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By the Rev. Abraham De Sola
“It is a
difficult thing to restore an eminent art that is lost, to create
authority for a thing that is new, to throw light upon a thing in
darkness, to beget faith in things that are doubtful, and favour
to things that are loathed.”—Phin. ad Vesp. |
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| 1. Among the almost infinite
number and variety of inquiries that have engaged the human mind,
among the numberless speculations in which man has ever delighted
to wander, there is, perhaps, not one which more completely
includes all the “difficult things”
enumerated above, not one which is attended with less certainty,
and less satisfaction, than that which has for its object, the
determination of obscure or controverted points in history. To
form any definite opinion on these points, with meagre and
insufficient data, is morally impossible; and to arrive at any
valid conclusion with doubtful and disputed premises, is logically
impossible. He, therefore, who essays to remove the difficulties
and obscurities attendant upon such an inquiry, believing that he
can “create authority to a thing that is new,” must needs produce
that which has been the cause of his conviction,
<<209>>so that the
general voice may decide, whether the reasons he puts forth be
sufficiently weighty and authoritative to make certain, the things
that have been hitherto doubtful. |
Introduction |
| 2. This task, and its
attendant difficult things, devolve more particularly upon him,
who seeks to determine, what has hitherto been regarded with so
much doubt, and uncertainty—the
period of the first settlement of Jews in England. |
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| He finds the path he has to pursue,
entirely enveloped in darkness, save where an occasional, but
insufficient light, has been carelessly and uninterestedly shed.
He beholds, it is true, some few friendly hands held out to assist
him; but them these are few indeed. He discovers that those who
have trodden the path before him, have sought rather than afforded
assistance, and have borrowed light from one great and common
source* rather than afforded it themselves. With few then to aid
him in his endeavours to “throw light
upon the thing in darkness,” a work so easily and efficiently
performed when the lights lent, however faint and obscure singly,
when manifold are most powerful and bright; when the efforts to
level besetting mountains, however difficult and impotent
individually, when combined, prove most easy and irresistible, the
inquirer must proceed to his task. |
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| 3. We have said that those who
have treated on the antiquities of the Jews in England, have
followed, rather than led, repeated, rather than originated, and
this will be clear from a reference to the pages of such as would
naturally be considered authorities on this subject. In assigning
a period to the first settlement of Jews in Britain, Jost,†
Millman,‡ and Blunt,§ adopt confessedly or otherwise, the opinion
of the talented and celebrated Tovey; and this is not at all
surprising. |
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| The labours, attainments, and
unwearying perseverance of this learned man, doubtlessly
<<210>>establish
him as an authority of no mean order, and deservedly claim our
most respectful consideration. But while we join in assigning that
mode of praise and respect to which he is so eminently entitled,
we cannot but remark that he has committed, what we deem, a great
oversight, in not inquiring what was the opinion of the Jews
themselves upon this matter, and stating the result of such
inquiries. We cannot impute this neglect to any disrespect on
his part for Jewish learning, or contempt for Jewish opinion;
because, when in the course of his work he was in doubt whether he
should place the re-establishment of the Jews in England under the
Protectorate of Cromwell, or the reign of Charles II., he
expresses the desire he had felt to know what
“the Jews themselves had to say on
the subject.”* |
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| This desire was
sufficiently great to induce him to apply for information to the
Rev. Haham Nietto, then ecclesiastical head of the Spanish and
Portuguese Jewish community in London. The learned Rabbi, after
searching the Synagogue and national records, acquainted him with
the result of his inquiries, and this result is now contained in
the Anglia Judaica, as the adopted opinion of the author of that
work. Let us rather suppose then, what was most likely to be the
true cause of this omission, that such a course did not then
present itself to him, and that if it had, he would most readily
have adopted it. Notwithstanding, it may be considered strange
that he should have overlooked here a source of information, from
which he was afterwards so anxious to draw; yet we must remind our
readers of Columbus and the egg, and that
“the thing which is perfectly obvious
to any man of common sense, so soon as it is mentioned, may,
nevertheless, fail to occur even to men of considerable
ingenuity.Ӡ This we may perhaps
<<211>>exemplify in the following
pages, by seeking that aid which we fain would have seen invoked
by him; and the result of this proceeding will show that we have
considered ourselves justified in assigning a much earlier period
for the first settlement of Jews in England, than either he or
those who have followed him have done. |
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(To be continued) |
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