:

on Biography, containing more than 100,000 references, writes to the editor of the "Jewish Chronicle" (June 1, 1869):—“I am not forgetting to notice as many of our race as the works and writings in the public and private collections which I am working will afford; and your readers will be enabled to judge that they will not be unworthily represented, when they learn that I have carefully digested the following works, and extracted the names and qualifications of the authors, scholars, etc., mentioned therein Wolf, Bibliotheca Hebraica;' Bartolocci, 'Magna Rabbinica,' and 'Bibl. Heb. cum comm. Rabbin. ;' Lelong, Bibl. Sacra;' Jost, 'Geschichte der Israeliten ;' Buxtorf, De Abbreviaturis Hebraicis;' and the Bibliotheca Española,' of J. R. de Castro, which latter work has been quite forgotten by former biographers, although it contains notices of seven hundred works of the rabbis, which escaped the ravages of time, superstition, and the Inquisition, the writers of which have been thus described by Prescott The whole bearing most honorable testimony to the talent and various erudition of the Spanish Jews." "

EMBASSY FROM CHARLEMAGNE.

It has frequently been asked, why Charlemagne included a Jew in the famous embassy which he sent to the Caliph Aroun-el-Rashid, at the end of the sixth century. We must always bear in mind the manners of the times; the ambassadors did not know how to read or write; they did not know the manners of the East. The Jew, who knew all this, was a precious man, indispensable, and it is therefore not astonishing that he formed part of the embassy.— BAIL. Etat des Juifs en France.

THE TARGUM DIALECT.

In the impenetrable Alpine mountains of Kurdistan, no

less than in the plains of Urmiah, there are Jews who speak the language of the Targum, that is, the language which the existing Chaldean people of the Hebrew Scriptures have more or less faithfully preserved since ancient times. The number of Jews in the Persian and Turkish States, who speak the language of the Targum, or modern Syriac, is not ascertained.—REV. A. Löwy.

THE RABBI'S "TICKET OF LEAVE."

In the Synagogue at Metz is still observed a (Roll of the Law), which belonged to Gabriel Cohen, rabbi of that community from 1638 to 1649. He would never permit any one to rise on his account, though it was

thou shalt rise * מפני שיבה תקום,according to the adage

before the hoary head." Seeing, however, that this custom was persevered in, he adopted the plan of carrying a small "n" under his arm, so that the homage might be rendered to the sacred roll and not to himself. Having once asked permission of absence to visit his family, he exceeded the permitted time of his congé, and on his return the community refused to receive him; wishing to remain by force, they took off the doors and windows of his residence, and compelled him to quit the town.—Archives Israélites.

ON MIRACLES.

The miracles in the Bible are not, like those in Livy, detached; they do not disturb the civil history, which goes on very well without them. But the miracles of the Jewish historians are intimately connected with all the civil affairs of which they make the necessary and inseparable part. The whole history is founded on these, and consists of little else; and if it were not a history of them, it would be

a history of nothing.—BOLINGBROKE. Posthumous Works,

vol. iii., p. 279.

PAUL IV. ON THE JEWS.

In a passage of a Bull by this Pope, we find "This wretched people (malheureuse peuplade) attests by its existence the truth, the triumph, and the perpetuity of religion." And yet strange contradiction-this Pope (Caraffei) was one of the most violent persecutors of the Jews in Italy about the middle of the 10th century. It was this pontiff who, after having imprisoned them in those species of cloaques called the Ghetto, caused their books and their persons to be burnt by the Inquisition.

FIRST RUSSIAN JEWISH SYNAGOGUE.

The Jews here (St. Petersburg) have at length, after much negotiation with the Government, obtained permission to erect a synagogue. Hitherto the Jews have legally had no right to reside in the empire, and were consequently obliged to account for their presence under various pretexts; for the admission of which by the authorities they had to pay large sums, and as they were regarded as temporary residents only, they were not allowed to erect any permanent houses of prayer. A committee, consisting of the wealthiest Jews of St. Petersburg, has now been formed to collect funds for the new building, which is to be got up on a scale of great magnificence.

The Golos, ever ready to suspect separatist principles in the empire, takes this opportunity to lecture the Jews on their attachment to their religion and customs, and to recommend such of them as wish to remain in Russia to become Russians.-Pall Mall Gazette, November 3, 1869.

PROSPERITY OF THE JEWS.

Selden says, "Talk what you will of the Jews, that they

are cursed; they thrive wheresoever they come; they are able to oblige the prince of their country by lending him. money. None of them beg; they keep together; and for them being hated, my life for yours, Christians hate one another as much."

JEWS IN SCOTLAND.

"Jews do not thrive in Scotland, they find the place too hot for them, or pre-occupied ; we dare not decide which." This absurd remark is found in the "Edinburgh Review," vol. xxviii., p. 386. Elsewhere, however, I read, "There is an opinion that when Edward I. expelled the Jews, many of them fled to Scotland, where they have propagated since in great numbers." Witness the aversion this nation has, above all others, to hog's flesh.

JEWS IN THE MIDDLE AGES.

The Aristotelian, or Arabian philosophy, continued to be communicated from Spain and Arabia to the rest of the world by means of the Jews, particularly to France and Italy, which were overrun with Jews about the 10th and 11th centuries. About these periods, not only the courts of the Mahommedan princes, but even those of the Pope himself, were filled with Jews. Here they principally gained an establishment by the profession of physic, an art then but imperfectly known and practised in most parts of Europe. Being well versed in the Arabian tongue, from their connection with Africa and Egypt, they had studied the Arabian translation of Galen and Hippocrates, which had become still more familiar with those of their brethren who resided in Spain. From this source also the Jews learned philosophy, and Hebrew versions, made about this time. from the Arabic, of Aristotle and the Greek physicians and

mathematicians, are extant in some libraries.

Here was a beneficial result of the dispersion and vagabond condition of the Jews, I mean the diffusion of knowledge.

One of the most eminent of these learned Jews was Maimonides, a physician, philosopher, astrologer, and theologist, educated at Cordova under Averroes; he died about the year 1208. Averroes being accused of heretical opinion, was sentenced to live with the Jews, in the street of the Jews, at Cordova.

It

Some of those learned Jews began to flourish in Spain as early as the beginning of the 9th century. Many of the treatises of Averroes were translated by the Spanish Jews into Hebrew; and the Latin pieces of that author, now extant, were so translated from these Hebrew verses. was in the time of Averroes that one of our Jewish philosophers, having fallen in love, turned poet, and his verses were sold publicly in the street. My author says, that " renouncing the dignity of the Jewish doctor, he took to writing verses."

"Amore capitur et dignitate Doctorum

Posthabitu cœpit edere carmina.”

WARTON. Hist. English Poetry.

QUEEN MARY'S RELICS.

Her Majesty has accepted certain relics, bequeathed to her under the will of the Lord Belhaven, of great historic value, as souvenirs of the ill-fated Mary Stuart, from whom the Queen is directly descended. They consist of a beautiful ebony cabinet, which about 200 years ago came into the possession of the Belhaven family, through a granddaughter of the Earl of Mar, to whom it was presented by the Scottish queen; of a purse, the work of Mary's own hands; of a lock of her hair, which is of a light colour; and of a piece of unleavened bread, under