sidonia was descended from a very ancient and noble family of arragon, that, in the course of ages, had given to the state many distinguished citizens. in the priesthood its members had been peculiarly eminent. besides several prelates, they counted among their number an archbishop of toledo; and a sidonia, in a season of great danger and difficulty, had exercised for a series of years the paramount office of grand inquisitor.
yet, strange as it may sound, it is nevertheless a fact, of which there is no lack of evidence, that this illustrious family during all this period, in common with two-thirds of the arragonese nobility, secretly adhered to the ancient faith and ceremonies of their fathers; a belief in the unity of the god of sinai, and the rights and observances of the laws of moses.
whence came those mosaic arabs whose passages across the strait from africa to europe long preceded the invasion of the mohammedan arabs, it is now impossible to ascertain. their traditions tell us that from time immemorial they had sojourned in africa; and it is not improbable that they may have been the descendants of some of the earlier dispersions; like those hebrew colonies that we find in china, and who probably emigrated from persia in the days of the great monarchies. whatever may have been their origin in africa, their fortunes in southern europe are not difficult to trace, though the annals of no race in any age can detail a history of such strange vicissitudes, or one rife with more touching and romantic incident. their unexampled prosperity in the spanish peninsula, and especially in the south, where they had become the principal cultivators of the soil, excited the jealousy of the goths; and the councils of toledo during the sixth and seventh centuries attempted, by a series of decrees worthy of the barbarians who promulgated them, to root the jewish arabs out of the land. there is no doubt the council of toledo led, as directly as the lust of roderick, to the invasion of spain by the moslemin arabs. the jewish population, suffering under the most sanguinary and atrocious persecution, looked to their sympathising brethren of the crescent, whose camps already gleamed on the opposite shore. the overthrow of the gothic kingdoms was as much achieved by the superior information which the saracens received from their suffering kinsmen, as by the resistless valour of the desert. the saracen kingdoms were established. that fair and unrivalled civilisation arose which preserved for europe arts and letters when christendom was plunged in darkness. the children of ishmael rewarded the children of israel with equal rights and privileges with themselves. during these halcyon centuries, it is difficult to distinguish the follower of moses from the votary of mahomet. both alike built palaces, gardens, and fountains; filled equally the highest offices of the state, competed in an extensive and enlightened commerce, and rivalled each other in renowned universities.
even after the fall of the principal moorish kingdoms, the jews of spain were still treated by the conquering goths with tenderness and consideration. their numbers, their wealth, the fact that, in arragon especially, they were the proprietors of the soil, and surrounded by warlike and devoted followers, secured for them an usage which, for a considerable period, made them little sensible of the change of dynasties and religions. but the tempest gradually gathered. as the goths grew stronger, persecution became more bold. where the jewish population was scanty they were deprived of their privileges, or obliged to conform under the title of ‘nuevos christianos.’ at length the union of the two crowns under ferdinand and isabella, and the fall of the last moorish kingdom, brought the crisis of their fate both to the new christian and the nonconforming hebrew. the inquisition appeared, the institution that had exterminated the albigenses and had desolated languedoc, and which, it should ever be remembered, was established in the spanish kingdoms against the protests of the cortes and amid the terror of the populace. the dominicans opened their first tribunal at seville, and it is curious that the first individuals they summoned before them were the duke of medina sidonia, the marquess of cadiz, and the count of arcos; three of the most considerable personages in spain. how many were burned alive at seville during the first year, how many imprisoned for life, what countless thousands were visited with severe though lighter punishments, need not be recorded here. in nothing was the holy office more happy than in multiform and subtle means by which they tested the sincerity of the new christians.
