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 to weaken it. It can be pointed out that it is in England pre-eminently that the Jews have the courage to confess their nationality, and to bring it into bold relief. Nor have they cause, nowadays, to fear vexatious interference with their rights on that account: the English are too mature in wisdom not to allow true citizens their harmless hopes; knowing as they do from their own experience that men can give all due allegiance to a foreign State without ceasing to belong to their own people. English literature, too, is by no means poor in authors tolerant and well-disposed towards the Jews. It is now a matter of almost perfect scientific certainty that Shakespeare was far from drawing a mere caricature in Shylock; and the "Merchant of Venice," rightly regarded, must be taken as giving most powerful evidence of the independence of judgment and deep sense of justice which