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been that every Jew was a Shylock. This prejudice he, by his own
unaided exertions, succeeded in destroying.

And it seems to me that his personal bearing was as tactful and
as dignified as were his written negotiations. Mr. Lucien Wolf seems
to apply to Menasseh the strange story told by Segredo, the Venetian
Ambassador, about a Jew at Antwerp, who was introduced to the
Protector, and who, as soon as he came into his presence, kissed and
pressed his hands, and commenced carefully to feel his body. Asked
why he comported himself in such foolish fashion, he answered that
he had come from Antwerp for the sole purpose to see whether His
Highness was made of flesh and blood, as his achievements would
seem to emanate from an altogether superhuman being.1 I am of
opinion that there is not a word in this strange narrative to warrant
that it was Menasseh who acted thus fatuously.

It has been further asserted that Menasseh was of a quarrel-
some disposition, and that he left Amsterdam in consequence of a
dispute with Saul Morteira, the Chacham of the older synagogue.
Contemporary writers hint only obscurely at any such dissensions.
Dr. Back2 conjectures that their differences were by no means of a
personal nature, but were due to a divergence of religious standpoints ;
that while Saul Morteira was of a rigid and uncompromising character,
as shown by the fact of his being one of the signatories of the excom-
munication hurled against Spinoza, Menasseh, who had himself been
one of the Marranos, was inclined to deal more indulgently with the
laches of those who had for so many years been obliged to conceal
their Judaic origin. Nor can I see any proof of his having quarrelled
with the small colony of crypto-Jews in London. I have already shown
that, conjured as he had been by his son to take his remains to Hol-
land, he could not permit their interment in Stepney. The circum-
stance that he himself was obliged to petition the Lord Protector for
pecuniary help, and that his widow was compelled to have recourse to
the same humiliating step with respect to Richard Cromwell, only
proves that the members of his community were guilty of base ingrati-

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1 “Révue des Etudes Juives,” vol vi., pp. 103, 104.

2 “Entsteliungs-Geschichte der portugiesichen Gemeinde in Amsterdam,”
pp. 11-16.