High favour, when a lady condescends to remember and retaliate. Paid you for old scores!—Sign you're in her books now!—'No more to say to you, Mr. Harrington'—a fair challenge to say a great deal more to her."

And all the time her ladyship was aiming to vex, and hoping that I was heartily mortified, as from my silence and melancholy countenance she concluded that I was; in reality I stood deploring that so pretty a creature had so mean a mind. The only vexation I felt was at her having destroyed the possibility of my enjoying that delightful illusion which beauty creates.

My mother, who had been, as she said, quite nervous all this evening, at last brought Lady Anne to terms, and patched up a peace, by prevailing on Lady de Brantefield, who could not be prevailed on by any one else, to make a party to go to some new play which Lady Anne was dying to see. It was a sentimental comedy, and I did not much like it; however, I was all complaisance for my mother's sake, and she in return renewed her promise to go with me to patronize Shylock. By the extraordinary anxiety my mother showed, and by the pains she took that there should be peace betwixt Lady Anne and me, I perceived, what had never before struck me, that my mother wished me to be in love with her ladyship.

Now I could sooner have been in love with Lady de Brantefield. Give her back a decent share of youth and beauty, I think I could sooner have liked the mother than the daughter.

By the force and plastic power of my imagination, I could have turned and moulded Lady de Brantefield, with all her repulsive haughtiness, into a Clelia, or a Princess de Cleves, or something of the Richardson full-dressed heroine, with hoop and fan, and stand off, man!—and then there would be cruelty and difficulty, and incomprehensibility-something to be conquered—something to be wooed and won. But with Lady Anne Mowbray my imagination had nothing to work upon, no point to dwell on, nothing on which a lover's fancy could feed: there was no doubt, no hope, no fear, no reserve of manner, no dignity of mind.

My mother, I believe, now saw that it would not do, at least for the present; but she had known many of Cupid's capricious turns. Lady Anne was extremely pretty, and universally allowed to be so; her ladyship was much taken notice of in public, and my mother knew that young men are vain of having their mistresses and wives admired by our sex. But my mother calculated ill as to my particular character. To the Opera and to Ranelagh, to the Pantheon, and to all the fashionable public places of the day, I had had the honour of attending Lady Anne; and I had had the glory of hearing "Beautiful!" "Who is she?"—and "Who is with her?" My vanity, I own, had been flattered, but no further. My imagination was always too powerful, my passions too sincere and too romantic, to be ruled by the opinions of others, or to become the dupe of personal vanity. My mother had fancied that a month or two in London would have brought my imagination down to be content with the realities of fashionable life. My mother was right as to the fact, but wrong in her conclusion. This did not incline me more towards Lady Anne, but it disinclined me towards marriage.

My exalted ideas of love were lowered—my morning visions of life fled—I was dispirited.

Mowbray had rallied me on my pining for Cambridge, and on preferring Israel Lyons, the Jew, to him and all the best company in London.

He had hurried me about with him to all manner of gaieties, but still I was not happy; my mind—my heart wanted something more.

In this my London life, I found it irksome that I could never, as at dear Cambridge, pause upon my own reflections. If I stopped awhile, "to plume contemplation's wings, so ruffled and impaired," some of the low realities, some of the impertinent necessities of fashionable life, would tread on my heels. The order of the day or night was for ever pressed upon me—and the order of the day was now to go to this new sentimental comedy—my mother's favourite actor, the silver-toned Barry, was to play the lover of the piece; so she was sure of as many fashionable young ladies as her box could possibly hold. At this period, in England, every fashionable belle declared herself the partisan of some actor or actress; and every fashionable beau aspired to the character of a dramatic critic. Mowbray, of course, was distinguished in that line, and his pretty little sister, Lady Anne, was, at least in face, formed to grace the front box. The hours of the great world were earlier then than they are now, and nothing interfered, indeed nothing would have been suffered to interfere, with the hour for the play. As a veteran wit described it, "There were at this time four estates in the English Constitution, kings, lords, commons, and the theatre." Statesmen, courtiers, poets, philosophers, crowded pell mell with the white-gloved beaux to the stage box and the pit. It was thought well-bred, it was the thing to be in the boxes before the third act, even before the second, nay, incredible as it may in these times appear, before the first act began. Our fashionable party was seated some minutes before the curtain drew up.



CHAPTER VII.

The beaux and belles in the boxes of the crowded theatre had bowed and curtsied, for in those days beaux did bow and belles did curtsy; the impatient sticks in the pit, and shrill catcalls in the gallery, had begun to contend with the music in the orchestra; and thrice had we surveyed the house to recognize every body whom any body knew, when the door of the box next to ours, the only box that had remained empty, was thrown open, and in poured an over-dressed party, whom nobody knew. Lady de Brantefield, after one reconnoitring glance, pronounced them to be city Goths and Vandals; and without resting her glass upon them for half a moment, turned it to some more profitable field of speculation. There was no gentleman of this party, but a portly matron, towering above the rest, seemed the principal mover and orderer of the group. The awkward bustle they made, facing and backing, placing and changing of places, and the difficulty they found in seating themselves, were in striking contrast with the high-bred ease of the ladies of our party. Lady Anne Mowbray looked down upon their operations with a pretty air of quiet surprise, tinctured with horror; while my mother's shrinking delicacy endeavoured to suggest some idea of propriety to the city matron, who having taken her station next to us in the second row, had at last seated herself so that a considerable portion of the back part of her head-dress was in my mother's face: moreover, the citizen's huge arm, with its enormous gauze cuff, leaning on the partition which divided, or ought to have divided, her from us, considerably passed the line of demarcation. Lady de Brantefield, with all the pride of all the De Brantefields since the Norman Conquest concentrated in her countenance, threw an excommunicating, withering look upon the arm—but the elbow felt it not—it never stirred. The lady seemed not to be made of penetrable stuff. In happy ignorance she sat fanning herself for a few seconds; then suddenly starting and stretching forward to the front row, where five of her young ladies were wedged, she aimed with her fan at each of their backs in quick succession, and in a more than audible whisper asked, "Cecy! Issy! Henny! Queeney! Miss Coates, where's Berry?"—All eyes turned to look for Berry—"Oh! mercy, behind in the back row! Miss Berry, that must not be— come forward, here's my place or Queeney's," cried Mrs. Coates, stretching backwards with her utmost might to seize some one in the farthest corner of the back row, who had hitherto been invisible. We expected to see in Miss Berry another vulgarian produced, but to our surprise, we beheld one who seemed of a different order of beings from those by whom she was surrounded. Lord Mowbray and I looked at each other, struck by the same sentiment, pained for this elegant timid young creature, as we saw her, all blushing and reluctant, forced by the irresistible fat orderer of all things to "step up on the seat," to step forward from bench to bench, and then wait in painful pre-eminence while Issy, and Cecy, and Queeney, and Miss Coates, settled how they could make room, or which should vacate her seat in her favour. In spite of the awkwardness of her situation she stood with such quiet, resigned, yet dignified grace, that ridicule could not touch her. The moment she was seated with her back to us, and out of hearing, Lady de Brantefield turned to her son and asked "Who is she?"

