The gaiety of this gentleman's attire and conversation affords a fine contrast to the miserable condition of the minstrel in the later days of the craft; when even so true a poet as the author of the elder ballad of Chevy Chase' was accustomed to indite such verses as the following 'Now for the good chear that Y have had heare I give you hartty thankes, with bowing off my shankes; I perseive without fable ye kepe a good table. Some tyme I will be your geste, or els I were a beaste; Some tyme to taste your cuppe, and with you dyne and suppe; A peace of byffe to take, mye hunger to aslake, Both mutton and veile is goode for Rycharde Sheale. Beyng in hongar, of fresshe samon or konger; &c. The reader will find the continuation of this melancholy ditty in Mr. Conybeare's Illustrations of Anglo-Saxon Poetry,' p. 28— where it was first printed from one of the Ashmolean MSS.; a highly-curious volume, of which we shall shortly have occasion to treat at length. ART. IV.-Hebrew Tales; selected and translated from the Writings of the ancient Hebrew Sages: to which is prefixed, an Essay on the Uninspired Literature of the Hebrews. By Hyman Hurwitz, Author of Vindicia Hebraicæ, &c. &c. London. 1826. TOWA OWARDS the close of the second century, the Jews began to be sensible that their chance of re-establishment in the Holy Land was almost hopeless. For a long time after the destruction of their city and temple in the year 70, they cherished ideas of the speedy appearance of their Messiah in the only form in which they would acknowledge him-as a great temporal deliverer-an Avatar of victory and revenge. They then doubted not that his advent was destined about that period, and quoted the prophecies, which they have since learned to interpret differently, in support of the correctness of their belief. But having rejected Him in whom all the characteristics of the true Messiah were united, but who wanted the one mark of temporal power, which their national prejudices exalted into the most important of all the tokens of Messiahship, they were obliged to look for another, and Barchochoba (the son of the star*) appeared to gratify their desires. They exaggerated his victories, in reality trifling when considered in opposition to the power of Rome, into absolute proofs of his claims to the title which he assumed, and clung to him with their national obstinacy, and occasional displays of bravery worthy of a more successful cause. He was proclaimed as the star of Jacob, and the sceptre of Israel, foredoomed, by the reluctant prophecy of Balaam, to smite the corners of Moab, and destroy all the children of Sheth. The sword of the Romans speedily dispelled these visions; and Adrian proved, by the enactment of oppressive laws, and the infliction of the most cruel punishments, that no temporal Messiah should arise to the Jews in his dominions. After defeating them with merciless slaughter, he banished them from Judea, persecuted them in all parts of the empire, and insulted their religion by erecting altars to Pagan deities on the very ground where the Shechina once had been. Some specimens of his cruelty are related in Mr. Hurwitz's little volume, (p. 106, &c.,) and the Jewish records would supply many more. In the pages of Roman history his character is represented in at least mixed colours: he is severus, mitis, sævus, clemens.' In the records of the Jews there is no redeeming trait: he appears as the very incarnation of cruelty. This persecution by Adrian appears to have destroyed or interrupted the succession of the Hebrew schools, which had flourished unbroken since the days of Ezra. In the insane insurrection of Barchochoba, Akiba, the most learned of the rabbis, and the then president of the schools, took a most active part, although we are assured that he had arrived at the age of one hundred and twenty; a circumstance that does not appear very probable. He publicly proclaimed the impostor as the Messiah, and even acted as his armour-bearer. On the overthrow of his party he was taken prisoner, and carded to death, the horrible tortures of which he bore with the greatest courage, showing himself so attentive to the ceremonies of his religion, as to repeat the proper prayer in the regular manner while under the hands of the executioners. His biographers have noted the very letter at which he was stopped by death. Mr. Hurwitz (pp. 119, 120) insinuates that he was executed for his zeal in teaching the Jewish doctrines, but this is incorrect; he was put to death for his peculiar activity in the rebellion, and the obstinacy with which he advocated the impostor's The memory of few persons has been more cherished by cause. On his defeat, they altered this name to Bar-Chuziba-the son of lying. This is not unlike the treatment King James II, has received from his Irish partisans. their countrymen than that of Akiba. They are never weary in extolling his immense learning, his knowledge of seventy languages, the eagerness of his late-taken up and long-protracted studies, or the incalculable number of his disciples; but even these topics of praise are not sufficient. His genealogy is carefully traced to Sisera, the Canaanite general of King Jabiu; and his wife is said to have been the widow of a Roman nobleman of high rank. We are told that a whole volume would not be sufficient for a detail of his merits, and, in fact, personal anecdotes of him have been handed down which would enable a biographer to draw up a life of Akiba more resembling a memoir of modern times than an account of a rabbi of the first century, whose existence is hardly known to any but scholars occupied in the study of an obscure literature. Long after his death, they pointed out with affectionate regret his tomb, by the Lake Tiberias, where they tell us he was buried, with twenty-four thousand of his disciples at his feet. His courage, patriotic enthusiasm and learning have procured him pardon for having acknowledged a false Messiah; and Maimonides, strange to say, founds on this very error an argument to prove that the Messiah is not yet come. He is universally acknowledged as the most learned of the rabbis, though the works attributed to him badly support that fame; and as with Barchochoba perished the last of the Jewish generals, so with Akiba expired the last of the great oral doctors. At the death of Rabbi Akiba,' says the Mishna, 'the glory of the law perished.' He died about A.D. 135; soon after the taking of Bitter. The later rabbis fondly remark, that on the very day of Akiba's death, Rabbi Jehudah, whose labours were destined to supply the want of oral teachers, was born. He is styled either Hanassi, i. e. the prince, from his literary and political rank among his countrymen; or Hakadosh, i. e. the holy, from the sanctity of his life, of which some rather whimsical stories are told. This learned man flourished in the reigns of Antoninus Pius, Marcus Aurelius, and Commodus, with all of whom, we are informed, he enjoyed the highest favour. We may doubt, however, what we are told in En Israel, that the first of these princes submitted to the rite of circumcision at his hands. 