Page:George Eliot and Judaism.djvu/34

 led the prince of poets to become the advocate of the down-trodden race. And let us not forget the loving hand with which Walter Scott has drawn the character of Rebecca, the Jewess, in 'Ivanhoe.' Hebrew annals proudly record that shining foremost in the ranks of those who fought for Jewish emancipation was the king of English historians, Thomas Babington Macaulay. Dickens, even, who did not always wish well to the Jews, has graced his novel, 'Our Mutual Friend,' with the ideal picture of Riah. Is it necessary to speak of the glowing enthusiasm with which no less a man than Benjamin Disraeli has glorified the race in many of his works—the same Disraeli who, as Lord Beaconsfield and Prime Minister of the English Crown, shows himself, in honourable contrast with many men of commoner stamp, proud of the Jewish blood running in his veins? These facts tell