had he finished the sentence, when a terrible lion came and devoured the ass. "What is to be done now?" exclaimed the lonely wanderer. "My lamp and my cock are gone-my poor ass, too, is gone--all is gone! But, praised be the Lord, whatever he does is for the best." He passed a sleepless night, and early in the morning went to the village, to see whether he could procure a horse, or any other beast of burden, to enable him to pursue his journey. But what was his surprise, not to find a single individual alive! 'It appears that a band of robbers had entered the village during the night, killed its inhabitants, and plundered their houses. As soon as Akiba had sufficiently recovered from the amazement into which this wonderful occurrence had thrown him, he lifted up his voice, and exclaimed, "Thou great God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, now I know by experience that poor mortal men are short-sighted and blind; often considering as evils what is intended for their preservation! But thou alone art just, and kind, and merciful! Had not the hard-hearted people driven me, by their inhospitality, from the village, I should assuredly have shared their fate. Had not the wind extinguished my lamp, the robbers would have been drawn to the spot, and have murdered me. I perceive also that it was thy mercy which deprived me of my two companions, that they might not by their noise give notice to the banditti where I was. Praised, then, be thy name, for ever and ever!' There are many fine apologues in this collection, of which we can make room for but one. In it due justice is not done to the character of Alexander the Great; but that is too common a case, to be complained of. Pursuing his journey through dreary deserts, and uncultivated ground, Alexander came at last to a small rivulet, whose waters glided peaceably along their shelving banks. Its smooth unruffled surface was the image of contentment, and seemed in its silence to say-this is the abode of tranquillity and peace. All was still: not a sound was heard save those soft murmuring tones which seemed to whisper into the ear of the weary traveller-" Come, and partake of nature's bounty!"-and to complain that such offers should be made in vain. To a contemplative mind, such a scene might have suggested a thousand delightful reflections. But what charms could it have for the soul of an Alexander, whose breast was filled with schemes of ambition and conquest; whose eye was familiarized with rapine and slaughter; and whose ears were accustomed to the clash of arms-to the groans of the wounded and the dying? Onward, therefore, he marched. Yet, overcome by fatigue and hunger, he was soon obliged to stop. He seated himself on one of the banks of the river, took a draught of water, which he found of a very fine flavour, and very refreshing. He then ordered some salt fish, with which he was well provided, to be brought to him. These he dipped in the stream, in order to take off the briny taste, and was very much surprised to find them emit a very fine fragrance. "Surely," said he, "this river, which possesses such uncommon uncommon qualities, must flow from some very rich and happy country. Let us march thither." Following the course of the river, he at length arrived at the gates of Paradise. The gates were shut. He knocked, and, with his usual impetuosity, demanded admittance."Thou canst not be admitted here," exclaimed a voice from within; "this gate is the Lord's." "I am the Lord-the Lord of the earth;" rejoined the impatient chief-" I am Alexander the Conqueror! Will you not admit me?" "No," was the answer. "Here, we know of no conquerors-save such as conquer their passions: None but the just can enter here." Alexander endeavoured in vain to enter the abode of the blessed; neither entreaties nor menaces availed. Seeing all his attempts fruitless, he addressed himself to the guardian of Paradise, and said:"You know I am a great king-a person who received the homage of nations. Since you will not admit me, give me at least something, that I may show an astonished and admiring world that I have been where no mortal has ever been before me." 66 Here, madman!" said the guardian of Paradise, "here is something for thee. It may cure the maladies of thy distempered soul. One glance at it may teach thee more wisdom than thou hast hitherto derived from all thy former instructors. Now go thy ways." Alexander took it with avidity, and repaired to his tent. But what was his confusion and surprise to find, on examining the received present, that it was nothing but the fragment of a human skull! "And is this,” exclaimed Alexander, "the mighty gift that they bestow on kings and heroes! Is this the fruit of so much toil, danger, and care!" Enraged and disappointed, he threw it on the ground. "Great