Read Ebook: Tales and Novels — Volume 09 by Edgeworth Maria

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Ebook has 2295 lines and 202717 words, and 46 pages

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."

"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."

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.

"A dog, no! nor I; but this is a Jew."

"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?"

"On yours, Mowbray, if you won't be a tyrant."

"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?"

"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."

"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.

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--"

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!

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.

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."

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.

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 , 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.

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

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.

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:

'This is the Jew That Shakspeare drew!'

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

"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?"

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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