The sequel shows that Theodore is already married to Eliza. With Walker’s view, however, as to such a marriage, it is fruitful to compare the noble passage, on the same subject, with which Scott concludes the preface to the 1830 edition of Ivanhoe:
“The character of the fair Jewess found so much favour in the eyes of some fair readers, that the writer was censured, because, when arranging the fates of the characters of the drama, he had not assigned the hand of Wilfred to Rebecca, rather than to the less interesting Rowena. But, not to mention that the prejudices of the age rendered such an union almost impossible, the author may, in passing, observe that he thinks a character of a highly virtuous and lofty stamp is degraded rather than exalted by an attempt to reward virtue with temporal prosperity. Such is not the recompense which Providence has deemed worthy of suffering merit, and it is a dangerous and fatal doctrine to teach young persons, the most common readers of romance, that rectitude of conduct and of principle are either naturally allied with, or adequately rewarded by, the gratification of our passions, or attainment of our wishes. In a word, if a virtuous and self-denied character is dismissed with temporal wealth, greatness, rank, or the indulgence of such a rashly-formed or ill-assorted passion as that of Rebecca for Ivanhoe, the reader will be apt to say, Verily, virtue has had its reward. But a glance on the great picture of life will show, that the duties of self-denial, or the sacrifice of passion to principle, are seldom thus remunerated; and that the internal consciousness of their high-minded discharge of duty produces on their own reflections a more adequate recompense, in the form of that peace which the world cannot give or take away.”
From the artistic point of view, Walker’s novel has little merit. But it deserves to be better known from the historical point of view. It was another expression of the new attitude towards the Jew, which began to distinguish English letters in the latter part of the eighteenth century.
HORACE SMITH OF THE “REJECTED ADDRESSES”
Horace Smith and his brother James are famous as the joint authors of the most successful parody ever perpetrated. Drury Lane Theatre was re-opened on October 10, 1812, having been rebuilt after the fire which destroyed it some three years previously. The Committee advertised a competition for the best address to be spoken at the re-opening. It is easy to imagine what occurred. Masses of poems were sent in, and in despair all of them were rejected, and Byron was invited to write a prologue. It occurred to the Smiths to produce a series of parodies in the style of the poets of their day. They pretended that all, or most of them, had been candidates for the prize, and on the very day of the re-opening was published the volume of Rejected Addresses, which, conceived, executed, printed, and published within the space of six weeks, continues in the general judgment of critics the finest jeu d’esprit of its kind.
Interesting enough it would be to linger over the general aspects of this book. We must, nevertheless, resist the temptation to recall the marvellous imitations of that genial friend of ours, the author of Ivanhoe—or of that crabbed foe of Jewish emancipation, William Cobbett. Capital, too, is the skit on Thomas Moore. Eve and the apple come into that effusion as a matter of course. To Moore, Eve was as Charles’ head to Mr. Dick. One could compile a fair-sized volume out of the Irish sentimentalist’s allusions to the first pair in Paradise. Moore used the allusion seriously and humorously. In the Lives of the Angels, Adam is driven not from but into Paradise, for as Eve had to go, it would have been the reverse of bliss for him to be left behind in Eden. In another poem, Moore plays on the rabbinic suggestion that woman was made out of the man’s tail, and so, comments the poet, man ever after has followed the original plan, and leaves his wife behind him whenever he can. Again and again, Moore in his poems claims close acquaintance with rabbinic lore, of which, in fact, he knew only a few scraps from second-hand sources.
So we might continue to glean thoughts from Rejected Addresses. It needs gleaning, because the direct references to contemporary Jews are very few. This negative point is not without interest. A dramatic squib nowadays would almost certainly have its hits against Jews. The Smiths only once refer to a Jew—the unfortunate Lyon Levi or Levy, who committed suicide by flinging himself over the London Monument. He was a merchant of Haydon Square, and the newspapers of January 19, 1810, record the event as having occurred on the previous day. It is not surprising that the incident should be fresh in men’s minds when the Smiths wrote three years later. For after an interval of thirty-seven years, we again find an allusion to it in the Ingoldsby Legends. Levi was neither the first nor the last to precipitate himself from the summit of Wren’s column; eventually the top was encaged, to bar others from a similar temptation.
It was remarked above that the Rejected Addresses were absolutely free from anti-Jewish gibes. Impossible would it have been for the Smiths to have acted otherwise. Horace, in particular, was an ardent admirer of Richard Cumberland, writer of The Jew, which at the end of the eighteenth century did so much to rehabilitate the Jews in English good-will. We can see Horace Smith’s tendency, negatively, in one of his other poems. In the “Culprit and the Judge,” he deals with a case of coin-clipping in medieval France. As with all of Horace’s verses, it is full of good points. The judge denounced as profanation the crime of filing the similitude of good King Pepin, and ordered the offender to be punished with decapitation. This is the clever reply of the culprit:
“As to offending powers divine,”
The culprit cried,—“be nothing said:
Yours is a deeper guilt than mine.
I took a portion from the head
Of the King’s image; you, oh fearful odds!
Strike the whole head at once from God’s!”
One wonders whether the author had ever heard of the closely parallel idea of the ancient Rabbi, who denounced the murderer as one who diminished the divine image in which man had been made. Observe, however, how Horace Smith refrains from making cheap capital out of the joke by describing the offender as a Jew. Smith knew the truth too well. He knew that, though some Jews were given to coin-clipping, there were many offenders who were not Jews. It is absolutely characteristic of Horace Smith that he should have refrained from libelling all Jews for the sins of some.