king," said a learned man who happened to be present, "do not despise this gift. Despicable as it appears in thine eyes, it yet possesses some extraordinary qualities, of which thou mayest soon be convinced, if thou wilt order it to be weighed against gold or silver." Alexander ordered it to be done. A pair of scales was brought. The skull was placed in one, a quantity of gold in the other; when, to the astonishment of the beholders, the skull over-balanced the gold. More gold was added, still the skull preponderated. In short, the more gold there was put in the one scale the lower sunk that which contained the skull. "Strange," exclaimed Alexander," that so small a portion of matter should outweigh so large a mass of gold! Is there nothing that will counterpoise it?" "Yes," answered the philosophers, a very little matter will do it." They then took some earth, covered the skull with it, when immediately down went the gold, and the opposite scale ascended. "This is very extraordinary!" said Alexander, astonished. "Can you explain this strange phenomenon?" "Great king," said the sages, fragment is the socket of a human eye, which, though small in compass, is yet unbounded in its desire. The more it has, the more it craves. Neither gold nor silver, nor any other earthly possession can ever satisfy it. But when it once is laid in the grave and covered with a little earth, there is an end to its lust and ambition.' this We must come to a close, but cannot do so without expressing our hope that, as Mr. Hurwitz has thus opened the way, he will continue his researches in the Talmud. He well knows that there is much for him to glean there, and he has only to guard against painting things better than they are. What man of sense is there who is not prepared to find fable, and nonsense, and indelicacy, and intolerance, occasionally mixed with the better matter of a work composed at such a time, and under such circumstances? Let him not expose himself in his researches to the old reproach against the writers of his nation: Qualiacumque volunt Judæi somnia fingunt, Gens nimis in laudes ingeniosa suas. A philosophical view of the whole Talmud, expounding its spirit (which, we may remark in passing, is, with few exceptions, kind, and rather pastoral *)—analyzing the views of those who dictated the code-the circumstances that created it-the effect it has had on the manners and ideas of those for whose guidance it was composed, would be a valuable work; but one which would, perhaps, require the re-appearance of a Selden. But without looking for this, a literary history of the Jews could be made a most amusing book, and it would go somewhat towards filling up that melancholy chasm in the history of literature which extends from the seventh to the fourteenth century; a period, through the great part of which we have no light to guide us. This task has as yet been but imperfectly done. Even scholars do not know much about Hebrew literature-the general reader knows nothing. It may, for instance, astonish the inquirer into the literary productions of our own country, to be informed that one of the earliest books written here after the Conquest was by one of the most eminent of the rabbis, Aben Ezra. In 1159, the sixth year of Henry II., he wrote from London a letter on the proper time of keeping the Sabbath, in verse; and in the same year, his Jesod Mora (the Foundation of Fear) a treatise, in twelve sections, on the various requisites for the study of scripture, tradition, science, &c. This book was printed in Constantinople in 1530, and in Venice in 1566. We are afraid that there is not a copy of it in the British Museum, and yet it ought to be there, as a national curiosity. It would be amusing to speculate on what were the opinions of the critical and scientific Jew on the state of civilization and literature which he saw about him. We were going to conclude by paying a merited tribute to the benevolent spirit and kind-hearted eloquence of our author; but we recollected this had lately been done by Mr. Coleridge, in The title-page of Surenhusius to his first volume, in which he gives vignettes expressive of the subject-matter of the several chapters, reminds one of the peaceful pictures of the shield of Achilles. VOL. XXXV. NO. LXIX. I his his 'Aids to Reflection,' a book full of passages of the most powerful eloquence; and we quote his words the more readily, because they refer to a former work of Mr. Hurwitz's, every way deserving of the praise it receives. This latter and more endearing name (fellow-Christian),' says Mr. C., I scarcely know how to withhold even from my friend Hyman Hurwitz, as often as I read, what every reverer of holy writ and the English bible ought to read, his admirable Vindicia Hebraicæ. It has trembled on the verge, as it were, of my lips, every time I have conversed with that pious, learned, strong-minded, and single-hearted Jewan Israelite indeed, and without guile : Cujus cura sequi naturam, legibus uti, Et mentem vitiis, ora negare dolis; Any panegyric from us would indeed be superfluous after this. ART. V.