[148] Shylock, it should be noted, whether a fair picture or not, of the Jews of Shakspeare’s time, is at least a genuine character—a real man. But the Barabbas of Marlowe’s _Jew of Malta_ and the Fagin of Dickens’s _Oliver Twist_ are simply coarse and gross caricatures, pandering to the vulgar taste of the day. [149] Palestine is a land ‘rich in its soil, boundless in its capabilities of production, glowing in the sunshine of an almost perpetual summer—this enchanting land was indeed (what the patriarch had described it) a field which the Lord had blessed.... But Mohammedan sloth and despotism have converted it into a waste rock and desert, with the exception of some few spots, which remain to attest the veracity of the accounts formerly given of it.’—Bannister’s _Holy Land_, pp. 37, 38. [150] Every reader will remember the noble passage in _Ivanhoe_, where Bois Guilbert taunts Rebecca with the degraded character of her countrymen, and she answers him by appealing to their former greatness. ‘Thou hast spoken of the Jew,’ she says, ‘as the persecution of such as thou has made him. Read the ancient history of the people of God, and tell me if those by whom Jehovah wrought such marvels among the nations were then a people of misers and usurers!’—_Ivanhoe_, chap. xvi. CHAPTER XXVI. A.D. 1400-1500. THE JEWS IN SPAIN. The scenes of violence and bloodshed which had been provoked by the fanatic zeal of the Archdeacon of Ecija were a foretaste of the fearful tragedy which was to take place in Spain in the ensuing century. But it can hardly be said that he occasioned it. The evil had long been gathering, and must have broken out, sooner or later, in Spain. He may have precipitated it, but nothing more. The main cause of the mischief was, beyond doubt, the improvidence and want of steady industry among the people. In all business transactions they were continually applying to the Jews, unable, as it seemed, to buy or sell, to sow or reap, without resorting to them. The result was the pauperizing of all classes of the community except the Jews, who continued to heap up enormous wealth.[151] The people would not believe that this was the result of their own improvidence, and that there could be no remedy for it except in persistent industry and prudence. They made repeated complaints of having been overreached and defrauded; but, when the cases were inquired into in a court of law, it was found that nothing could be proved against the alleged offenders. This only fomented the growing discontent. To all thoughtful observers it was evident that a popular convulsion could not be far distant.