at length the inquisition was to be extended to arragon. the high-spirited nobles of that kingdom knew that its institution was for them a matter of life or death. the cortes of arragon appealed to the king and to the pope; they organised an extensive conspiracy; the chief inquisitor was assassinated in the cathedral of saragossa. alas! it was fated that in this, one of the many, and continual, and continuing struggles between the rival organisations of the north and the south, the children of the sun should fall. the fagot and the san benito were the doom of the nobles of arragon. those who were convicted of secret judaism, and this scarcely three centuries ago, were dragged to the stake; the sons of the noblest houses, in whose veins the hebrew taint could be traced, had to walk in solemn procession, singing psalms, and confessing their faith in the religion of the fell torquemada.
this triumph in arragon, the almost simultaneous fall of the last moorish kingdom, raised the hopes of the pure christians to the highest pitch. having purged the new christians, they next turned their attention to the old hebrews. ferdinand was resolved that the delicious air of spain should be breathed no longer by any one who did not profess the catholic faith. baptism or exile was the alternative. more than six hundred thousand individuals, some authorities greatly increase the amount, the most industrious, the most intelligent, and the most enlightened of spanish subjects, would not desert the religion of their fathers. for this they gave up the delightful land wherein they had lived for centuries, the beautiful cities they had raised, the universities from which christendom drew for ages its most precious lore, the tombs of their ancestors, the temples where they had worshipped the god for whom they had made this sacrifice. they had but four months to prepare for eternal exile, after a residence of as many centuries; during which brief period forced sales and glutted markets virtually confiscated their property. it is a calamity that the scattered nation still ranks with the desolations of nebuchadnezzar and of titus. who after this should say the jews are by nature a sordid people? but the spanish goth, then so cruel and so haughty, where is he? a despised suppliant to the very race which he banished, for some miserable portion of the treasure which their habits of industry have again accumulated. where is that tribunal that summoned medina sidonia and cadiz to its dark inquisition? where is spain? its fall, its unparalleled and its irremediable fall, is mainly to be attributed to the expulsion of that large portion of its subjects, the most industrious and intelligent, who traced their origin to the mosaic and mohammedan arabs.
the sidonias of arragon were nuevos christianos. some of them, no doubt, were burned alive at the end of the fifteenth century, under the system of torquemada; many of them, doubtless, wore the san benito; but they kept their titles and estates, and in time reached those great offices to which we have referred.
during the long disorders of the peninsular war, when so many openings were offered to talent, and so many opportunities seized by the adventurous, a cadet of a younger branch of this family made a large fortune by military contracts, and supplying the commissariat of the different armies. at the peace, prescient of the great financial future of europe, confident in the fertility of his own genius, in his original views of fiscal subjects, and his knowledge of national resources, this sidonia, feeling that madrid, or even cadiz, could never be a base on which the monetary transactions of the world could be regulated, resolved to emigrate to england, with which he had, in the course of years, formed considerable commercial connections. he arrived here after the peace of paris, with his large capital. he staked all he was worth on the waterloo loan; and the event made him one of the greatest capitalists in europe.
no sooner was sidonia established in england than he professed judaism; which torquemada flattered himself, with the fagot and the san benito, he had drained out of the veins of his family more than three centuries ago. he sent over, also, for several of his brothers, who were as good catholics in spain as ferdinand and isabella could have possibly desired, but who made an offering in the synagogue, in gratitude for their safe voyage, on their arrival in england.
sidonia had foreseen in spain that, after the exhaustion of a war of twenty-five years, europe must require capital to carry on peace. he reaped the due reward of his sagacity. europe did require money, and sidonia was ready to lend it to europe. france wanted some; austria more; prussia a little; russia a few millions. sidonia could furnish them all. the only country which he avoided was spain; he was too well acquainted with its resources. nothing, too, would ever tempt him to lend anything to the revolted colonies of spain. prudence saved him from being a creditor of the mother-country; his spanish pride recoiled from the rebellion of her children.
