LETTER LXIII.

Jews in England.

I WENT yesterday evening to the Synagogue. Never did I see a place of worship in which there was so little appearance of devotion. The women were in a gallery by themselves, the men sate below, keeping their hats on, as they would have done in the street. During the service. they took from behind their altar, if that word may be thus applied without profanation, certain silver-utensils they cannot be called, as they appeared to be of no possible use, silver ornaments rather, hung with snfall rattle bells, and these they jingled as they carried them round the room, then replaced them in the receptacle.

sible to describe the strange and uncouth tone in which the priest sung out a portion of the Pentateuch from a long roll. The language was so intolerably harsh, and the manner in which it was chaunted so abominably discordant, that they suited each other to a miracle; and the larynx of the Rabbi seemed to have been made expressly to give both their full effect.

In former times the toleration of the Jews gave occasion to the same disturbances here as in the rest of Europe. They cheated the people, and the people in return took advantage of every tumult to plunder them. The famous King John, who offered to turn Mohammedan if the Miramamolin would assist him against his rebellious subjects, extorted a large sum from a Jew of Bristol by a new and ingenious kind of torture: he condemned him to have a tooth drawn every day till he consented to lend the money; and the Jew parted with six grinders before he submitted. After the schism, as the Heretics

began first to persecute the Catholics, and then one another, the misbelievers were forgotten. Cromwell even favoured them; in one respect he differed from all his contemporary fanatics, for he willingly allowed to other sects the toleration which he

claimed for his own. Under his protection Manasses Ben Israel printed three editions of the Bible in Hebrew. This Rabbi is generally supposed to have been a Spaniard, but the Portugueze claim him, and I think we shall not be disposed to contend with them for the honour,-especially as most persons would decide in their favour, without examination.

During the last reign an attempt was made to naturalize them, in a body; and the measure would have been effected had it not been for the indignant outcry of the people, who very properly regarded it as an act of defiance, or at least of opposition, to the express language of prophecy. But this feeling has abated, and were the

little opposition. In Catholic countries our pictures and crucifixes perpetually set before the Christian's eyes the sufferings of his Redeemer, and there is no possibility of his forgetting the history of his religion. Even the most trifling ceremony is of use. At one of the public schools here, the boys on Easter Sunday rush out of the chapel after prayers, singing

He is risen, he is risen,

All the Jews must go to prison.

This custom is certainly very old, though I cannot learn that it was ever usual to imprison this wretched people upon this festival. Some of these boys cut the straps of a Jew's box one day, and all his gingerbread nuts fell into the street. Complaint was made to the master; and when he questioned the culprits what they could say in their defence, one of them stepped forward and said, " Why, sir, did not they crucify our Lord!" Without admitting the plea in excuse, it may be remarked that

if the boy had not remembered his Easter rhymes, he would have been as indifferent to the crime of the Jews as the rest of his

countrymen.

Some years ago one of the best living dramatists wrote a comedy for the purpose of representing the Jewish character in a favourable light. The play was very successful, and the Jews were so well pleased that they presented the author with a handsome gratuity*. A farce was brought forward at another time called the Jew Boy; and the fraternity knowing that it was impossible to represent this class favourably, assembled in great numbers, and actually damned the piece. This single fact is sufficient to prove that the liberty which they enjoy is unbounded. It is not merely the open exercise of their religion. which is permitted them, they are even suffered to write and publish against Christianity. If the permission of blasphemy

* This was publicly asserted at the time, but untruly.-TR.