the minute regulations as to choosing the beast, sharpening the knife, &c.,) as in most Universities of Europe would qualify for a Doctor of Divinity.-But it must not be imagined that the great rabbinical repository does not contain better things. In spite of its trifling, and of other objections that might be urged against it, few works are better worth the attention of the antiquary, the philologer, the philosophic historian, and the theologian. It presents the most curious picture of the modes of thinking and acting of the most singular people that ever existed, under circumstances altogether unparalleled. In the Talmud, says Buxtorf, an excellent authority in every point of view, sunt multa quoque theologica sana, quamvis plurimis inutilibus corticibus, ut Majemon alicubi loquitur, involuta. Sunt in eo multa fida antiquitatis Judaicæ collapsæ veluti rudera, et vestigia ad convincendam posterorum perfidiam, ad illustrandam utriusque Testamenti historiam, ad rectè explicandos ritus, leges, consuetudines populi Ebræi prisci plurimum conducentia. Sunt in eo multa Juridica, Medica, Physica, Ethica, Politica, Astronomica, et aliarum scientiarum præclara documenta, quæ istius gentis et temporis historiam mirificè commendant. Sunt in eo illustria ex antiquitate proverbia, insignes sententiæ, acuta apophthegmata, scitè prudenterque dicta innumera, quæ leviorem, vel meliorem, vel sapientiorem reddere possunt, et ceu rutilantes gemmæ non minùs Ebræam linguam exornant, quàm omnes Latii et Græciæ flosculi suas linguas condecorant. Sunt in eo vocum myriades quæ vel voces in Scripturæ Sacræ usu raras illustrant et nativè explicant, vel totius linguæ Ebrææ et Chaldææ usum insigniter complent et perficiunt, qui alioquin in defectu maximo mutilus et mancus jaceret: sunt denique in eo quamplurima ad infinita Novi Testamenti loca quoad voces, phrases, et historiam insigniter illustranda maximum momentum habentia.' Abating the praise bestowed on the gems of Talmudic eloquence as brought into opposition with the flosculi of Greek and Roman literature, a point on which we should hardly consult the worthy lexicographer, nothing can be more just than the above panegyric. It is a fair mean between the overstrained encomiums of the rabbis themselves, and the bitter contempt or hatred which it has been the lot of the Talmud to meet with from many Christian critics, both learned and illiterate.

6

Both praise and dispraise have been stretched to the highest; but among Christians, the fortune of the Talmud has generally been adverse. Even so early as the Pandects, the dEUTEρwaels are marked with legal displeasure; in Novella 146, Eam Scripturam quæ secunda editio (in Greek, deuTepwois) dicitur interdicimus omnimodo, utpote sacris non conjunctam libris, neque desuper traditam de prophetis, sed inventionem institutam virorum ex solá

loquentium

loquentium terrâ et divinum in ipsis habentium nihil.' In later times, the popes persecuted these books with unrelenting hostility. Gregory IX., in 1230, and Innocent IV., in 1244, condemned them to be burnt. Their example was followed by the anti-pope Benedict XIII., who fulminated a bull against them in 1415, from Valencia. He accuses the Talmud of being the chief cause that the Jews are so blinded as not to be converted to Christianity; attributes its composition to sons of Satan, and orders it to be committed to the flames. In 1554, Pope Julius III. ordered a general burning throughout the Italian cities: but as few copies were destroyed on this occasion, in consequence of the Jews secreting them, and carrying them principally to Cremona, where their people were very numerous at that time, Pius V., in 1559, sent Sixtus Senensis to seize them; and, according to his own account, he succeeded so well as to burn 12,000 copies of the Talmud, no less than 144,000 volumes. We may be allowed to doubt the exactness of this number; but there is no doubt that he very zealously performed the honourable business allotted to him. In 1593, Clement VIII. renewed the order for the burning, directing that all Talmudic and Cabalistic books should be delivered up to the ordinaries of the places in which they should be found, or to the inquisitors of heretical pravity, by them to be committed to the flames. We copy these facts from Bartoloccius, vol. iii. p. 731-747, who mentions them with high praise and much gratification. Mr. Charles Butler, in his Hora Biblicæ, panegyrizes the popes for their great general kindness to the Jews let him lend his ear to the narrative of Bartoloccius. Hinc (that is, from a desire of saving the souls of the Jews) eorumdem Pontificum jussu tot amara pharmaca Judæis propinata, ut tanquam in caveam primò fuerint inclusi in septum (in Ghettum); eorum synagogis omnibus demolitis, unicâ tantum reservatâ; deinde bonis omnibus stabilibus spoliati; signo in capite eorum tamquam in Cain fratris occisore imposito, ne interficeret eos omnis homo. (How kind and considerate!) Nullius generis mercaturæ iis permissæ nisi tantùm stracciariæ, et cenciariæ, hoc est, veteranorum vestium, ex misericordiâ (misericordia!) tolerata. Et alia id genus multa ut per ea incommoda ad fidem Christianam suscipiendam hortarentur.'-vol. iii. p. 748.