"An East Indian, I should guess, by her dark complexion," whispered Lady Anne to me.

Some feather or lappet intercepted my view of her face, but from the glimpse I caught of it as she passed, it struck me as uncommonly interesting, though with a peculiar expression and foreign air—whether she was handsome or not, though called upon to decide, I could not determine. But now our attention was fixed on the stage. It was announced to the audience that, owing to the sudden illness of the actor who was to have performed the principal part in the comedy advertised for this night, there was a necessity for changing the play, and they should give in its stead the Merchant of Venice.

The Merchant of Venice and Macklin the Jew!—Murmurs of discontent from the ladies in my box, who regretted their sentimental comedy and their silver- toned Barry, were all lost upon me; I rejoiced that I should see Macklin in Shylock. Before the performance began, my attention was again caught by the proceedings of the persons in the next box. There seemed to be some sudden cause of distress, as I gathered from exclamations of "How unlucky!—How distressing!—What shall we do?—What can we do?—Better go away—carriage gone!—must sit it out—May be she won't mind—Oh! she will—Shylock!— Jessica!—How unfortunate!—poor Miss Berry!"

"Jessica!" whispered Mowbray to me, with an arch look: "let me pass," added he, just touching my shoulder. He made his way to a young lady at the other end of the box; and I, occupying immediately the ceded place, stationed myself so that I had a better view of my object, and could observe her without being seen by any one. She was perfectly still, and took no notice of the whispering of the people about her, though, from an indescribable expression in the air of the back of her head and neck, I was convinced that she heard all that passed among the young and old ladies in her box. The play went on—Shylock appeared—I forgot every thing but him.—Such a countenance!—Such an expression of latent malice and revenge, of every thing detestable in human nature! Whether speaking or silent, the Jew fixed and kept possession of my attention. It was an incomparable piece of acting: much as my expectations had been raised, it far surpassed any thing I had conceived—I forgot it was Macklin, I thought only of Shylock. In my enthusiasm I stood up, I pressed forward, I leaned far over towards the stage, that I might not lose a word, a look, a gesture. When the act finished, as the curtain fell, and the thunders of applause died away, I heard a soft low sigh near me; I looked, and saw the Jewess! She had turned away from the young ladies her companions, and had endeavoured to screen herself behind the pillar against which I had been leaning. I had, for the first time, a full view of her face and of her countenance, of great sensibility, painfully, proudly repressed. She looked up while my eyes were fixed upon her—a sudden and deep colour spread over her face and mounted to her temples. In my confusion I did the very thing I should not have done, and said the thing of all others I should not have said. I expressed a fear that I had been standing in such a manner as to prevent her from seeing Shylock; she bowed mildly, and was, I believe, going to speak.

"You have indeed, sir," interrupted Mrs. Coates, "stood so that nobody could see nothing but yourself. So, since you mention it, and speak without an introduction, excuse me if I suggest, against the next act, that this young lady has never been at a play before in her life—in Lon'on, at least. And though it i'n't the play I should have chose for her, yet since she is here, 'tis better she should see something than nothing, if gentlemen will give her leave." I bowed in sign of submission and repentance; and was retiring, so as to leave my place vacant, and a full opening to the stage. But in a sweet, gentlewomanlike voice, seeming, perhaps, more delightful from contrast, the young lady said that she had seen and could see quite as much as she wished of the play; and she begged that I would not quit my place. "I should oblige her," she added, in a lower tone, "if I would continue to stand as I had done." I obeyed, and placed myself so as to screen her from observation during the whole of the next act. But now, my pleasure in the play was over. I could no longer enjoy Macklin's incomparable acting; I was so apprehensive of the pain which it must give to the young Jewess. At every stroke, characteristic of the skilful actor, or of the master poet, I felt a strange mixture of admiration and regret. I almost wished that Shakspeare had not written, or Macklin had not acted the part so powerfully: my imagination formed such a strong conception of the pain the Jewess was feeling, and my inverted sympathy, if I may so call it, so overpowered my direct and natural feelings, that at every fresh development of the Jew's villany I shrunk as though I had myself been a Jew.

Each exclamation against this dog of a Jew, and still more every general reflection on Jewish usury, avarice, and cruelty, I felt poignantly. No power of imagination could make me pity Shylock, but I felt the force of some of his appeals to justice; and some passages struck me in quite a new light on the Jewish side of the question.

"Many a time, and oft, In the Rialto, you have rated me, About my moneys and my usances; Still have I borne it with a patient shrug; For sufferance is the badge of all our tribe. You call me misbeliever! cut-throat dog! And spit upon my Jewish gabardine; And all, for use of that which is my own. Well, then, it now appears you need my help. Go to, then—you come to me, and you say, Shylock, we would have moneys; you say so.

* * * * *

Shall I bend low, and in a bondsman key, With bated breath, and whisp'ring humbleness, Say this—Fair sir, you spit on me last Wednesday; You spurned me such a day; another time You called me dog; and for these courtesies I'll lend you thus much moneys?"