it is not difficult to conceive that, after having pursued the career we have intimated for about ten years, sidonia had become one of the most considerable personages in europe. he had established a brother, or a near relative, in whom he could confide, in most of the principal capitals. he was lord and master of the money-market of the world, and of course virtually lord and master of everything else. he literally held the revenues of southern italy in pawn; and monarchs and ministers of all countries courted his advice and were guided by his suggestions. he was still in the vigour of life, and was not a mere money-making machine. he had a general intelligence equal to his position, and looked forward to the period when some relaxation from his vast enterprises and exertions might enable him to direct his energies to great objects of public benefit. but in the height of his vast prosperity he suddenly died, leaving only one child, a youth still of tender years, and heir to the greatest fortune in europe, so great, indeed, that it could only be calculated by millions.
shut out from universities and schools, those universities and schools which were indebted for their first knowledge of ancient philosophy to the learning and enterprise of his ancestors, the young sidonia was fortunate in the tutor whom his father had procured for him, and who devoted to his charge all the resources of his trained intellect and vast and varied erudition. a jesuit before the revolution; since then an exiled liberal leader; now a member of the spanish cortes; rebello was always a jew. he found in his pupil that precocity of intellectual development which is characteristic of the arabian organisation. the young sidonia penetrated the highest mysteries of mathematics with a facility almost instinctive; while a memory, which never had any twilight hours, but always reflected a noontide clearness, seemed to magnify his acquisitions of ancient learning by the promptness with which they could be reproduced and applied.
the circumstances of his position, too, had early contributed to give him an unusual command over the modern languages. an englishman, and taught from his cradle to be proud of being an englishman, he first evinced in speaking his native language those remarkable powers of expression, and that clear and happy elocution, which ever afterwards distinguished him. but the son of a spaniard, the sonorous syllables of that noble tongue constantly resounded in his ear; while the foreign guests who thronged his father’s mansion habituated him from an early period of life to the tones of languages that were not long strange to him. when he was nineteen, sidonia, who had then resided some time with his uncle at naples, and had made a long visit to another of his father’s relatives at frankfort, possessed a complete mastery over the principal european languages.
at seventeen he had parted with rebello, who returned to spain, and sidonia, under the control of his guardians, commenced his travels. he resided, as we have mentioned, some time in germany, and then, having visited italy, settled at naples, at which city it may be said he made his entrance into life. with an interesting person, and highly accomplished, he availed himself of the gracious attentions of a court of which he was principal creditor; and which, treating him as a distinguished english traveller, were enabled perhaps to show him some favours that the manners of the country might not have permitted them to accord to his neapolitan relatives. sidonia thus obtained at an early age that experience of refined and luxurious society, which is a necessary part of a finished education. it gives the last polish to the manners; it teaches us something of the power of the passions, early developed in the hot-bed of self-indulgence; it instils into us that indefinable tact seldom obtained in later life, which prevents us from saying the wrong thing, and often impels us to do the right.
between paris and naples sidonia passed two years, spent apparently in the dissipation which was perhaps inseparable from his time of life. he was admired by women, to whom he was magnificent, idolised by artists whom he patronised, received in all circles with great distinction, and appreciated for his intellect by the very few to whom he at all opened himself. for, though affable and gracious, it was impossible to penetrate him. though unreserved in his manner, his frankness was strictly limited to the surface. he observed everything, thought ever, but avoided serious discussion. if you pressed him for an opinion, he took refuge in raillery, or threw out some grave paradox with which it was not easy to cope.
the moment he came of age, sidonia having previously, at a great family congress held at naples, made arrangements with the heads of the houses that bore his name respecting the disposition and management of his vast fortune, quitted europe.
sidonia was absent from his connections for five years, during which period he never communicated with them. they were aware of his existence only by the orders which he drew on them for payment, and which arrived from all quarters of the globe. it would appear from these documents that he had dwelt a considerable time in the mediterranean regions; penetrated nilotic africa to sennaar and abyssinia; traversed the asiatic continent to tartary, whence he had visited hindostan, and the isles of that indian sea which are so little known. afterwards he was heard of at valparaiso, the brazils, and lima. he evidently remained some time at mexico, which he quitted for the united states. one morning, without notice, he arrived in london.