'He seeing,' says Maimonides, 'that disciples were falling off, dangers and difficulties impending, and the kingdom of Satan spreading all over the world, and obtaining greater strength, (Maimonides probably alludes to the spread of Christianity, which, in the tranquil reigns of the Antonines, was making rapid progress,) while the people of Israel were driven to the ends of the earth, made a collection of traditions fit for public dissemination, in order that they might not fall into oblivion.' It is evident that the chief motive which actuated him in making his collection, was his feeling of the utter hopelessness of the Jewish cause. He saw the Roman empire in undisputed plenitude of universal power, and if he lived in the courts of its emperors, he had ample means of convincing himself that no efforts unaided by miracles, of which there was but little chance, could shake the force which they wielded. Under these circumstances, he could look forward to nothing but an indefinite prolongation of the captivity, and was of course anxious that the traditions, which his people regarded with as much reverence as the Scriptures themselves, should not be lost, as there was every probability they would be, if entrusted to the oral keeping of the dispersed teachers of an oppressed and dwindling people. It was no time then to recollect the strong injunction that existed, to forbid that things delivered by word of mouth should be committed to writing.' The traditions must either be written, or, in all probability, perish; and The loss of a limb,' as Mr. Hurwitz expresses it, (p. 46,) is preferable to the destruction of the whole body.' The Hebrew scholar has reason to be thankful to Jehudah for not observing this precept, of which it is much easier to appreciate than to admire the purpose. The accuracy, industry, and talent which he brought to his work are highly praised by his countrymen. He spent many years in collecting materials for it from all the rabbis of the nation whereever dispersed, and published it, according to the general computation, in A. D. 190, the 11th year of the Emperor Commodus. He styled it the MISHNA, a word which has been differently interpreted, but which is generally allowed to signify the secondary law; the Greeks interpret it devrepwais, as if it bore the same relation to the scriptures which Deuteronomy does to the other books of the Pentateuch. It was immediately diffused with great eagerness among all the Hebrew schools of Palestine, Babylon, &c. and of course soon found commentators. The comments speedily swelled into a bulk far beyond that of the text, and received the title of Gemāra, i. e. the completion. The Mishna and Gemara united form the Talmud, which signifies the doctrinal.' Of Talmuds there are two, the Jerusalem and the Babylonish, so called from the schools which compiled them. The former was collected by Rabbi Jochonan, who was born in 184, and died in 279. The latter was begun by Rabbi Asche, who died in 427, and completed by Rabbi Jose seventy-three years afterwards, viz. A. D. 500. Most of these dates are disputed, and some are inclined to put them later; but the Archbishop of Cashel shows that the BabyJonish Talmud must have been composed before 531. See the notes to a sermon preached by Dr. Laurence before the University of Oxford, p. 24. This is by far the more famous and complete-as might be expected, being by three centuries the later of the two. The doctors of Babylon were, besides, of much higher renown, the schools of Palestine being at that time in a state of decadence, while the other flourished till the twelfth century. Yet, as De Rossi truly remarks,* the Jerusalem Talmud deserves to be more valued, as being 'più esente di inezie, e più utile all' illustrazione delle sagre antichità.' Prideaux was also of the same opinion. The style of the Mishna is purer, and far more scriptural than that of either of the Gemaras ; that of the Jerusalem being frequently so obscure as to puzzle the most learned, for instance, Lightfoot: and the Babylonish being full of foreign words and barbarous phrases. The Jerusalem Talmud is contained in one folio-the Babylonian in twelve; and it is impossible to look at the comparatively pure text of the Mishna, surrounded as it is in all directions by so disproportionate a mass of commentary, not always the most valuable, without recollecting the uncleanly, but very descriptive, jest of Rabelais on the glosses in which Accursius has involved the Pandects of Justinian. And yet, with all this bulk, it is incomplete; many of the sections of the Mishna being unaccompanied by any Gemara. If the ritual law of Moses itself abounds in minute ceremonies and observances, evidently ordained for the purpose of making the Hebrew nation more decidedly distinct from all others, it might naturally be expected that the traditions which arose in the long course of time between the promulgation of the law and the completion of the Talmud, should be still more minute in their regulations, and applied to an infinitely greater number of contingencies; and, on examination, such expectations are fully verified. No where does such a code of laws, or casuistical decisions, exist, applied with so much exactness to such a vast number of cases, some highly important, some the most trifling conceivable, rendering the law, as expounded by them, what it was described to be eighteen hundred years ago, when administered by the oral predecessors of the Talmudists, a heavy burthen, and hard to be borne.' Mr. Hurwitz (p. 38, &c.) pleads, that several of the customs and laws in the Talmud are founded on scriptural authority. It may be true--and is true, in the instances which he quotes; but it is impossible to turn over the first ten pages of the Mishna without finding many which have no warrant of scripture or common sense to support them. In practice, they are felt to be annoying enough. Mendelsohn testifies to the fact; and we think it is Mr. Frey who assures us that it takes as hard a course of theological study to become a Jew butcher, (from * Dizionario Storico, vol. I. p. 171. the |