As far as Shylock was concerned, I was well content he should be used in such a sort; but if it had been any other human creature, any other Jew even—if it had been poor Jacob, for instance, whose image crossed my recollection—I believe I should have taken part with him. Again, I was well satisfied that Antonio should have hindered Shylock of half a million, should have laughed at his losses, thwarted his bargains, cooled his friends, heated his enemies; Shylock deserved all this: but when he came to, "What's his reason?—I am a Jew. Hath not a Jew eyes? Hath not a Jew hands, organs, dimensions, senses, affections, passions? fed with the same food, hurt with the same weapons, subject to the same diseases, healed by the same means, warmed and cooled by the same winter and summer as a Christian is?—If you prick us, do we not bleed?—If you tickle us, do we not laugh?—If you poison us, do not we die?—and if you wrong us, shall we not revenge? If we are like you in the rest, we will resemble you in that. If a Jew wrong a Christian, what is his humility?—Revenge. If a Christian wrong a Jew, what should his sufferance be, by Christian example?—Why, revenge."

I felt at once horror of the individual Shylock, and submission to the strength of his appeal. During the third act, during the Jessica scenes, I longed so much to have a look at the Jewess, that I took an opportunity of changing my position. The ladies in our box were now so happily occupied with some young officers of the guards, that there was no farther danger of their staring at the Jewess. I was so placed that I could see her, without being seen; and during the succeeding acts, my attention was chiefly directed to the study of all the changes in her expressive countenance. I now saw and heard the play solely with reference to her feelings; I anticipated every stroke which could touch her, and became every moment more and more interested and delighted with her, from the perception that my anticipations were just, and that I perfectly knew how to read her soul, and interpret her countenance. I saw that the struggle to repress her emotion was often the utmost she could endure; and at last I saw, or fancied I saw, that she grew so pale, that, as she closed her eyes at the same instant, I was certain she was going to faint; and quite forgetting that I was an utter stranger to her, I started forward—and then unprovided with an apology, could only turn to Mrs. Coates, and fear that the heat of the house was too much for this young lady. Mrs. Coates, alarmed immediately, wished they could get her out into the air, and regretted that her gentlemen were not with their party to-night—there could be no getting servants or carriage—what could be done? I eagerly offered my services, which were accepted, and we conducted the young lady out. She did not faint; she struggled against it; and it was evident that there was no affectation in the case; but, on the contrary, an anxious desire not to give trouble, and a great dread of exposing herself to public observation. The carriage, as Mrs. Coates repeated twenty times, was ordered not to come till after the farce, and she kept on hoping and hoping that Miss Berry would be stout enough to go back to see "The Maid of the Oaks." Miss Berry did her utmost to support herself; and said she believed she was now quite well, and could return; but I saw she wished to get away, and I ran to see if a chair could be had. Lord Mowbray, who had assisted in conducting the ladies out, now followed me; he saw, and called to one of his footmen, and despatched him for a chair.

"There, now," said Mowbray, "we may leave the rest to Mrs. Coates, who can elbow her own way through it. Come back with me—Mrs. Abingdon plays Lady Bab Lardoon, her favourite character—she is incomparable, and I would not miss it for the world."

I begged Mowbray to go back, for I could not leave these ladies.

"Well," said he, parting from me, and pursuing his own way, "I see how it is—I see how it will be. These things are ruled in heaven above, or hell beneath. 'Tis in vain struggling with one's destiny—so you to your Jewess, and I to my little Jessica. We shall have her again, I hope, in the farce, the prettiest creature I ever saw."

Mowbray hastened back to his box, and how long it might be between my return to the Jewess, and the arrival of the chair, I do not know: it seemed to me not above two minutes, but Mowbray insisted upon it, that it was a full quarter of an hour. He came to me again, just as I had received one look of silent gratitude; and while I was putting the young lady into the chair, and bustling Mrs. Coates was giving her orders and address to the servant, Mowbray whispered me that my mother was in an agony, and had sent him out to see what was become of me. Mrs. Coates, all thanks, and apologies, and hurry, now literally elbowed her way back to her box, expressing her reiterated fears that we should lose the best part of "The Maid of the Oaks," which was the only farce she made it a rule ever to stay for. In spite of her hurry and her incessant talking, I named the thing I was intent upon. I said, that with her permission I should do myself the honour of calling upon her the next morning to inquire after Miss Berry's health.

"I am sure, sir," she replied, "Mr. Alderman Coates, and myself, will be particularly glad of the honour of seeing you tomorrow, or any time; and moreover, sir, the young lady," added she, with a shrewd, and to me offensive smile, "the young lady no doubt's well worth inquiring after—a great heiress, as the saying is, as rich as a Jew she'll be, Miss Montenero."

"Miss Montenero!" repeated Lord Mowbray and I, in the same instant. "I thought," said I, "this young lady's name was Berry.

"Berry, yes—Berry, we call her, we who are intimate, I call her for short—that is short for Berenice, which is her out o' the way Christian, that is, Jewish name. Mr. Montenero, the father, is a Spanish or American Jew, I'm not clear which, but he's a charming man for a Jew, and the daughter most uncommon fond of him, to a degree! Can't, now, bear any reflections the most distant, now, sir, upon the Jews, which was what distressed me when I found the play was to be this Jew of Venice, and I would have come away, only that I couldn't possibly." Here Mrs. Coates, without any mercy upon my curiosity about Mr. Montenero and his daughter, digressed into a subject utterly uninteresting to me, and would explain to us the reasons why Mr. Alderman Coates and Mr. Peter Coates her son were not this night of her party. This lasted till we reached her box, and then she had so much to say to all the Miss Issys, Cecys, and Hennys, that it was with the utmost difficulty I could, even by carefully watching my moment, obtain a card with her own, and another with Miss Montenero's address. This time there was no danger of my losing it. I rejoiced to see that Miss Montenero did not live with Mrs. Coates.

For all further satisfaction of my curiosity, I was obliged to wait till the next morning.



CHAPTER VIII.

