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pendent state, amidst the miseries and the degradations of twenty centuries.

But while the laws of the Sacred Code admit of such obvious explanations, and cannot be perpetuated in all times and in all places, and, in opposition to the vain credulity of its followers, may well allow both of 'diminution and addition,' strange to say, a spurious legislation, by the artifices of an unrelenting faction, to this late day tyrannises over the Jewish people. The infinite multiplicity of customs, and gross superstitions, as

Talmud be removed to an elevated shelf, to be consulted as a curiosity of antiquity, and not as a manual of education. Many, indeed, among the higher classes of the Hebrews, have attempted to educate their children in Christian schools, for they have no others; but the conflict of the parental feelings, of their own good sense with the excluding dicta of the Talmudiststhe forbidden food and the omitted customs-have scared even the intelligent among them. The civil and ridiculous as once were those of witch-political fusion of the Jewish with their craft, the mere inventions of their Tal- fellow-citizens, must commence by remudical doctors, are incorporated injecting every anti-social principle; let their faith, in their ceremonies, and their daily customs. These scholastic impostures have bound them hand and foot, and cast them into the cavern of the lone and sullen Genius of Rabbinical Judaism; cutting them off from the great family of mankind, and perpetuating their sorrows and their shame.

Far be it from us to wound tender consciences, or to torture with religious terrors thoughtful minds among the the children of Israel. But let the Rabbinicals inquire who were these Rabbins, who, for two thousand years, constituted themselves the arbiters of the law of Moses; and whose traditions form an integral part of the Divine Code? So they assert! Ingenious sophists and visionary enthusiasts, some dreamers and many dotards, grave expounders of the most ridiculous observances, and not a few ambitious spirits, haughty with domination-these formed, for the most part, the consistory of these Jewish sages. We know the artifice they practised in sealing up the national mind of their people, by adopting that Asiatic principle, that all knowledge was foolishness which was not to be found in their own Encyclopædia and Korantheir Talmud!

It is to be wished the Jews would begin to educate their youth as the youth of Europe, and not of Palestine; let their

them only separate to hasten to the Church and to the Synagogue. The Hebrew, exulting in his immutable law, has yet to learn that a wise legislature, in accommodating itself to the times, and to the wants of the people, suspends or executes laws as the juncture may require. The chief end of laws is not only their observance, but the good of the people. Salus Populi suprema Lex. Let them remember that their great ancestor, Judas Maccabeus, fought on the Sabbath-day; for, he said, 'It is not as it was heretofore with us!' To free themselves of their superstitions will not be the least difficult conversion of the Jews.

These observations are equally applicable to every people.

As to the English Jews, who are they? The Hebrews, who so long persisted in the neglect of their own history, have few or no recollections of their ancestors in this country; and the Christian confounds an heterogeneous mixture of Jewish races, and is apt to judge erroneously of them all.

We pass over a period in our own history, in which it is supposed there were no Jews in England—the reigns of Elizabeth, James, and Charles I. Researches might show that they were not then unknown in this country. Had there been no Jews in England, would

that luminary of law, Sir Edward Coke, have needed to inveigh against the Jews as 'Infidels and Turks,' delivering them all alike to the devil: stigmatised and infamous persons, perpetui inimici,' says Littleton, and not admissible as witnesses?' Philosophical curiosity is amused in tracing the slow steps by which a nation approaches common humanity and common sense. The servile sages of the law have rarely been the leaders of public opinion; groping after doubtful precedents, and entrenching themselves behind statutes made for the genius of other times. Judge Hale and our lawyers gradually retreated from this legal excommunication. Under Charles II., Lord Keeper North found no difficulty in swearing a Jew on his Pentateuch; and Acts of Parliament under the Georges overturned the patriarchal opinion of the Lord Chief Justice Coke-who, had he now lived, would have started from the bench at the apparition of a Jewish councillor! or, that one of the most profound and luminous juri-consults in Europe should be a Jew!

Cromwell treated the Jews much like Napoleon; he did nothing more for them than what his policy required. He took a statesman's view, and did a statesman's act. He wished to render their commercial knowledge useful to his own financial operations. It was then a question, theological and civil, whether it were lawful to admit them? His divines were heard in council; he declared there was nothing but confusion in their counsels; and, as had been his first intention, he allowed a limited number to settle in London, and to have synagogues. They were sufficiently numerous to celebrate the Feast of Tabernacles in booths, on the borders of the Thames. They imprudently thought they had found a new Judea; but this public rejoicing would only occasion another turning over of the texts of the gilt pocket bibles' of the

puritanical doctors; and the feast of the tabernacles was probably not repeated, for we find new inquiries afloat, upon what terms they were admitted; and they were reminded that the old act of banishment of Edward I. had not been repealed. They retired into their silent. quarters.