-1. Rough Notes taken during some rapid Journeys 2. Travels in Chile and La Plata, including Accounts respecting the Geography, Geology, Statistics, Government, Finances, Agriculture, Manners, and Customs, and the Mining Operations in Chile, &c. By John Miers. London. 1826. AT T the moment when many of the absurd but ruinous speculations were approaching the zenith of extravagance, and just as some of them were but faintly showing themselves above the horizon, we thought that the application of a little ridicule might at least mitigate, if not wholly remove the dog-star heat then raging. Ours, however, was but a voice crying in the wilderness:" admonition could gain no listener; discretion slept; fraud and avarice led triumphantly, and folly and delusion joined headlong in the chase. Among the most absurd, and we fear it will ultimately turn out the most disastrous, of the speculations then afloat, was that of working the mines in the South American states and Mexico, which (though the experiment had already been tried and failed, under such able and experienced men as Helms and Trevethick) were represented as wanting only men, money, and machinery from England, to return us such an influx of the precious metals, as might make it matter for serious discussion, whether it would not be necessary for us to resort to something more valuable and rare than than mere gold and silver as our circulating medium. There was scarcely an old lady in the country who did not contrive to save something from her income to lay out in shares; nor a young and inexperienced adventurer in London who was not found dabbling in some mining scheme; while the old and crafty knaves were straining their inventive faculties to discover in what manner and by what juggle they could swindle these easy dupes out of their money, by creating a fictitious rise in the prices of shares. Most of these bubbles have long since blown up, and we see the few remaining ones bursting daily. Had Mr. John Miers published his account of the Mining Operations in Chile,' before the frenzy had begun to rage, some of the mischief might perhaps have been prevented. His own unfortunate instance would alone have been sufficient, if not wholly to defeat the deep-laid designs of the swindler, at least to put those honest people who had any sense on their guard against falling into his snares. Mr. Miers' experience of South America is chiefly confined to Chile, of which he gives a most gloomy and unfavourable account:- I should lament,' says he, to hear that any British capitalist, however flattering the offers made to him, should invest his capital in any enterprise upon the soil of Chile.' Indeed! and is this the real state and character of that Chile, in the mines of which so much English money has already been sunk, and to which so much more has been sent in the shape of loans ?--of that Chile, respecting which so many pretty tales have been told so pleasantly by our friends, Mrs. Maria Graham and Captain Basil Hall?—of that Chile where, Mr. Caldcleugh says, streams abounding in gold wander through the most luxuriant corn-fields, and the farmer and the miner hold converse together on their banks' ?—(how rich! how rural! how poetical!)-of that Chile, where Mr. Consul Matthew Carter has discovered the surface of a whole mountain to be covered with argentiferous clots,' of which, we hope, Mr. Commissioner Caldcleugh, of Coquimbo, may gather up a full cargo, as did his predecessor and almost namesake, Cacambo, of those cailloux d'or' which were strewed over the highways and streets of El Dorado?* No How unfortunate that, at the very moment when rivers of gold and mountains of silver are brought in the full blaze of splendour before the eyes, and ready to pour them selves into the lap, of the Chile Mining Association,' with his Excellency Don Mariano Egaña at its head, it should have been frightened into an act of suicide, for having ncurred a trifling loss of about 60,000/., when the further expenditure of some twoor three times that sum might have put them in full possession of Mr. Caldcleugh's gold, and Mr. Consul Matthew Carter's silver, the discovery whereof is thus officially described by him: The discovery took place (quoth Mr. Consul) by a poor man who was cutting wood upon the top of a vast mountain. Accident brought his axe in contact with a large stone, mixed with which he perceived clots of silver; this led him to further search, and he found himself surrounded by one immense bed of silver ore; and before he made his good 1 2 |