During the whole of the night, sleeping or waking, the images of the fair Jewess, of Shylock, and of Mrs. Coates, were continually recurring, and turning into one another in a most provoking manner. At breakfast my mother did not appear; my father said that she had not slept well, and that she would breakfast in her own apartment; this was not unusual; but I was particularly sorry that it happened this morning, because, being left tete-a-tete with my father, and he full of a debate on the malt-tax, which he undertook to read to me from the rival papers, and to make me understand its merits, I was compelled to sit three-quarters of an hour longer after breakfast than I had intended; so that the plan I had formed of waiting upon Mr. Montenero very early, before he could have gone out for the day, was disconcerted. When at last my father had fairly finished, when he had taken his hat and his cane, and departing left me, as I thought, happily at liberty to go in search of my Jewess, another detainer came. At the foot of the stairs my mother's woman appeared, waiting to let me know that her lady begged I would not go out till she had seen me—adding, that she would be with me in less than a quarter of an hour.

I flung down my hat, I believe, with rather too marked an expression of impatience; but five minutes afterwards came a knock at the door. Mr. Montenero was announced, and I blessed my mother, my father, and the malt- tax, for having detained me at home. The first appearance of Mr. Montenero more than answered my expectations. He had that indescribable air, which, independently of the fashion of the day, or the mode of any particular country, distinguishes a gentleman—dignified, courteous, and free from affectation. From his features, he might have been thought a Spaniard—from his complexion, an East Indian; but he had a peculiar cast of countenance, which seemed not to belong to either nation. He had uncommonly black penetrating eyes, with a serious, rather melancholy, but very benevolent expression. He was past the meridian of life. The lines in his face were strongly marked; but they were not the common-place wrinkles of ignoble age, nor the contractions of any of the vulgar passions: they seemed to be the traces of thought and feeling. He entered into conversation directly and easily. I need not say that this conversation was immediately interesting, for he spoke of Berenice. His thanks to me were, I thought, peculiarly gentlemanlike, neither too much nor too little. Of course, I left him at liberty to attribute her indisposition to the heat of the playhouse, and I stood prepared to avoid mentioning Shylock to Jewish ears; but I was both surprised and pleased by the openness and courage with which he spoke on the very subject from which I had fancied he would have shrunk. Instead of looking for any excuse for Miss Montenero's indisposition, he at once named the real cause; she had been, he said, deeply affected by the representation of Shylock; that detestable Jew, whom the genius of the greatest poet that ever wrote, and the talents of one of the greatest actors who had ever appeared, had conspired to render an object of public execration. "But recently arrived in London," continued Mr. Montenero, "I have not had personal opportunity of judging of this actor's talent; but no Englishman can have felt more strongly than I have, the power of your Shakspeare's genius to touch and rend the human heart."

Mr. Montenero spoke English with a foreign accent, and something of a foreign idiom; but his ideas and feelings forced their way regardless of grammatical precision, and I thought his foreign accent agreeable. To an Englishman, what accent that conveys the praise of Shakspeare can fail to be agreeable? The most certain method by which a foreigner an introduce himself at once to the good-will and good opinion of an Englishman, is by thus doing homage to this national object of idolatry. I perceived that Mr. Montenero's was not a mere compliment—he spoke with real feeling. "In this instance," resumed he, "we poor Jews have felt your Shakspeare's power to our cost—too severely, and, considering all the circumstances, rather unjustly, you are aware."

"Considering all the circumstances," I did not precisely understand; but I endeavoured, as well as I could, to make some general apology for Shakspeare's severity, by adverting to the time when he wrote, and the prejudices which then prevailed.

"True," said he; "and as a dramatic poet, it was his business, I acknowledge, to take advantage of the popular prejudice as a power—as a means of dramatic pathos and effect; yet you will acknowledge that we Jews must feel it peculiarly hard, that the truth of the story on which the poet founded his plot should have been completely sacrificed to fiction, so that the characters were not only misrepresented, but reversed."

I did not know to what Mr. Montenero meant to allude: however, I endeavoured to pass it off with a slight bow of general acquiescence, and the hundred-times-quoted remark, that poets always succeed better in fiction than in truth. Mr. Montenero had quick penetration—he saw my evasion, and would not let me off so easily. He explained.

"In the true story, [Footnote: See Stevens' Life of Sixtus V., and Malone's Shakspeare.] from which Shakspeare took the plot of the Merchant of Venice, it was a Christian who acted the part of the Jew, and the Jew that of the Christian; it was a Christian who insisted upon having the pound of flesh from next the Jew's heart. But," as Mr. Montenero repeated, "Shakspeare was right, as a dramatic poet, in reversing the characters."

Seeing me struck, and a little confounded, by this statement, and even by his candour, Mr. Montenero said, that perhaps his was only the Jewish version of the story, and he quickly went on to another subject, one far more agreeable to me—to Berenice. He hoped that I did not suspect her of affectation from any thing that had passed; he was aware, little as he knew of fine ladies, that they sometimes were pleased to make themselves noticed, perhaps rather troublesome, by the display of their sensibility; but he assured me that his Berenice was not of this sort.

Of this I was perfectly convinced. The moment he pronounced the name of Berenice, he paused, and looked as if he were afraid he should say too much of her; and I suppose I looked as I felt—afraid that he would not say enough. He gently bowed his head and went on. "There are reasons why she was peculiarly touched and moved by that exhibition. Till she came to Europe—to England—she was not aware, at least not practically aware, of the strong prepossessions which still prevail against us Jews." He then told me that his daughter had passed her childhood chiefly in America, "in a happy part of that country, where religious distinctions are scarcely known—where characters and talents are all sufficient to attain advancement—where the Jews form a respectable part of the community— where, in most instances, they are liberally educated, many following the honourable professions of law and physic with credit and ability, and associating with the best society that country affords. Living in a retired village, her father's the only family of Israelites who resided in or near it, all her juvenile friendships and attachments had been formed with those of different persuasions; yet each had looked upon the variations of the other as things of course, or rather as things which do not affect the moral character—differences which take place in every society."—"My daughter was, therefore, ill prepared," said Mr. Montenero, "for European prepossessions; and with her feeling heart and strong affection for those she loves, no wonder that she has often suffered, especially on my account, since we came to England; and she has become, to a fault, tender and susceptible on this point."

I could not admit that there was any fault on her part; but I regretted that England should be numbered among the countries subject to such prejudices. I hoped, I added, that such illiberality was now confined to the vulgar, that is, the ill-educated and the ill-informed.

