The frequent allusions to the different Gesta Romanorum may have excited a wish to be more familiarly acquainted with that singular and interesting work; but as the discussion of the subject in this place would have augmented the tediousness of the note, it has been thought better to make the attempt in a separate dissertation, where it is hoped that any obscurity in the preceding remarks will be removed.
It is much to be lamented that this exquisitely beautiful drama can neither be read nor performed, without exciting in every humane and liberal mind an abhorrence of its professed design to vilify an ancient and respectable, but persecuted, nation. It should be remembered that contempt and intolerance must naturally excite hatred; that to provoke revenge is, in fact, to become responsible for the crimes it may occasion; that to those who would degrade and oppress us, it is but justice to oppose craft; and that nature has supplied even the brute creation with the means of resisting persecution. It will be readily conceded that there happily exist in the present moment but few remains of the illiberal prejudices complained of, the asperity of which has been greatly mitigated by the laudable and successful exertions of a modern dramatic writer, to whom the Jewish people are under the highest obligations.
FOOTNOTES:
[12] It may be worth remarking that the historian Stowe has made great use of this curious and valuable Life of Wolsey, without naming the author. It has been several times printed, but the manuscript copies have greatly the advantage in fullness and accuracy.
[13] If the horrible incident of the cutting off the flesh had not occurred in the several Oriental stories that have been mentioned, one should have supposed that it had been suggested by that atrocious decemviral law of the Twelve Tables, which empowered a creditor to mangle the living body of his debtor without fear of punishment for cutting more or less than the magistrate allowed. For the honour of the Roman law, it is not recorded that the above inhuman decree was ever enforced.
[AS YOU LIKE IT.]
ACT I.
Scene 2. Page 16.