told me, celebrated their joyful Feast of Lamps." They stood before the house of old Madame Rothschild. "Do you see," said Börne (Heinrich Heine, on Ludwig Börne,' p. 35), "here in this small house dwells the old woman, the Lætitia, who has borne so many financial Buonapartes; the great mother of all loans, who, in spite of the magnificence of her kingly sons, the rulers of the world, will never leave her small family castle in the Jews' Street, and has to-day adorned her windows with white curtains in honour of the great feast of joy. How pleasantly sparkle the little lamps, which she has kindled with her own hands to celebrate the day of victory, in which Judas Maccabæus and his brethren so bravely and nobly delivered their fatherland, as in our days Frederick William, Alexander, and Francis II. While the old lady

looks on these lamps the tears start in her eyes, and she remembers with a sad delight that younger time when her dear husband, the sainted Meyer Amschel Rothschild, celebrated the Feast of Lamps with her; and her sons were yet small babies, who planted their little lamps on the floor, and jumped over them here and there in childish ecstasy, as is the way and custom in Israel."

Upon his death-bed Meyer Amschel made his

five sons bind themselves by an oath that they would never separate, but would carry on the business in company; that they would augment the property as much as possible, but never divide it. Every one knows how conscientiously this oath has been fulfilled; and the consequence was that the house of Rothschild, increasing with each year, grew powerful, not merely in its riches, but in the number of its sons, sons-inlaw, nephews, and grandsons; a house which divided within itself the principal exchanges of the world, which was diplomatically represented in foreign parts, and finally which regulated its affairs, its marriages, its dowries and inheritances by its own family laws. The principal of this new dynasty was, so long as he lived, the London Rothschild, Nathan Meyer, the third son of the old Amschel.

Nathan Meyer came to England in his twentyfirst year, towards the end of the last century, with a starting capital of no more than 20,000l. sterling. He first went to Manchester, where the calico trade had risen to a height before unknown. The young man understood how to pursue his advantage; and whilst his modest competitors were satisfied with being either manufacturers or sellers, Nathan Meyer was both, and acted also as

banker for all. His exertion repaid itself so well, that in about six years his fortune had increased tenfold. With this 200,0007. he betook himself, in 1803, to London, the theatre of mercantile greatness, in which he in a very short time became of such consequence that Levi Barnett Cohen, a Jewish City magnate of the first rank, gave him his daughter in marriage.

It is said that he almost repented entrusting his child's fate to a young man whose speculations grew daily more bold and hazardous, but Nathan Meyer consoled him with the remark, "You have only, Mr. Cohen, given me one of your daughters, but could have made no better financial specuyou

lation than by giving me the lot."

The War of Independence was the great event for Nathan Meyer and his house. First appearing as a rival of the then sovereign house of Goldsmid, he expected the restoration of the Bourbons. He reckoned that the last day of the Revolution would be just as decisive for the fortune of the Rothschilds as its first had been for the fortunes of the Goldsmids. He set himself in readiness for the war, taking the opportunity of the Government loan of 1810, in consequence of which the two greatest banking-houses of the time, Gideon and Baring, fell. Upon this, Nathan

Meyer opened his campaign. He bought up the bills which Wellington discounted in the midst of the Spanish war, and which the English Government had no money to pay. Through the prolongation of these bills, Nathan Meyer accredited himself to the Government, and made a good business. A direct relation between him and the Government was now set on foot. It found him. very necessary because of his Continental connections, and made use of them repeatedly as its agents. Through his hand the moneys passed to the army, and the subsidies to the Allied Powers. Supplied with the most accurate news which were to be had, through his brothers on the Continent, he learnt more, by means of his relations to the English Ministry, of its home and foreign politics than any other man in England. And he was never wanting to the occasion. He became suddenly a breeder of pigeons. His acquaintances, who had not been hitherto aware of any bucolic tendencies in the bold financier, were astounded, but the root of the matter was that he was educating carriers. His pigeons soon flew to south and east, whilst fast-sailing vessels on the shortest route which he could discover by the aid of sea-charts, carried his messengers, and sacks of gold, to and from the coasts of Germany, France, and

England. It does no little honour to the keenwittedness of this wonderful man, that the packetboats which ply at the present day between Folkestone and Boulogne have selected as the shortest passage much the same way which Nathan Meyer first discovered for his own sailing-vessels.

Whilst in this manner Nathan Meyer made his movements, the great armies made theirs. The victorious fires of Leipsic, the entrance of the Allies into Paris, Elba, the Hundred Days—all this drove Wellington and Blücher, but also Nathan Meyer, to the crisis, to the battle of Waterloo. At this battle Nathan Meyer was present in person. From his lurking-corner, in the neighbourhood of the Castle of Hougoumont, he followed the fluctuations of the 18th of June with no less anxiety than did Wellington or Napoleon. But when towards evening he understood that the Prussians were there, and saw Wellington and Blücher at sunset greet each other on the heights of Belle Alliance, he said, "The house of Rothschild has won the battle!" and mounted a horse which during the whole day had been standing ready saddled for him. He rode through the whole night, and arrived early in the morning at Ostend. The sea