The Manitowoc tribune. [volume] (Manitowoc, Wis.) 1866-1878, 1878-01-17
WHO WAS SHYLOCK2
IL.

length. As we will be unable to COM
mand our time for several weeks to come,
we must accept the alternative Of pro-
ducing hastily written rejoinder now.
or leave the discussion as it stands for
a renewal of the controversy after it has
grown stale, and after the course of the
respective arguments have partially fad
ed from the minds of the ten or dozen
readers who have had the fortitude to
follow us up to the present, would be
imposing burden upon them and would
hardly be sustained upon grounds of
good taste. We cannot for a momert
think Of charging the argument we have
already made, though material is album
dant anu the temptation strong. We
cannot hope to exhaust the subject and
must now content ourselves with des-
uitory review of what has been said pro
and con. We cannot pause to method
ize or to embellish whether we write
we'll or i'll. it must answer our purpose
all the same.
We have, as attentively as we could,
read the last article by "K. ;" and after
considering it we see no reason to modi-
fly any of our conclusions previously ex-
pressed. There was one expression of
ours which seems to have been misap-
pretended. In giving the inferences
that could legitimately be drawn from
our citations of history we said of Ven
ice that her religious antipathies were
greatly ameliorated. if not entirely OBJ
liberated, by an enlarged intercourse
with mankind. The phrase or clause
''J not entirely o5IHerated," seems to
have been taken by our critic as posi-
tive assertion, on our part that such
antipathies were, at Venice, entirely
obliterated; and he is at great pains to
refute the proposition. We will not
stop to discuss whether that could fair
~ be taken as our meaning We simply
say we did not intend such proposition.
for surely we could not successfully
maintain it, were it alleged with refer
ence to the most enlightened nation of
the present time. That religious anti
pathies were greatly ameliorated, that
Venice did not mingle in the quarrels
between church and state, were sustain
ed by the citations from Holiana; and
with these propositions unassailed we
are content to rest that part of our case.
Neither was it any part of our purpose
to show that Venice was such republic
as answers to our present ideals. Our
critic does not deny any of The inference
es we drew from history except the one
that Venice was not a despotism. His
quotations of history do not place a
single brick in his own edifce, but seem
to have been produced for the purpose
of showing, not that we had fallen into
material, but into an incidental error.
But we shall see if he aeconplishes even
this purpose. His quotations from the
AD2. CYCLIC. constitute a terrible indict-
ment, it is true !; but against whom q
Venice 10 it ia Fndoubted history,
but not Venetian history, and does not
pretend to be. This citation is as value
less as an authority in this discussion
IS would be an attempt to prove the
social and political condition of free
negroes in Ohio, PREVIOUS to 1866, by a
truthful history of that race in Tennes.
see or Mississippi. Was Uncle Toms
Cabin an arraignment of the legal codes
of Massachusetts, 1t is not denied that
Venice ultimately degenerated, but its
deGadense had elthec not set in CT lad
| not much progressed CT shyloek's time.
| Next, Byron. It is always hazardous
to quote poet on an historical question
unless he be contemporaneous with the
fact to be proved. The Greek character
has, Tor several veuttries, been known
to be contemplate but see how we can
prove by Byron that modern Greek is
| hero =
THE mountains look on Marathon
And marstiicn looks Oh the sea
| And musing there an hour alone
L
| For standing on the Persian's grave,
1 could not deem myself a slave.''
For his facts, RQrQn had to 60 to the
historians. But his fancy was not anc
could not be fed by them alone.
We find no warrant for our critic
| statement that ''from the close of the
18th century until years after Shakes
| peare died no Jew was allowed to live
| in England" The expulsion of them
| in 1850 was more than three hundred
! years before the picture of this Venetian
| Court was drawn, and was an exertior
of mere arbitrary executive power ON
the part of Edward I. No legislation
in its support, SO far as we cen discover
was ever enacted, ana the expulsion
itself, grew out of an ignorant and bruta
opposition to the equity and purity OF
the English courts, which, as our critic
admits, even in that remote period
''were inclined to decide the Jews cap
able Of becoming freeholders and citi
zens." Fhe poet might well draw II.
| spiration from such judicial decisions
and if he did, his Venitian Court is moi
an unnatural result. Lastly Hallans
Our citations are decorously character
| lied as snppressions of truth and per
| versions aI history, So far a. they relate
| to Shylock's time. In order 10 be con
elusive and exact, our critic gives the
dates to which his quotations apply and
! they range from A. D. 697 to A. D. 1919
| But at what time between these dates
did Shylock live? At the time of hi:
law slIit with antonio, the lattec &c:
trading in Mexico but Mexico was frs
known TO Europeans in 1917, and thef
only to the Spaniards. It is hardly con
| cei7able that Venice could have haC
| much trade with that country for some
years after. So our critic comes within
| two hundred or two hundred and fifty