The well-educated and well-informed, he answered, were, of course, always the most liberal, and were usually the same in all countries. He begged pardon if he had expressed himself too generally with respect to England. It was the common fault of strangers and foreigners to generalize too quickly, and to judge precipitately of the whole of a community from a part. The fact was, that he had, by the business which brought him to London, been unfortunately thrown among some vulgar rich of contracted minds, who, though they were, as he was willing to believe, essentially good and good-natured persons, had made his Berenice suffer, sometimes more than they could imagine, by their want of delicacy, and want of toleration.

As Mr. Montenero spoke these words, the image of vulgar, ordering Mrs. Coates—that image which had persecuted me half the night, by ever obtruding between me and the fair Jewess—rose again full in my view. I settled immediately, that it was she and her tribe of Issys, and Cecys, and Hennys, and Queeneys, were "the vulgar rich" to whom Mr. Montenero alluded. I warmly expressed my indignation against those who could have been so brutal as to make Miss Montenero suffer by their vile prejudices.

"Brutal," Mr. Montenero repeated, smiling at my warmth, "is too strong an expression: there was no brutality in the case. I must have expressed myself ill to give rise to such an idea. There was only a little want of consideration for the feelings of others—a little want of liberality."

Even so I could not bear the thought that Miss Montenero should have been, on her first arrival in England, thrown among persons who might give her quite a false idea of the English, and a dislike to the country.

"There is no danger of that sort," he replied. "Had she been disposed to judge so rashly and uncharitably, the humane and polite attentions she met with last night from a gentleman who was an utter stranger to her, and who could only know that she was a foreigner in want of assistance, must have been to her at once conviction and reproof." (I bowed, delighted with Mr. Montenero and with myself.) "But I hope and believe," continued he, "that my Berenice is not disposed to form uncharitable judgments either of individuals or nations; especially not of the English, of whom she has, from their history and literature, with which we are not wholly unacquainted, conceived the highest ideas." I bowed again, though not quite so much delighted with this general compliment to my nation as by that peculiar to myself. I expressed my hopes that the English would justify this favourable prepossession, and that on farther acquaintance with different societies in London, Mr. and Miss Montenero would find, that among the higher classes in this country there is no want of liberality of opinion, and certainly no want of delicacy of sentiment and manner—no want of attention to the feelings of those who are of a different persuasion from ourselves. Just at this moment my mother entered the room. Advancing towards Mr. Montenero, she said, with a gracious smile, "You need not introduce us to each other, my dear Harrington, for I am sure that I have the pleasure of seeing Mr. Clive, from India."

"Mr. Montenero, from America, ma'am."

"Mr. Montenero! I am happy to have the honour—the pleasure—I am very happy—"

My mother's politeness struggled against truth; but whilst I feared that Mr. Montenero's penetration would discern that there was no pleasure in the honour, a polite inquiry followed concerning Miss Montenero's indisposition. Then, after an ineffectual effort to resume the ease and cordiality of her manner, my mother leaned back languidly on the sofa, and endeavoured to account for the cloud which settled on her brow by adverting to the sleepless night she had passed, and to the fears of an impending headache; assuring Mr. Montenero at the same time that society and conversation were always of service to her. I was particularly anxious to detain, and to draw him out before my mother, because I felt persuaded that his politeness of manner, and his style of conversation, would counteract any presentiment or prejudice she had conceived against him and his race. He seemed to lend himself to my views, and with benevolent politeness exerted himself to entertain my mother. A Don Quixote was on the table, in which there were some good prints, and from these he took occasion to give us many amusing and interesting accounts of Spain, where he had passed the early part of his life. From Don Quixote to Gil Blas—to the Duc de Lerma— to the tower of Segovia—to the Inquisition—to the Spanish palaces and Moorish antiquities, he let me lead him backwards and forwards as I pleased. My mother was very fond of some of the old Spanish ballads and Moorish romances: I led to the Rio Verde, and the fair Zaida, and the Moor Alcanzor, with whom both in their Moorish and English dress Mr. Montenero was well acquainted, and of whom he was enthusiastically fond.

My mother was fond of painting: I asked some questions concerning the Spanish painters, particularly about Murillo; of one of his pictures we had a copy, and my mother had often wished to see the original. Mr. Montenero said he was happy in having it in his power to gratify her wish; he possessed the original of this picture. But few of Murillo's paintings had at this time found their way out of Spain; national and regal pride had preserved them with jealous care; but Mr. Montenero had inherited some of Murillo's master-pieces. These, and a small but valuable collection of pictures which he had been many years in forming, were now in England: they were not yet arranged as he could wish, but an apartment was preparing for them; and in the mean time, he should be happy to have the honour of showing them to us and to any of our friends. He particularly addressed himself to my mother; she replied in those general terms of acquiescence and gratitude, which are used when there is no real intention to accept an invitation, but yet a wish to avoid such an absolute refusal as should appear ill-bred. I, on the contrary, sincerely eager to accept the offered favour, fixed instantly the time, and the soonest possible. I named the next day at one o'clock. Mr. Montenero then took his leave, and as the door closed after him, I stood before my mother, as if waiting for judgment; she was silent.

"Don't you think him agreeable, ma'am?"

"Very agreeable."

"I knew you would think so, my dear mother; an uncommonly agreeable man."

"But—"

"But what, ma'am?"

"But so much the worse."

"How so, ma'am? Because he is a Jew, is he forbidden to be agreeable?" said I, smiling.

"Pray be serious, Harrington—I say the more agreeable this man is, the better his manner, the more extensive his information, the higher the abilities he possesses, the greater are his means of doing mischief." "A conclusive argument," said. I, "against the possession of good manners, information, abilities, and every agreeable and useful quality! and an argument equally applicable to Jews and Christians."

