depress or to raise the market.
"One cause of his success was the secrecy with which he shrouded all his transactions, and the tortuous policy with which he misled those the most who watched him the keenest. If he possessed news calculated to make the funds rise, he would commission the broker who acted on his behalf to sell half a million. The shoal of men who usually follow the movements of others sold with him. The news soon passed through Capel Court that Rothschild was bearing the market, and the funds fell. Men looked doubtingly at one another; a general panic spread; bad news was looked for; and these united agencies sank the price two or three per cent. This was the result expected; and other brokers, not usually employed by him, bought all they could at the reduced rate. By the time this was accomplished, the good news had arrived; the pressure ceased; the funds rose instantly; and Mr Rothschild reaped his reward."
The morality of the ring has sometimes been called in question; but we freely confess, that we would rather trust ourselves implicitly to the tender mercies of the veriest leg that ever bartered horse-flesh, than to those of such a man as "the first baron of Jewry" – a title which was given him by a foreign potentate, to the profanation of a noble Christian order.
Such were the doings of Rothschild: let us now see him in person. "He was a mark for the satirists of the day. His huge and somewhat slovenly appearance; the lounging attitude he assumed, as he leaned against his pillar in the Royal Exchange; his rough and rugged speech; his foreign accent and idiom, made caricature mark him as its own; while even caricature lost all power over a subject which defied its utmost skill. His person was made an object of ridicule; but his form and features were from God. His mind and manners were fashioned by circumstances; his acts alone were public property, and by these we have a right to judge him. No great benevolence lit up his path; no great charity is related of him. The press, ever ready to chronicle liberal deeds, was almost silent upon the point; and the fine feeling which marked the path of an Abraham Goldsmid, and which brightens the career of many of the same creed, is unrecorded by the power which alone could give it publicity."
Mr Disraeli, in some of his clever novels, has drawn the portrait of a great Jew financier in colours at once brilliant and pleasing. His Sidonia, whilst deeply engaged in money-making pursuits, is represented as a man of boundless accomplishment, expanded intellect, varied information, and princely generosity. He is the very Paladin of the Exchange – a compound of Orlando and Sir Moses Montefiore. The extravagance of the conception does not prevent us from admiring the consummate skill of the author, in adapting his materials so as to elevate our ideas and estimate of the Hebrew idiosyncrasy. Sidonia is as much at home in the palace as in the counting-room; his great wealth ceases to be the prominent feature, and becomes the mere accessory of the polished and intellectual man; avarice never for one moment is permitted to appear; on the contrary, the prodigality of the munificent Hebrew is something more than Oriental. We may refuse to believe in the reality of such a character, which implies a combination of the most antagonistic pursuits, and a union of mental attributes which could not possibly coexist; but, this difficulty once surmounted, we cannot challenge the right of so eminently gifted an individual to take his place among the true nobility of the earth. We fear, however, that such a phœnix of Palestine has no existence, save on paper. Certain it is, that Rothschild was not the man; and yet Rothschild, in his day, commanded as much homage as the novelist has claimed for Sidonia. Great is the power of money! Princes feasted with him; ambassadors attended him to the tomb; and yet, for all we can learn, he was not equal, in moral worth, to the meanest pauper in the workhouse. He would at times give a guinea to a street beggar, not for the object of relieving his wants, but to enjoy the joke of seeing him run away, under the apprehension that the donor had been mistaken in the coin! His wealth was gained by chicanery, and augmented by systematic deceit; and yet attend to the words of the chronicler: —
"Peers and princes of the blood sat at his table; clergymen and laymen bowed before him; and they who preached loudest against mammon, bent lowest before the mammon-worshipper. Gorgeous plate, fine furniture, an establishment such as many a noble of Norman descent would envy, graced his entertainments. Without social refinement, with manners which, offensive in the million, were but brusque in the millionnaire; he collected around him the fastidious members of the most fastidious aristocracy in the world. He saw the representatives of all the states in Europe proud of his friendship. By the democratic envoy of the New World, by the ambassador of the imperial Russ, was his hospitality alike accepted; while the man who warred with slavery in all its forms and phases, was himself slave to the golden reputation of the Hebrew. The language which Mr Rothschild could use when his anger overbalanced his discretion, was a license allowed to his wealth; and he who, when placed in a position which almost compelled him to subscribe to a pressing charity, could exclaim, "Here, write a cheque – I have made one – fool of myself!" was courted and caressed by the clergy, was fêted and followed by the peer, was treated as an equal by the first minister of the crown, and more than worshipped by those whose names stood foremost on the roll of a commercial aristocracy. His mode of dictating letters was characteristic of a mind entirely absorbed in money-making; and his ravings, when he found a bill unexpectedly protested, were translated into mercantile language before they were fit to meet a correspondent's eye. It is painful to write thus depreciatingly of a man who possessed so large a development of brain; but the golden gods of England have many idolaters, and the voice of truth rarely penetrates the private room of the English merchant."
Poor as Lazarus may be, let him not envy the position of Dives. Even in this world, riches cannot purchase happiness. Any pecuniary loss was enough to drive Rothschild to despair. His existence was further embittered by the dread of assassination – no uncommon symptom, when the mind is rarely at ease; and those who knew him best, said that he was often troubled with such thoughts, and that they haunted him at moments when he would willingly have forgotten them. "Happy!" he said, in reply to the compliment of a guest – "me happy! what! happy when, just as you are going to dine, you have a letter placed in your hands, saying, 'If you do not send me £500, I will blow your brains out?' Happy! – me happy!" We are not compassionate enough to wish that it had been otherwise. Such thoughts are the foreshadowing of the end of those who have prospered beyond their deserts, and have failed in making even that negative expiation, which conscience sometimes extorts from the apprehensions of unscrupulous men.
And here we shall close our remarks. There is still a fertile field before us, on which we might be tempted to enter; but that discussion would bring us too near our own days, and involve the resumption of topics which have already been handled in Maga. The time doubtless will come, when, after the cessation of some new fit of speculation, and when men are cursing their folly, and attempting by late industry to repair their shattered fortunes, some historian like Mr Francis shall take up the pen, and chronicle our weakness, as that of our fathers is already chronicled. In the meantime, it would be well for all of us seriously to lay to heart the lesson which may be drawn from this interesting record. Speculation, carried beyond due bounds, is neither more nor less than a repetition of the old game of Beggar my Neighbour, under another form. To fair and legitimate enterprise we owe much of our modern improvement; which has been further rendered necessary by the pressure which has increased, and is increasing upon us. To unfair and illegitimate enterprise, undertaken for the sole purpose of immediate gain, we owe nothing save periods of great misery and desolation. The game of Beggar my Neighbour may be played privately or publicly. Some of us have taken a hand in it privately, with what results we shall keep to ourselves. For several years back, our statesmen have played the public game, and played it well. They have succeeded in inflicting successively a blow upon each great interest of the country, by dealing with each separately, and by alienating the sympathy of the others. The game is now pretty well played out; and when we come to reckon our counters, it is evident from the result, that not one of the parties so dealt with has been a winner! Who, then, are the gainers? We think the answer is plain. They are the Capitalist and the Foreigner.
MY PENINSULAR MEDAL
BY AN OLD PENINSULAR
PART II
CHAPTER IV