sidonia had exhausted all the sources of human knowledge; he was master of the learning of every nation, of all tongues dead or living, of every literature, western and oriental. he had pursued the speculations of science to their last term, and had himself illustrated them by observation and experiment. he had lived in all orders of society, had viewed every combination of nature and of art, and had observed man under every phasis of civilisation. he had even studied him in the wilderness. the influence of creeds and laws, manners, customs, traditions, in all their diversities, had been subjected to his personal scrutiny.
he brought to the study of this vast aggregate of knowledge a penetrative intellect that, matured by long meditation, and assisted by that absolute freedom from prejudice, which, was the compensatory possession of a man without a country, permitted sidonia to fathom, as it were by intuition, the depth of questions apparently the most difficult and profound. he possessed the rare faculty of communicating with precision ideas the most abstruse, and in general a power of expression which arrests and satisfies attention.
with all this knowledge, which no one knew more to prize, with boundless wealth, and with an athletic frame, which sickness had never tried, and which had avoided excess, sidonia nevertheless looked upon life with a glance rather of curiosity than content. his religion walled him out from the pursuits of a citizen; his riches deprived him of the stimulating anxieties of a man. he perceived himself a lone being, alike without cares and without duties.
to a man in his position there might yet seem one unfailing source of felicity and joy; independent of creed, independent of country, independent even of character. he might have discovered that perpetual spring of happiness in the sensibility of the heart. but this was a sealed fountain to sidonia. in his organisation there was a peculiarity, perhaps a great deficiency. he was a man without affections. it would be harsh to say he had no heart, for he was susceptible of deep emotions, but not for individuals. he was capable of rebuilding a town that was burned down; of restoring a colony that had been destroyed by some awful visitation of nature; of redeeming to liberty a horde of captives; and of doing these great acts in secret; for, void of all self-love, public approbation was worthless to him; but the individual never touched him. woman was to him a toy, man a machine.
the lot the most precious to man, and which a beneficent providence has made not the least common; to find in another heart a perfect and profound sympathy; to unite his existence with one who could share all his joys, soften all his sorrows, aid him in all his projects, respond to all his fancies, counsel him in his cares, and support him in his perils; make life charming by her charms, interesting by her intelligence, and sweet by the vigilant variety of her tenderness; to find your life blessed by such an influence, and to feel that your influence can bless such a life: this lot, the most divine of divine gifts, that power and even fame can never rival in its delights, all this nature had denied to sidonia.
with an imagination as fiery as his native desert, and an intellect as luminous as his native sky, he wanted, like that land, those softening dews without which the soil is barren, and the sunbeam as often a messenger of pestilence as an angel of regenerative grace.
such a temperament, though rare, is peculiar to the east. it inspired the founders of the great monarchies of antiquity, the prophets that the desert has sent forth, the tartar chiefs who have overrun the world; it might be observed in the great corsican, who, like most of the inhabitants of the mediterranean isles, had probably arab blood in his veins. it is a temperament that befits conquerors and legislators, but, in ordinary times and ordinary situations, entails on its possessor only eccentric aberrations or profound melancholy.
the only human quality that interested sidonia was intellect. he cared not whence it came; where it was to be found: creed, country, class, character, in this respect, were alike indifferent to him. the author, the artist, the man of science, never appealed to him in vain. often he anticipated their wants and wishes. he encouraged their society; was as frank in his conversation as he was generous in his contributions; but the instant they ceased to be authors, artists, or philosophers, and their communications arose from anything but the intellectual quality which had originally interested him, the moment they were rash enough to approach intimacy and appealed to the sympathising man instead of the congenial intelligence, he saw them no more. it was not however intellect merely in these unquestionable shapes that commanded his notice. there was not an adventurer in europe with whom he was not familiar. no minister of state had such communication with secret agents and political spies as sidonia. he held relations with all the clever outcasts of the world. the catalogue of his acquaintance in the shape of greeks, armenians, moors, secret jews, tartars, gipsies, wandering poles and carbonari, would throw a curious light on those subterranean agencies of which the world in general knows so little, but which exercise so great an influence on public events. his extensive travels, his knowledge of languages, his daring and adventurous disposition, and his unlimited means, had given him opportunities of becoming acquainted with these characters, in general so difficult to trace, and of gaining their devotion. to these sources he owed that knowledge of strange and hidden things which often startled those who listened to him. nor was it easy, scarcely possible, to deceive him. information reached him from so many, and such contrary quarters, that with his discrimination and experience, he could almost instantly distinguish the truth. the secret history of the world was his pastime. his great pleasure was to contrast the hidden motive, with the public pretext, of transactions.