"Argument!" repeated my mother: "I know, my dear, I am not capable of arguing with you—indeed I am not fond of arguments, they are so unfeminine: I seldom presume to give even my opinion, except on subjects of sentiment and feeling; there ladies may venture, I suppose, to have a voice as well as gentlemen, perhaps better, sometimes. In the present case, it may be very ridiculous; but I own that, notwithstanding this Mr. Montenero is what you'd call an uncommonly agreeable man, there is a something about him—in short, I feel something like an antipathy to him—and in the whole course of my life I have never been misled by these antipathies. I don't say they are reasonable, I only say that I can't help feeling them; and if they never mislead us, you know they have all the force of instincts, and in some cases instincts are superior even to that reason of which man is so proud."

I did not advert to the if, on which this whole reasoning rested, but I begged my mother would put herself out of the question for one moment, and consider to what injustice and intolerance such antipathies would lead in society.

"Perhaps in general it might be so," she said; "but in this particular instance she was persuaded she was right and correct; and after all, is there a human being living who is not influenced at first sight by countenance! Does not Lavater say that even a cockchafer and a dish of tea have a physiognomy?"

I could not go quite so far as to admit the cockchafer's physiognomy in our judgment of characters. "But then, ma'am," concluded I, "before we can judge, before we can decide, we should see what is called the play of the countenance—we should see the working of the muscles. Now, for instance, when we have seen Mr. Montenero two or three times, when we have studied the muscles of his countenance—"

"I! I study the muscles of the man's countenance!" interrupted my mother, indignantly; "I never desire to see him or his muscles again! Jew, Turk, or Mussulman, let me hear no more about him. Seriously, my dear Harrington, this is the subject on which I wished to speak to you this morning, to warn you from forming this dangerous acquaintance. I dreamed last night—but I know you won't listen to dreams; I have a presentiment—but you have no faith in presentiments: what shall I say to you?—Oh! my dear Harrington, I appeal to your own heart—your own feelings, your own conscience, must tell you all I at this moment foresee and dread. Oh! with your ardent, too ardent imagination—your susceptibility! Surely, surely, there is an absolute fatality in these things! At the very moment I was preparing to warn you, Mr. Montenero appears, and strengthens the dangerous impression. And after all the pains I took to prevent your ever meeting, is it not extraordinary that you should meet his daughter at the playhouse? Promise me, I conjure you," cried she, turning and seizing both my hands, "promise me, my dear son, that you will see no more of this Jew and Jewess."

It was a promise I could not, would not make:—some morning visitors came in and relieved me. My mother's imagination was as vivacious, but not as tenacious as my own. There was in her a feminine mobility, which, to my masculine strength of passion, and consequent tenacity of purpose, appeared often inconceivable, and sometimes provoking. In a few minutes her fancy turned to old china and new lace, and all the fears which had so possessed and agitated her mind subsided.

Among the crowd of morning visitors, Lady Anne Mowbray ran in and ran out; fortunately she could not stay one minute, and still more fortunately my mother did not hear a word she said, or even see her ladyship's exit and entrance, so many ladies had encompassed my mother's sofa, displaying charming bargains of French lace. The subject abstracted their attention, and engrossed all their faculties. Lady Anne had just called to tell me a secret, that her mother had been saying all the morning to every body, how odd it was of Mr. Harrington to take notice whether a Jewess fainted or not. Lady Anne said, for her part, she had taken my part; she did not think it so odd of me, but she thought it odd and ridiculous of the Jewess to faint about Shylock. But the reason she called was, because she was dying with curiosity to know if I had heard any more about the Jewess. Was she an heiress or not? I must find out and tell: she had heard—but she could not stay now—going to ride in the park.

I had often observed that my mother's presentiments varied from day to day, according to the state of her nerves, or of some slight external circumstances. I was extremely anxious to prevail upon her to accompany me to see the Spanish pictures, and I therefore put off my visit for a day, when I found my mother had engaged herself to attend a party of fair encouragers of smugglers to a cheap French lace shop. I wrote an apology to Mr. Montenero, and Heaven knows how much it cost me. But my heroic patience was of no avail; I could not persuade my mother to accompany me. To all her former feelings, the pride of opinion and the jealousy of maternal affection were now added; she was piqued to prove herself in the right, and vexed to see that, right or wrong, I would not yield to her entreaties. I thought I acted solely from the dictates of pure reason and enlightened philanthropy.



CHAPTER IX.

Mowbray was curious, he said, to know how the Jewess would look by daylight, and he begged that he might accompany me to see the pictures. As I had told him that I had permission to take with me any of my friends, I could not refuse his request, though I must own that I would rather have gone without him. I was a little afraid of his raillery, and of the quickness of his observation. During our walk, however, he with address— with that most irresistible kind of address, which assumes an air of perfect frankness and cordiality, contrived to dissipate my feelings of embarrassment; and by the time we got to Mr. Montenero's door, I rejoiced that I had with me a friend and supporter.

"A handsome house—a splendid house, this," said Mowbray, looking up at the front, as we waited for admission. "If the inside agree with the out, faith, Harrington, your Jewish heiress will soon be heard of on 'Change, and at court too, you'll see. Make haste and secure your interest in her, I advise you."

To our great disappointment the servant told us that neither Mr. nor Miss Montenero was at home. But orders had been left with a young man of his to attend me and my company. At this moment I heard a well-known voice on the stairs, and Jacob, poor Jacob, appeared: joy flashed in his face at the sight of me; he flew down stairs, and across the hall, exclaiming, "It is— it is my own good Mr. Harrington!"

But he started back at the sight of Mowbray, and his whole countenance and manner changed. In an embarrassed voice, he began to explain why Mr. Montenero was not at home; that he had waited yesterday in hopes of seeing me at the appointed time, till my note of apology had arrived. I had not positively named any day for my visit, and Mr. Montenero had particular business that obliged him to go out this morning, but that he would be back in an hour: "Meantime, sir, as Mr. Montenero has desired," said Jacob, "I shall have the honour of showing the pictures to you and your friend."

It was not till he came to the words your friend, that Jacob recollected to bow to Lord Mowbray, and even then it was a stiff-necked bow. Mowbray, contrary to his usual assurance, looked a little embarrassed, yet spoke to Jacob as to an old acquaintance.

Jacob led us through several handsome, I might say splendid, apartments, to the picture-room.