This is extracted from no anti-catholic writer, but from a most learned Cistercian. He adds, that not content with these winning ways, the popes had recourse to the method of compelling the Jews to listen to the sermons of friars appointed at certain seasons to convince them of their errors-a custom which, we believe, still continues at Rome: it certainly lasted till the French revolution. The conduct of the Jews, it appears, was not the most reverent at

these

these forced audiences. Quid mirum,' says the indignant friar, 'si Judæi, non conversi, sed perversi, et coacti audire verbum Dei et suorum Rabbinorum ineptias ac fabulosas Scripturæ Sacræ interpretationes, in risus et screatus aliquando se resolvant? Quapropter redarguuntur concionatoris voce; et ut in officio persistent, nec auditorium perturbent, adest, qui hoc casu, non ingenti perticâ, sed oblongâ ac tenui virga in eos leviter animadvertat.' p. 750. There is something very amusing in the picture of a crowd brought together to hear their religious tenets abused by a friar, and then gently chastised if they presume to laugh at what they may happen to think (often, we suppose, most justly) mere nonsense. Bartoloccius evidently thinks the thin stick far too lenient, and drops a significant hint that the 'ingens pertica,' the long pole, might have been employed with greater advantage to belabour them into devotion.

In other parts of the Christian world, the danger of destruction was equally great. Just before the Reformation, Pfeffercorn, a converted Jew, recommended to the Emperor Maximilian that all the Jewish books, of all kinds, and especially the Talmud, should be burnt, and had almost succeeded. The controversy which this occasioned is well known. Reuchlin saved them from destruction, and we have no reason to regret the proposition, because it turned the attention of the learned (then awaking from the sloth of the middle ages) to Hebrew literature, and discussions still more important; and, we may add, because it was the occasion of one of the best and most successful jeux d'esprit that ever appeared, the Epistole obscurorum Virorum-a work to which succeeding wits are more indebted than they would wish to be known.

We do not know that Hebrew books ran any risk of destruction in this country, but we fear that we owe our exemption from being chargeable with this species of persecution to the early date at which we expelled the Jews-in 1279. The theologians of the court of Edward I. and his predecessors, we should imagine, knew very little of their existence, except as books of the Black Art, of cultivating which the Jews were very generally accused in the dark ages. The belief has lingered in the superstitions of this country, and the witch reads her magic rhymes backward, for no other reason than because such is the method of reading Hebrew. The Bishop of Salisbury has indeed shown that there never was a period at which Hebrew literature was entirely unknown in this country, but during those ages it was very thinly diffused. The people, who, at the accession of King Richard I., burnt the Jewish papers, took care to burn those of most importance against themselves: content with flinging into the fire contracts and stars, they let the Talmuds and Medrashim escape. During