one source of interest sidonia found in his descent and in the fortunes of his race. as firm in his adherence to the code of the great legislator as if the trumpet still sounded on sinai, he might have received in the conviction of divine favour an adequate compensation for human persecution. but there were other and more terrestrial considerations that made sidonia proud of his origin, and confident in the future of his kind. sidonia was a great philosopher, who took comprehensive views of human affairs, and surveyed every fact in its relative position to other facts, the only mode of obtaining truth.
sidonia was well aware that in the five great varieties into which physiology has divided the human species; to wit, the caucasian, the mongolian, the malayan, the american, the ethiopian; the arabian tribes rank in the first and superior class, together, among others, with the saxon and the greek. this fact alone is a source of great pride and satisfaction to the animal man. but sidonia and his brethren could claim a distinction which the saxon and the greek, and the rest of the caucasian nations, have forfeited. the hebrew is an unmixed race. doubtless, among the tribes who inhabit the bosom of the desert, progenitors alike of the mosaic and the mohammedan arabs, blood may be found as pure as that of the descendants of the scheik abraham. but the mosaic arabs are the most ancient, if not the only, unmixed blood that dwells in cities.
an unmixed race of a firstrate organisation are the aristocracy of nature. such excellence is a positive fact; not an imagination, a ceremony, coined by poets, blazoned by cozening heralds, but perceptible in its physical advantages, and in the vigour of its unsullied idiosyncrasy.
in his comprehensive travels, sidonia had visited and examined the hebrew communities of the world. he had found, in general, the lower orders debased; the superior immersed in sordid pursuits; but he perceived that the intellectual development was not impaired. this gave him hope. he was persuaded that organisation would outlive persecution. when he reflected on what they had endured, it was only marvellous that the race had not disappeared. they had defied exile, massacre, spoliation, the degrading influence of the constant pursuit of gain; they had defied time. for nearly three thousand years, according to archbishop usher, they have been dispersed over the globe. to the unpolluted current of their caucasian structure, and to the segregating genius of their great law-giver, sidonia ascribed the fact that they had not been long ago absorbed among those mixed races, who presume to persecute them, but who periodically wear away and disappear, while their victims still flourish in all the primeval vigour of the pure asian breed.
shortly after his arrival in england, sidonia repaired to the principal courts of europe, that he might become personally acquainted with the monarchs and ministers of whom he had heard so much. his position insured him a distinguished reception; his personal qualities immediately made him cherished. he could please; he could do more, he could astonish. he could throw out a careless observation which would make the oldest diplomatist start; a winged word that gained him the consideration, sometimes the confidence, of sovereigns. when he had fathomed the intelligence which governs europe, and which can only be done by personal acquaintance, he returned to this country.
the somewhat hard and literal character of english life suited one who shrank from sensibility, and often took refuge in sarcasm. its masculine vigour and active intelligence occupied and interested his mind. sidonia, indeed, was exactly the character who would be welcomed in our circles. his immense wealth, his unrivalled social knowledge, his clear vigorous intellect, the severe simplicity of his manners, frank, but neither claiming nor brooking familiarity, and his devotion to field sports, which was the safety-valve of his energy, were all circumstances and qualities which the english appreciate and admire; and it may be fairly said of sidonia that few men were more popular, and none less understood.