"Good! Good!" whispered Mowbray, as we went along, till the moment we entered the picture-room; then making a sudden stop, and start of recollection, and pulling out his watch, he declared that he had till that minute forgotten an indispensable engagement—that he must come some other day to see these charming pictures. He begged that I would settle that for him—he was excessively sorry, but go he must—and off he went immediately.

The instant he was out of sight, Jacob seemed relieved from the disagreeable constraint under which he laboured, and his delight was manifest when he had me to himself. I conceived that Jacob still felt resentment against Mowbray, for the old quarrel at school. I was surprised at this, and in my own mind I blamed Jacob.

I have always found it the best way to speak openly, and to go to the bottom of mysteries and quarrels at once: so turning to Jacob, I asked him, whether, in right of our former acquaintance, I might speak to him with the freedom of one who heartily wished him well? The tears came into his eyes, and he could only say, "Speak, pray—and thank you, sir."

"Then, Jacob," said I, "I thought you could not for such a number of years bear malice for a schoolboy's offence; and yet your manner just now to Lord Mowbray—am I mistaken?—set me right, if I am—did I misinterpret your manner, Jacob?"

"No, sir," said he, looking up in my face, with his genuine expression of simplicity and openness; "no, sir, you do not mistake, nor misinterpret Jacob's manner; you know him too well, and his manner tells too plainly; you do not misinterpret the feeling, but you mistake the cause; and since you are so kind as to desire me to set you right, I will do so; but it is too long a story to tell while you are standing."

"Not at all—I am interested—go on."

"I should not," said Jacob, "be worthy of this interest—this regard, which it is joy to my very heart to see that you still feel for me—I should not be worthy in the least of it, if I could bear malice so many years for a schoolboy's offence.

"No, Mr. Harrington, the schoolboy young lord is forgotten. But long since that time, since this young lord has been grown into a man, and an officer—at Gibraltar—"

The recollection of whatever it was that happened at Gibraltar seemed to come at this instant so full upon Jacob's feelings, that he could not go on. He took up his story farther back. He reminded me of the time when we had parted at Cambridge; he was then preparing to go to Gibraltar, to assist in keeping a store there, for the brother and partner of his friend and benefactor, the London jeweller, Mr. Manessa, who had ventured a very considerable part of his fortune upon this speculation.

About that time many Jews had enriched themselves at Gibraltar, by keeping stores for the troops; and during the siege it was expected that it would be a profitable business. Mr. Manessa's store under Jacob's care went on prosperously till the day when Lord Mowbray arrived at Gibraltar with a regiment, of which, young as he was, he had been appointed lieutenant- colonel: "He recognized me the first time we met; I saw he was grown into a fine-looking officer; and indeed, Mr. Harrington, I saw him, without bearing the least malice for any little things that had passed, which I thought, as you say, were only schoolboy follies. But in a few minutes I found, to my sorrow, that he was not changed in mind towards me.

"His first words at meeting me in the public streets were, 'So! are you here, young Shylock? What brings you to Gibraltar? You are of the tribe of Gad, I think, thou Wandering Jew!'

"Lord Mowbray's servants heard, and caught their lord's witticism: the serjeants and soldiers repeated the colonel's words, and the nicknames spread through the regiment, and through the garrison; wherever I turned, I heard them echoed: poor Jacob was called young Shylock by some, and by others the Wandering Jew. It was a bitter jest, and soon became bitter earnest.

"The ignorant soldiers really believed me to be that Jew whom Christians most abominate. [Footnote: See Percy's Reliques of Ancient Poetry, for the ballad of the Wandering Jew.]

"The common people felt a superstitious dread of me: the mothers charged their children to keep out of my way; and if I met them in the streets, they ran away and hid themselves.

"You may think, sir, I was not happy. I grew melancholy; and my melancholy countenance, they said, was a proof that I was what I was said to be. I was ashamed to show my face. I lost all relish for my food, and began to pine away. My master noticed it, and he was sorry for me; he took my part, and spoke to the young lord, who thereupon grew angry, and high words passed; the young lord cursed at my master for an insolent Jew dog. As to me, his lordship swore that he knew me from a boy; that he had known enough of my tricks, and that of course for that I must bear him malice; and he vowed I should not bear it to him for nothing.

"From that day there was a party raised against us in the garrison. Lord Mowbray's soldiers of course took his part; and those who were most his favourites abused us the most. They never passed our store any day without taunt and insult; ever repeating the names their colonel had given me. It was hard to stand still and mute, and bear every thing, without reply. But I was determined not to bring my master into any quarrel, so I bore all. Presently the time came when there was great distress for provisions in the garrison; then the cry against the Jews was terrible: but I do not wish to say more of what followed than is necessary to my own story. You must have heard, sir, of the riot at Gibraltar, the night when the soldiery broke into the spirit stores?"

I had read accounts of some such thing in the newspapers of the day; I had heard of excesses committed by the soldiery, who were enraged against the Jew merchants; and I recollected some story [Footnote: Drinkwater's Siege of Gibraltar.] of the soldiers having roasted a pig before a Jew's door, with a fire made of the Jew's own cinnamon.

"That fire, sir," said Jacob, "was made before our door: it was kindled by a party of Lord Mowbray's soldiers, who, madly intoxicated with the spirits they had taken from the stores, came in the middle of that dreadful night to our house, and with horrible shouts, called upon my master to give up to them the Wandering Jew. My master refusing to do this, they burst open his house, pillaged, wasted, destroyed, and burnt all before our eyes! We lost every thing! I do not mean to say we—I, poor Jacob, had little to lose. It is not of that, though it was my all, it is not of that I speak— but my master! From a rich man in one hour he became a beggar! The fruit of all his labour lost—nothing left for his wife or children! I never can forget his face of despair by that fire-light. I think I see it now! He did not recover it, sir,—he died of a broken heart. He was the best and kindest of masters to me. And can you wonder now, Mr. Harrington, or do you blame Jacob, that he could not look upon that lord with a pleased eye, nor smile when he saw him again?"

