been formed worthy of a nation which by its poetry and its music has established a character for all time. The knowledge necessary for the production of the tabernacle and its furniture (entrusted to Bezaleel and Aholiab) may be partly ascribed to the influence of types suggested by the court of the nation of which they had long been subjects. Of painting we hear nothing. Embroidery was an early form of the pictorial expression. Tyre and Babylon were celebrated for their works of this kind, and although Homer is silent on painting, he particularly describes the productions of the needle. You will also recollect that the Cartoons of Raphael were designs to be elaborated through the instrumentality of the embroiderer's skill.

That the adequate amount of native talent did not exist, when, in the height of Jewish prosperity, it was sought to execute a most important work involving multiform considerations of fine art character, is made apparent, when King Solomon, in seeking to realise the plans which his father transmitted to him for the construction of a temple, found himself necessitated to apply for assistance to a neighbouring monarch. The solicitation itself is an admission made by the Hebrew King that his native resources, either in material or skill, were inadequate to the importance of his task; while the reply of Hiram is eloquent of the great degree of refinement to which the several arts had attained under the Phoenicians. This nation is made known to us through the pages of ancient and modern history. With their arts we have no specific acquaintance.-Condensed from Lectures on Painting by PROFESSOR HART, R.A.

Without wishing to enter into a polemical disquisition, I will here state that it always has appeared to me that the Jews were in the wrong in not exercising their talents in Painting and Statuary, as they did in the sister arts of Poetry and Music. They seem not to have noticed the

expressive word ?, "to thee," in the Commandment which forbids the making of the representation of any material form for the purposes of their own worship or adoration. But to extend the prohibition as to its forbidding the production of any form of grace or beauty, is simply an exaggerated and erroneous conception of the Divine behest. King Solomon did not so consider it when he had the lions placed in his Temple. Surely the Birmingham manufacturer who exports Brahmas by the hundred-weight and Vishnus by the gross, or the Protestant artist who may paint a Madonna or any of the legion of Saints for a Catholic patron, cannot be, therefore, accused of Idolatry. There are beauteous works of art "which Jews might kiss, and infidels adore."

As this is, perhaps, the only dissertation on any Scripture point this little book may contain, it is hoped its insertion may not be deemed out of place.-P. A.

TRAVELS OF RABBI PETACHIA.

The Rabbi appears to have been a contemporary of Benjamin of Tudela, and his travels took place in the twelfth century, previous to 1187, since he describes the Holy Land as still in the possession of the Christians. The itinerary, however, which goes by the name of R. Petachia, must, as appears from internal evidence, be considered as an abridgement, and probably a meagre one, of the original work, which has not yet reached us. It is written in the Rabbinical dialect, and both internal and external evidence shew its genuineness. Several editions have appeared at various times on the Continent. There are also in existence Latin, German, and French versions thereof; but it does not appear to have ever been translated into English. This Dr. Benisch proposes to do from the original Hebrew and

with the notes of the learned commentator on the legends and social system and polity of the Jews, more especially of the Captivity, whom the Rabbi specially visited. The work will be an interesting addition in a particular and very curious field of enquiry. The Rabbi appears to have enjoyed ease and affluence, and to have been prompted in his distant pilgrimage solely by the desire to become better acquainted with the state and condition of his distant brethren.-Journal of Sacred Literature, vol. iii., 3rd series,

1856.

NOTE.-The learned and lamented Dr. Benisch carried out his intended purpose to translate this work. It has also been rendered into English by Bialloblotzky, a copy of which I have fortunately been enabled to present to Dr. Williams's Library in Grafton Street, W.C., an institution which, though of small dimensions, affords great assistance to enquiring students. Those who may be desirous of

,סבוב הרב ו' פתחיה referring to a copy of the work in Hebrew

will find it at the British Museum under the press mark, Pethahi-ah ben Jacob of Ratisbon, 12904 e. 4, 1750, 4to. It has been rendered also into Latin by Antoine Zanolini with many notes.-P. A.

THE NAILS.

We are inclined to think that the excessive growth of the Nails as indications of rank (the wearers of them being necessarily above manual labour)-a fashion not confined to China, but followed also in Upper Nubia, where the growth is encouraged by holding the nails over small fires of cedarwood-we are inclined, we say, to think that such fashion, if it does not date from the time of Adam, prevails in the localities named only because of him. There is at all events a Rabbinical tradition which says that before the Fall, Adam and Eve had a transparent covering, a robe of

light, of which remnants remain in mankind in the nails of the hands and the feet. To encourage the growth of the nails was probably, in its original sense, only to recover as much as possible the robes of light which decked the forms of the parents of mankind.—Encyclopædia Britannica, Art. "FASHION."

HUMOROUS ANECDOTE.

Many superstitious persons have absurdly imagined, that when cutting their nails, unless they gather up the fragments and burn or bury them, they will be sent on earth after death to seek for them. A man (say, a Pullak, as all jokes are fastened on them, as by others on the Irish) was observed performing this operation at the Crystal Palace, and allowing the parings to be dispersed by the breeze. "How can you do such a thing, here, above all places?" said an ultra-orthodox companion; "don't you know you'll have to come and look for what you cut off, after you are dead, till you find them?” "Shouldn't I like it-to be sent here, above all places, till I do find them?" smilingly answered the recalcitrant Pole, as he continued his unseemly occupation.

DISCLAIMER

Of the Portuguese, Spanish, and Avignonians of Paris, Bourdeaux, Bayonne, and of the South of France.

Having been informed that the Council of State is at this time engaged with a project of decrees relative to the Israelites, those Jews who are known by the name of Portuguese and Spanish hope, that whatsoever may be the measures which the Council of State may think proper to adopt with regard to their co-religionists, they may not be therein included, since they have always been distinguished from the others; that they have always enjoyed privileges

refused to Israelites of certain provinces; that they have always been subject to the same legislation as all other Frenchmen; that they have easily obtained the enjoyment of all political rights; and that there never has been any fault or misconduct alleged against them. The justice of their cause, their irreproachable conduct, ought to be for them a sufficient guarantee that they will not be included in a decree which might brand them in public opinion, although they may be not actually implicated, and they are well assured that the Emperor will not depart, with regard to them, from that special benevolence which he has always deigned to display towards them.

They, therefore, request the gentlemen of the Council of State to have regard to their expostulation, and to except them from any measure or law which shall not equally affect Frenchmen of all religious creeds. This Reclamation has no date affixed, but the printed form has appended to it the autographs of Crémieux, Carcassonne, Furtavoli, Rodrigues Ainé, Deputés de Bordeaux, and also at the foot of the page B. Rodrigues, deputé de Paris pour les Juifs de Bayonne et du St. Esprit. The letter is addressed à Monsieur Montalivet, Conseiller d'Etat, Rue de l'Université, No. 120, à Paris.

BURIAL CHARGES.

A claim having been made in 1805 by the Prefect of Gironde against M. Carcassonne for certain payments relative to the interment of his wife, since the ministers of public religion only had the right to supply, or to cause to be supplied, all things necessary for funerals, and that the Jews had no prescriptive right to be exonerated from this decree, the Jews of course resisted this claim. The Section of the Interior, at the direction of the Minister of

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