"As soon as King Charles was murther'd, the Jews petitioned the Council of War to endeavour a repeal of that act of parliament which had been made against them; promising, in return, to make them a present of five hundred thousand pounds: Provided that they could likewise procure the cathedral of St. Paul to be procured them for a synagogue, and the Bodleian Library at Oxford to begin their traffic with, which piece of service it seems was undertaken by those honest men, at the solicitation of Hugh Peters and Henry Masters, whom the Jews employed as their brokers but without any success."
Afterwards, however, the Jews of Holland sent a deputation, consisting of the famous Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel, and several wealthy Jewish merchants. When Cromwell came into full power their hopes were raised, for he was known to be favourable to their re-admission; but after much discussion, the popular feeling, and the voices of many influential preachers, were found to be so much against the measure that nothing was eventually done; and Charles II. must be regarded as the restorer of the Jews to this country. Tovey says that the Rabbi Netto, "the governor of the synagogue" in his time, had searched the Jewish registers at his request, and had found that, so late as 1663, there were but twelve Jews in England. It seems that while these negotiations were in hand, all sorts of absurd and idle rumours were afloat. Among these I incline to reckon the alleged proposal to purchase St. Paul's for a synagogue. It seems to be sufficiently refuted by the intrinsic absurdity of the thing. But beyond this we have the express denial, made on the spot and at the time, by Rabbi Manasseh ben Israel himself. On turning to his Vindiciæ Judæorum, written in this country, I find that after recapitulating various calumnies on his people—such as their sacrificing Christian children, etc.—he thus goes on:—
"'Love and hatred,' says Plutarch, 'corrupt the truth of every thing;' as experience sufficiently declares it, when we see that which comes to pass, that one and the same thing, in one and the same city, at one and the same time, is related in different manners. I myself, in my own negociation here, have found it so. For it hath been rumoured abroad, that our nation had purchased St. Paul's church, for to make it their synagogue, notwithstanding it was a temple formerly consecrated to Diana. And many other things have been reported of us that never entered the thought of our nation."
J.K.
[Sneck-up or Snick-up.]—Surely this means nothing more or less than what we should write Hiccup! or Hiccough! so, at least, I have always supposed; misled, perhaps, by Sir Toby's surname, and his parenthetical imprecation on "pickle herring". I do not pretend to be a critic of Shakspeare, and must confess that I do not possess a copy of the "Twelfth Night" but after seeing your correspondent R.R.'s letter (Vol. i., p. 467.), I resolved to write you a note. First, however, I called on a neighbour to get a look at the text, and he brought me down Theobald's edition of 1773, where it stands,—
"Sir To. We did keep time, Sir, in our catches.
Sneck up!" [Hiccoughs.
The effort necessary to pronounce the word "catches" might help to produce a catch of another sort in the stomach of a gentleman oppressed with drink and pickle herring; and it seems likely that some such idea was in the author's mind.
DAVUS.