I did not blame Jacob—I liked him for the warmth of his feeling for his master. When he was a little composed, however, I represented that his affection and pity might have raised his indignation too strongly, and might have made him impute to Lord Mowbray a greater share than he really had in their misfortunes. Lord Mowbray was a very young officer at that time, too young to be trusted with the command of men in such difficult circumstances. His lordship had been exceedingly blamable in giving, even in jest, the nicknames which had prejudiced his soldiers against an innocent individual; but I could not conceive that he had a serious design to injure; nor could he, as I observed, possibly foresee the fatal consequences that afterwards ensued. As to the excesses of his soldiers, for their want of discipline he was answerable; but Jacob should recollect the distress to which the soldiers had been previously reduced, and the general prejudice against those who were supposed to be the cause of the scarcity. Lord Mowbray might be mistaken like others; but as to his permitting their outrages, or directing them against individual Jews whom he disliked, I told Jacob it was impossible for me to believe it. Why did not the Jew merchant state his complaint to the general, who had, as Jacob allowed, punished all the soldiers who had been convicted of committing outrages? If Lord Mowbray had been complained of by Mr. Manessa, a court-martial would have been held; and if the charges had been substantiated, his title of colonel or lord would have availed him nothing —he would have been broke. Jacob said, his poor master, who was ruined and in despair, thought not of courts-martial—perhaps he had no legal proofs —perhaps he dreaded, with reason, the popular prejudice in the garrison, and dared not, being a Jew, appear against a Christian officer. How that might have been, Jacob said, he did not know—all he knew was that his master was very ill, and that he returned to England soon afterwards.

But still, argued I, if Lord Mowbray had not been brought to a court- martial, if it had been known among his brother officers that he had been guilty of such unofficer-like conduct, no British officer would have kept company with him. I was therefore convinced that Jacob must have been misinformed and deceived by exaggerated reports, and prejudiced by the warmth of his own feelings for the loss of his master. Jacob listened to me with a look of incredulity, yet as if with a wish to believe that I was right: he softened gradually—he struggled with his feelings.

"He knew," he said, "that it was our Christian precept to forgive our enemies—a very good precept: but was it easy? Did all Christians find it easy to put it in practice? And you, Mr. Harrington, you who can have no enemies, how can you judge?"

Jacob ended by promising, with a smile, that he would show me that a Jew could forgive.

Then, eager to discard the subject, he spoke of other things. I thanked him for his having introduced me to Mr. Israel Lyons:—he was delighted to hear of the advantage I had derived from this introduction at Cambridge, and of its having led to my acquaintance with Mr. Montenero.

He had been informed of my meeting Miss Montenero at the theatre: and he told me of his hopes and fears when he heard her say she had been assisted by a gentleman of the name of Harrington.

I did not venture, however, to speak much of Miss Montenero; but I expatiated on the pleasure I had in Mr. Montenero's conversation, and on the advantages I hoped to derive from cultivating his society.

Jacob, always more disposed to affection and gratitude than to suspicion or revenge, seemed happy to be relieved from the thoughts of Lord Mowbray, and he appeared inspired with fresh life and spirit when he talked of Mr. Montenero and his daughter. He mentioned their kindness to the widow and children of his deceased master, and of Mr. Montenero's goodness to the surviving brother and partner, the London jeweller, Mr. Manessa, Jacob's first benefactor. The Manessas had formerly been settled in Spain, at the time Mr. Montenero had lived there; and when he was in some difficulties with the Inquisition, they had in some way essentially served him, either in assisting his escape from that country, or in transmitting his property. Jacob was not acquainted with the particulars, but he knew that Mr. Montenero was most grateful for the obligation, whatever it had been; and now that he was rich and the Manessas in distress, he seemed to think he could never do enough for them. Jacob became first acquainted, as he told me, with Mr. Montenero in consequence of his connexion with this family. The widow had represented him as being a faithful friend, and the two children of his deceased master were fond of him. Mr. Montenero's attachment to the Manessas immediately made him take notice of Jacob. Jacob told me that he was to go to their house in the city, and to take charge of their affairs, as soon as they could be settled; and that Mr. Montenero had promised if possible to obtain for him a share in the firm of the surviving brother and partner. In the mean time Jacob was employed by Mr. Montenero in making out catalogues of his books and pictures, arranging his library and cabinet of medals, &c., to all which he was fully competent. Jacob said he rejoiced that these occupations would keep him a little while longer at Mr. Montenero's, as he should there have more frequent opportunities of seeing me, than he could hope for when he should be at the other end of the town. "Besides," added he, "I don't know how I shall ever be able to do without the kindness Mr. Montenero shows me; and as for Miss Montenero—!" Jacob's countenance expanded, and his voice was by turns softened into tenderness, and raised to enthusiasm, as he again spoke of the father and daughter: and when my mind was touched and warmed by his panegyric of Berenice—pronounced with the true eloquence of the heart—she, leaning on her father's arm, entered the room. The dignified simplicity, the graceful modesty of her appearance, so unlike the fashionable forwardness or the fashionable bashfulness, or any of the various airs of affectation, which I had seen in Lady Anne Mowbray and her class of young ladies, charmed me perhaps the more from contrast and from the novelty of the charm. There was a timid sensibility in her countenance when I spoke to her, which joined to the feminine reserve of her whole manner, the tone of her voice, and the propriety and elegance of the very little she said, pleased me inexpressibly. I wished only that she had said more. However, when her father spoke, it seemed to be almost the same as if she spoke herself—her sympathy with him appeared so strongly. He began by speaking of Jacob: he was glad to find that I was the Mr. Harrington whom Jacob had been so eager to see. It was evident that they knew all the good that grateful young man could tell of me; and the smile which I received from the father and daughter at this instant would have overpaid me for any obligations I could have conferred. Jacob retired, observing that he had taken up all the time with the history of his own private affairs, and that I had not yet seen any of the pictures. Mr. Montenero immediately led me to one of Murillo's, regretting that he had not the pleasure of showing it to my mother. I began to speak of her sorrow at not being able to venture out; I made some apology, but whatever it was, I am sure I did not, I could not, pronounce it well. Mr. Montenero bowed his head courteously, removed his eyes from my face, and glanced for one moment at Miss Montenero with a look of regret, quickly succeeded by an expression in his countenance of calm and proud independence. He was sorry, he said, that he could not have the honour of seeing Mrs. Harrington—the pleasure of presenting his daughter to her.