I have heard that when any would-be convert came to the late Chief Rabbi, Herschel, professing his desire to embrace Judaism, the Rev. Doctor's first remark was, jocularly, "Well! how much money has she?"-P. A.

VINDICIA JUDÆORUM ;

Or, A Letter in answer to certain Questions propounded by a noble and learned Gentleman, touching the reproaches cast on the nation of the Jews; wherein all objections are candidly and yet fully cleared, by RABBI MANASSEH BEN ISRAEL, a Divine and a Physician, 1656, reprinted in the 'Phoenix," vol. ii., No. 24.

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"This is a satisfactory refutation of the calumnies against the Jews, made by a liberal and learned man in an age when such a refutation was necessary."-SOUTHEY. mon Place Book.

MARSHAL NEY.

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When, on the 10th of November, 1806, Marshal Ney occupied Magdeburg, he received visits from the authorities and the chief men of the city. He had asked specially that the heads of every profession should be present. After they had all paid their respects, he asked, "Are there not here any representatives of the Israelitish community?" "The city of Magdeburg," replied one of the company, 'enjoys the privilege of not having any Jews among its inhabitants; there is only one here, and he is only tolerated for particular reasons. "You are speaking about the Israelites," rejoined the Marshal; "France knows nothing about Jews, it only recognises Israelites; besides, sirs, wheresoever France rules, there are no more privileges, and from this time the equality of all religions is the only principle to be established at Magdeburg." "Die Allgemeine Zeitung des Judenthums" observes, in

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recording this anecdote, "There are now (1865) 15,000 of our co-religionists at Magdeburg, and one of them is a member of the Town Council." It has been stated that Ney, who was a native of Sarrelouis, was of Jewish extraction. The same has been said of others of Napoleon's marshals, of Soult, Massena, etc.

"CHRIST HAS RISEN."

Horace Vernet, writing to his wife from St. Petersburg, speaking of the celebration of Easter in that city, thus expresses himself:-" This ceremony is one of the most curious that I have seen at the palace; there were there only the persons belonging to the court, and a deputation from all the regimental officers of the guards. At midnight the royal family enter the chapel. After the Gospel, every individual advances to the emperor, who says, 'Jesus Christ has arisen ;' and every one answers, 'Yes, he has arisen,' and kisses are given on the two cheeks; the empress gives her hands to be kissed. But what is most curious is, that after the saying of the mass, the emperor kisses the first person he meets, generally he embraces the sentinel on duty. Some years ago, the then reigning Emperor (Nicholas) addressed himself, according to custom, to a grenadier of the Preobajenski regiment, kissed him, and said to him, 'Jesus Christ has arisen!' 'No' replied the soldier. He was a Jew. From that time all the Jews have been drafted into the navy, there are no more in the army."

MADAME PASTA.

The celebrated cantatrice, Madame Pasta, died on the 3rd of April, at her magnificent villa on the Lake of Como. Judith Pasta, who charmed London, Paris, and Peters

burg, was born of a Jewish family at Sarrano, near Milan, in 1798; she had retired from the stage thirty years before her decease.-Archives Israelites, 1865.

JEWS IN POLAND.

The greatest accumulation of them on any one point in Europe is in the countries of ancient Poland, now forming Russian, Austrian, and Prussian Poland, and the modern kingdom of Poland, under the sceptre of the Emperor of Russia. It is stated by Beer,* that many centuries ago, a considerable body of Jews migrated from France into Germany, whence many of their descendants passed into Poland; but they must have remained long in Germany before this second swarm hived itself in Poland, as the language of the Polish Jews, called Jewish-German (Jüdisch-Teutsch), though written in the rabbinical characters, is fundamentally a German dialect, with a slight intermixture of Hebrew and other elements, and particularly of Polish, in proportion as you travel farther north. The colony obtained several privileges of Casimir the Great, who married the beautiful Jewess Esther,† and from this stock, as their language proves, must have descended the great mass of the Polish Jews.

There are great numbers of Jews in the parts of Turkey contiguous to Poland; but there they literally swarm; they are innkeepers, merchants, distillers of brandy, brewers, horse-dealers, money-changers, usurers, as everywhere else;

* "Geschichte, Leben und Meinungen der Juden," von Peter Beer, Leipzig, 8vo, 1825.

+ It is a curious proof of this monarch's spirit of toleration, or deference to his wife, that while he educated as Christians two sons whom he had by her, he allowed their sister to be brought up in the faith of her mother, whom, however, he afterwards murdered in a fit of frenzy.

some very few of them are farmers of the soil. Their numbers have increased of late years so rapidly as to alarm and embarrass the governments of countries which afford but slender resources for a population so averse to be engaged in tillage. The evil of this immense accumulation of such a people having one common interest and feeling, both of which are foreign to the interests and feelings of the citizens of the State, is felt especially by the Russian Government.-Quarterly Review, vol. xxxviii. 1828.

MENTAL DEVELOPMENT.

Their mental development and civilization greatly exceed those of the lower order of Poles, because they have an education, however perverted. They are described as being in general physically a fine and active people, such as would contrast most advantageously with the ricketty figures which, formerly, at least, were seen in the public walks in Holland. The comeliness of the Jewesses in Warsaw is much celebrated, and Bishop James described the Volhinian Jews as a particularly fine race of men, and their women as remarkable for beauty in figure, features, and complexion. In general, the Jews in Poland affect no external show, except in the dress of their women; but as of old, those of them who are wealthy, live at home in considerable splendour.-Ibid., p. 116.

UNION OF GOD WITH ISRAEL.

God has inseparably united His name with that of Israel. Even so does a prince, who fears to lose a small key belonging to his costly treasures, fasten it to a chain which he secures to his own person. So may we assume, that the Supreme may have considered that this small nation, Israel, might easily be lost in the sea of many nations.

"But I

will fasten them to my Holy Name, and then they will never be lost."-Talmud Jerusal. Tr. Taanith.

SOME TALMUDICAL APHORISMS.

Anger renders the wise man Pride is the mask of one's silence is golden. At the

In your own country, your name; in other countries, your appearance. Wisdom, confined to one's-self, is like a myrtle in the wilderness, which gladdens no one. When the wine's in the secret 's out. insane and the prophet dumb. own faults. Speech is silver, door of the rich are many friends, at the door of the poor man, none. A myrtle, although amid thorns, remains still a myrtle, and is called a myrtle. When a rogue kisses you, count your teeth.

Josephus.

True it is, that an interpolated passage, found in all the printed editions of Josephus, makes him take a special and a respectful notice of our Saviour. But this passage has long been given up as a forgery by all scholars. And in another essay on the Epichristian era, which we shall have occasion to write, some facts will be laid before the reader, exposing a deeper folly in this forgery than is apparent at first sight.

True it is, that Whiston makes the astounding discovery that Joseph was himself an Ebionite Christian. Josephus a Christian! In reality, we shall show that so far from being a Christian, Josephus was not even a Jew, in any conscientious or religious sense. He had never taken the first step in the direction of Christianity, but was, as many other Jews in that age, essentially a Pagan, as little impressed with the true nature of God whom his country worshipped, with His ineffable purity and holiness, as any idolatrous Athenian whatsoever.-Blackwood's Magazine, vol. xlvii., p. 107.