flexible leather; which agrees with the description of the roll above mentioned.*

'Ever since I came among these people, and heard their sentiments on the prophecies, and their confident hopes of returning to Jerusalem, I have thought much on the means of obtaining a version of the NEW TESTAMENT in the Hebrew language, and circulating it among them and their Brethren in the East. I had heard that there were one or two translations of the Testament in their own possession, but they were studiously kept out of my sight for a considerable time. At last, however, they were produced by individuals in a private manOne of them is written in a small Rabbinical or Jerusalem character: the other in a large square letter. The history of the former is very interesting. translator, a learned Rabbi, conceived the design of making an accurate version of the New Testament, for the express purpose of confuting it. His style is copious and elegant, like that of a master in the language, and the translation is in general faithful. It does not, indeed,

ner.

The

* Mr. Yeates, formerly of All Souls College, Oxford, and editor of the Hebrew Grammar, has been employed by the author for the last two years at Cambridge, in arranging and collating the Hebrew and Syriac MSS. brought from India. His collation of the Roll of the Pentateuch, above-mentioned, is now finished, and is printed in a thin quarto volume. The University with great liberality, resolved that this book should be printed at their expense, for the benefit of Mr. Yeates; and Dr. Marsh, the learned Editor of Michaelis, has written a Note for the work, on the character and comparative importance. of the manuscript.

1

appear that he wished to pervert the meaning of a single sentence; but, depending on his own abilities and renown as a scholar, he hoped to be able to controvert its doctrines, and to triumph over it by fair contest in the presence of the world. There is yet a mystery about the circumstances of this man's death, which time will perhaps unfold: the Jews are not inclined to say much to me about him. His version is complete, and written with greater freedom and ease towards the end than at the beginning. How astonishing it is that an enen should have done this! that he should have persevered resolutely and calmly to the end of his work! not indeed always calmly; for there is sometimes a note of execration on the sacred Person who is the subject of it, as if to unburthen his mind, and ease the conflict of his labouring soul. At the close of the Gospels, as if afraid of the converting power of his own translation, he calls heaven to witness that he had undertaken the work with the professed design of opposing the Epicureans; by which term he contemptuously means the Christians.

I have had many interesting conferences with the Jews on the subject of their present state; and have been much struck with two circumstances; their constant reference to the DESOLATION of Jerusalem, and their confident hope that it will be one day REBUILT. The desolation of the Holy City is ever present to the minds of the Jews, when the subject is concerning themselves as a Nation; for though without a king, and without a country, they constantly speak of the unity of their nation. Distance of time and place seems to have no effect in obliterating the remembrance of the Desolation. I often

thought of the verse in the Psalms, 'If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning.' They speak of Palestine as being close at hand, and easily accessible. It is become an ordinance of their Rabbins in some places of the East, that when a man builds a new house, he shall leave a small part of it unfinished, as an emblem of ruin, and write on it these words, Zecher Lachorchan, i. e. In MEMORY of the DESOLATION.

Their hopes of REBUILDING the walls of Jerusalem, the THIRD and LAST time, under the auspices of the Messiah, or of a second Cyrus, before his coming, are always expressed with great confidence. They have a general impression, that the period of their liberation from the Heathen is not very remote; and they consider the present commotions in the earth as gradually loosening their bonds. It is,' say they, a sure sign of our approaching restoration, that in almost all countries there is a GENERAL RELAXATION of the persecution against us. I pressed strongly upon them the prophecies of Daniel. In former times that prophet was not in repute among the Jews, because he predicted the coming of the Messiah at the end of the 'seventy weeks;' and his book has been actually removed from the list of prophetic writings, and remains, to this day, among the Hagiographa, such as Job, the Psalms, the Proverbs, Ruth; but he now begins to be popular among those who have studied him, because he has predicted that the accomplishment of indignation against the holy people' is near at hand. The strongest argument to press upon the mind of a Jew at this period, is to explain to his conviction Daniel's period of 1260 years; and then to shew the analogy which it bears to

the period of the Evangelist John concerning the Papal and Mahomedan powers; with the state of which the Jews are well acquainted.

'I passed through the burial ground of the Jews the other day. Some of the tombs are handsomely constructed, and have Hebrew inscriptions in prose and verse. This mansion of the dead is called by the Jews, Beth Haiim, or, The House of the Living.'

Being much gratified with my visit to the Jews of Malabar, and desirous to maintain some communication with them, I have engaged a very respectable member of their community to accompany me, with his servant, to Bengal, and to remain with me in the capacity of Hebrew Moonshee, or teacher, until my return to Eng land. Observing that in the houses of the White Jews there are many volumes of printed Hebrew, mostly of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, which are rarely met with in England, I have employed Misrahi, that is the name of my Moonshee, to collect some of the most valuable.'

At the beginning of the following year (1808) the Author visited Cochin a second time, and proceeded afterwards to Bombay, where he had an opportunity of meeting with some very intelligent men of the Jewish nation. They had heard of his conferences with the Cochin Jews, and were desirous to discuss certain topics, particularly the prophecies of Isaiah; and they engaged in them with far more spirit and frankness, he thought, than their brethren at Cochin

had done. They told him, that if he would take a walk to the Bazar in the suburb, without the walls of Bombay town, he would find a Synagogue without a Sepher Tora, or book of the Law. He did so, and found it to be the case. The minister and a few of the Jews assembled, and shewed him their Synagogue, in which there were some loose leaves of prayers in manuscript, but no book of the Law. The author did not understand that they disapproved of the Law; but they had no copy of it. They seemed to have little knowledge of the Jewish Scriptures or history. This only proved what he had been often told, that small portions of the Jewish nation melt away from time to time, and are absorbed in the mass of the heathen world. Nor is this any argument against the truth of the prophecy, which declares that they should remain a separate and distinct people; for these are mere exceptions. Conversions to Christianity in the early ages would equally militate against the prediction, taken in an absolute sense.

THE TEN TRIBES.

THE Tribes of Israel are no longer to be inquired after by name. The purpose for which