The deeds, obligations, and releases of the Jews were usually called Stars in

our

During the period of the revival of letters there were no Jews in England, and Jewish books therefore escaped the effect of the hostile spirit, to the existence of which in other countries, at that period, we have alluded. But when Cromwell, on the soundest maxims of policy, permitted their return at the solicitation of Menasseh Ben Israel, the outcry that was raised against the measure proved that the unfriendly feeling had not abated in the course of near four centuries. Cromwell was accused of being looked on as the Messiah by the Jews, and a visit paid by a wandering rabbi to Cambridge, in quest, as he said, of Hebrew MSS., was construed into a design of seeking in Huntingdonshire the genealogy of Oliver, for the purpose of tracing his pedigree to David. Prynne took a most active part in this clamour, and brought his ever-ready pen to abuse the unfortunate Hebrews. His Short Demurrer' is worthy of being read, because it contains a history of the cruel treatment which the Jews suffered in this country, drawn from authentic records. It is written with his usual asperity of temper, silliness of argument, and accuracy of research. His hatred of the Jews makes him give ready credence to all the absurd stories of the middle ages against them, even so far as to swallow popish miracles, which, under other circumstances, he would have called antichristian, and he absolutely revels in describing cruelties which disgraced the perpetrators, as much as they injured the victims. The motives for his writing it are described graphically enough. The 6th of December, 1655, being appointed to be kept a fast, in a proclamation with a very canting preamble, according to the fashion of the times, setting forth the various enormities which rendered this fast necessary, Prynne could not help remembering that it was on that day seven years, viz. December 6, 1648, that the House of Commons had been purged by Pride, and a great number of admirable personages, including himself, sent to Hell in Westminster, and there, as he pathetically reminds us, lodged on bare boards like Turkish galley-slaves. Full of this and other coincidences, he walked the next day down Martin's-lane,' (it was un-sainted in those days,) and there met Sir John Clotworthy, one of these expelled gentlemen, leading his lady afoot towards Wallingford House (the present Admiralty), and about that place they met Pride himself, the very man who had purged the House of them and other equally valuable people. Fellow Pride,' said Sir John, (Prynne did not know the Colonel's person,) "remember this day seven years.' What answer the Colonel vouchsafed to the knight is not recorded; but on Prynne's passing farther,

our early records; as, for instance, in King John's time, Istud Star fecit Hagius filius Magri de London Domino Ade de Strattona, &c. They were written in Hebrew and Latin. It is derived from the Hebrew pw. Mr. Todd has not noticed the word.

he

he met Nye, who in great concern asked him about this new project of introducing the Jews, which he could not help wishing had been attempted rather in the bishops' time than in theirs. After much excellent discourse with this amiable divine, he went on his way grieved to the soul, but more ill omens met him as he passed along.

As I kept on my way to Lincolne's Inne-fields, passing by seven or eight maimed soldiers on stilts, who begged of me, I heard them say aloud one to another, "We must now all turn Jews, and there will be nothing left to the poor." And not far from them ano❤ ther company of poor people, just at Lincolne's Inne back gate, cried aloud to each other, 66 They are all turned devils already, and now we must turn Jews," &c.'

Struck with these concurrent providences and speeches,' Prynne sat down to write his book, in which we find his brains lying about in the margin,' as usual. His arguments are folly, but his researches are profound, and we owe him something for the preservation of the records against the exertions of Hugh Peters, whom, in this Short Demurrer,' he especially reviles. Nothing can reconcile him to the measure, and everything among the Jews is abominable, even to their base parsimony, industry, and frugality.'

From Prynne's days downwards, an irregular fire in pamphlets was kept up against the Jews, which, in 1752, burst into a loud explosion, in consequence of the Naturalization Bill. The most hideous consequences were predicted from this measure-the overthrow of the constitution-the upsetting of the church—the Judaizing of the country, &c. &c. A history of the controversy that bill occasioned would be both amusing and instructive, but we have no room for it here. One argument pressed by the friends of the Jews is rather whimsical :-they claimed, it seems, much merit for their exertions against Charles Edward, in 1745; and the answer this plea received from one of the most eager of their antagonists is, perhaps, worth copying, though little complimentary to any party:

Fifthly. A piece of political merit-they saved the state, if you may credit the apo logist. When the constitution was in danger, in the year 1745, then the heroic Jews raised all Duke's place; they mustered, marched out, and took the field; they raised money-imported specie-filled the royal coffers-lent money on the land-tax-entered into associations and subscriptions -preserved our sinking credit-and saved the bank. All this the Jews did, which, when the ragged Highland crew heard at Derby, they fled from these intrepid Jews, like so many frighted sheep from a troop of wolves, and never stopped until they received intelligence that the Jews' army was returned to its headquarters, in Duke's place.'-p. 45. An Answer to a Pamphlet, entitled, Considerations on a Bill, &c. re-printed by the Citizens of London.

We should hope that the time is now come, when, if a bill for naturalizing the Jews were to be presented to the legislature, there would be no necessity for setting up so absurd an apology for conferring a well-deserved favour on a loyal and industrious body of men; and still more, that nobody would be found to raise a voice against