We recollect our astonishment, in looking over the Memoirs of the Royal Academy of Lisbon,' of modern date, to find a considerable portion occupied by subjects of Jewish erudition, and on Jewish writers in the first age of the Portuguese monarchy, to the seventeenth century. The memoirs of no other national academy display this recondite knowledge, and this great delight in Jewish writers. The philosophical physician of the embassy enlightened me: he assured me that the tenderness for the religion of their fathers was excessive; and that many public characters, in the agony of their religious consciences, had often flown to the synagogues of England and Holland. It was this feeling, which, notwithstanding their Autos da Fé, the government itself could no longer disguise. Several edicts are now before us; the last issued in 1773. Here is formally abolished the odious distinction of Christianos Novos and Christianos Velhos-new and old Christians-which had so long tormented the half-Judaised Portuguese. It even allows the children of Moses to hold their festivals; it prohibits the compulsion of baptism; it relieves them from any tribute or tax hitherto levied on Jews; and it makes honourable mention, by name, of certain officers of state who were Jews, yet had been prime ministers and treasurers; and, finally, it declares, that 'the blood of the Hebrews is the blood of our apostles, our deans, our presbyters, and our bishops.' All this may be confirmed by a casual observation of Madame Junot, the Duchess of Abrantes: 'The Portuguese nation,' she writes, "though three parts Jewish, are

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extremely tenacious of admitting amongst them any persons who do not bring good proofs of their purity of blood.'

It was this race which formed the first general settlement of Jews in England; Spanish and Portuguese fugitives from the infernal fires of the Autos da Fe, and the living graves of the Inquisition. Ships freighted with Jewish families and Jewish property, landed on the shores of England and Holland. Many escaped, without any preparation, to save their lives by a day. They were composed of all ranks, noblemen, officers, learned physicians, and opulent merchants; many conveyed great wealth, and there were individuals who maintained in England a ducal establishment. The first names of the Portuguese nation may still be traced in their present descendants, who occupy very different situations. The Villa Reals, the Alvarezes, the Mendezes, the Francos, the Rebellos, the De Silvas, the Garcias, the D'Alguilars, the Souzas, the De Castros, the Salvadors, and a long list, betray their Lusitanian lineage.

These distinguished persons, for many years, constituted what is called the community of Spanish and Portuguese Jews of London. The nobler families who brought wealth, assumed their rank in society; the mercantile class opened new sources of commerce, and, unquestionably, the Lisbon trade must have flourished. Their origin here is still attested by the circumstance, that their translated prayers and their Bible are in Spanish, and all their bye-laws and judicial and other civil documents, are still issued in the Portuguese language. Many of their physicians obtained great practice in England and in Holland. In the science of medicine the Jews had been eminent from very remote eras. The physician of Henry IV. of France was a Jew; and, at his desire, his bones were carried to the Holy Land. Voltaire inscribed an epistle to the Jewish physician, Isaac de Silva.

It is the singular result of the fortunes of the peculiar people,' that, in writing their annals, the historian must necessarily digress into those of other nations. The great emigration of the Jews into England was occasioned by a renewal of the persecutions of the Inquisition, particularly in Portugal. The truth is, the greater part of the Portuguese nation are absolutely Jewish. At the first great expulsion from Spain, it has been said that fifty thousand families had been driven into Portugal, and one hundred and forty thousand scattered in the East. Those whose fathers had received baptism were distinguished as Christianos Novos, and became odious to those whose origin was deemed purer. They were numerous, and most of them secretly Judaised. They were known by their baptismal names; but often among themselves they had preserved their more ancient denominations. The Portuguese have been always reproached by their ecclesiastics as encouraging too great a tenderness for the perfidious Jews. 'A few,' says a friar, 'have been burnt at Lisbon, but not enough. If we had more regular Autos they might in time clear the country.' That the Portuguese are almost wholly Judaic in their descent, will appear from an anecdote told us by the ancient resident physician of the Portuguese embassy. Under the administration of the great Pombal, the priestly party had persuaded King Joseph to renew that badge of Judaism— the yellow hat-to mark the numerous Christianos Novos among his subjects. The edict was prepared. On the following morning the minister appeared before his majesty with three yellow hatsone he offered to the king, another he brought for the Grand Inquisitor, and the third for his own head. 'I obey your Majesty's order,' said the minister, in providing these badges to be worn by those whose blood has been tainted by Judaism.'"

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THEIR WANDERINGS AND CUSTOMS.

OR the singularity of their | combined influences of time, climate,

habits, their isolated condition, and unsettled course of life, those tribes of wanderers, by us denominated Gipsies,

well worthy the attentive consideration of the philosopher or philanthropist. Almost unaffected by the

example, or intermarriage, they to this day remain, in all places, as to customs and habits, what their ancestors of more than three centuries were. Vagabonds upon the earth, and to be found in nearly the same state, though under different names, in every country in Europe, in some parts of Asia, and even in Africa, they present us with a

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