E. Cobham Brewer 1810–1897. Dictionary of Phrase and Fable. 1898.
Shylock (A).
A grasping money-lender. (See above.)
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“Respectable people withdrew from the trade, and the money-lending business was entirely in the hands of the Shylocks… . Those who had to borrow coin were obliged to submit to the expensive subterfuges of the Shylocks, from whose net once caught, there was little chance of escape.”—A. Egmont-Hake: Free Trade in Capital, chap. vii.
