succeeded, and was equally celebrated for his wisdom as his virtues, and was the first of his nation who had governed Judea peaceably and abso lutely, since the return from Babylon. He was killed at a banquet, and was succeeded by his son, John Hyrcanus, who was succeeded by Judas, surnamed Aristobulus, assuming to himself the title of king.

Alexander Jannæus was the next king, a hero very little inferior to David. He left two sons, Hyrcanus and Aristobulus. The former held the sceptre during the life of Alexandra, his mother; but soon after the death of that princess, Aristobulus declared war against his brother, and deprived him of his kingdom.

Judea having become a Roman province, Pompey the Great, its conqueror, re-established Hyrcanus in the government, and took with him Aristobulus to Rome, to heighten the glory of his triumph. Phraates, king of Parthia, deposed Hyrcanus, and put in his place Antigonus, son of Aristobulus. Soon after Herod, surnamed the Great, an Idumean by birth, and patronised by Anthony, obtained permission from the Romans to assume the title of king of the Jews. This prince, although a tyrant to his subjects and to his family, added lustre to the Jewish nation; he repaired Jerusalem, rebuilt the temple, and procured to himself successively the favour of Cassius, Cæsar, Antony, and Octavius; augmenting his power by the art which he possessed of pleasing those of whom he held his crown. In this reign JESUS CHRIST was born.

After the death of Herod. Augustus divided the government of Judea between the sons of Herod: he bestowed one half upon Archelaus, and the other half upon Herod-Antipas and Philip. Nine years afterwards, Augustus, being dissatisfied with their conduct, sent them into exile, and placed the government of Judea under the pro-consul of Syria.

The governors appointed by the Romans over the Jews were for the most part tyrants, which served to strengthen in them the propensity for revolt. They had been taught that a descendant of the house of David should deliver them from oppression; they believed that the time was nearly arrived, and their insolence increased as the fulfilment of the prediction, in their opinion, drew near. They were almost in continual sedition; and although severely punished for their turbulence, their ardour in a cause wherein they supposed their own liberties, and those of their posterity depended, was not in the least diminished.

In the year 66 after Christ, the standard of revolt was set up. Jerusalem was besieged by Cestius, whom the Jews compelled to retire. Nero, who was then in Achaia, no sooner heard of that event, than he sent Vespasian into Palestine, for the purpose of effecting that conquest which Cestius had been found unequal to obtain. Vespasian, who had already distinguished himself in Germany and Britain, entered this devoted country with a well-disciplined army; and as he encountered every where a fierce resistance, he put to the sword men, women, and children. All the cities and towns that lay in the way of his march, were taken and plundered. Those persons who escaped the cruelty of the conqueror, fled to Jerusalem, then in the hands of two furious parties, each of whom persecuted their opponents with unfeeling cruelty. Civil war and assassination became the consequence of their unbridled rage, and the priests theinselves were not exempt from the popular fury.

The siege of Jerusalem was suspended by the death of Nero. Three emperors mounted the throne; Galba, Otho, and Vitellius; all of whom died violent deaths. At length Vespasian was elected to the purple. He immediately sent his son, Titus, to Jerusalem, to finish the war which he had so successfully begun. Titus having arrived before Jerusalem previous to the feast of Easter, took his station on the mount of Olives, and, investing the city, he surrounded it with a wall, flanked with thirty tow

ers.

The magazines had been destroyed by fire, and a most cruel fame

raged within the city; but, notwithstanding their terrible situation, the besieged refused the advantageous conditions offered to them by the Roman general. At length he became master of the city, which was nearly reduced to ashes, and also of the temple. A scene of butchery then com. menced, and was continued for several days, until Jerusalem was left altogether desolate.

According to Josephus, eleven hundred thousand persons perished dur ing the siege, and at the capture; and those that were taken prisoners were made slaves. The misfortunes of Jerusalem were not confined to the Jews of that city, but extended to the whole of that people under the Roman power; some were thrown to ferocious beasts at the public games, and others sold into bondage. The sufferings, indeed, of the devoted inhabitants, fraught as some of the scenes are with thrilling interest, are such as humanity shudders to contemplate, and over which pity is glad to throw a veil.

THE STATE OF THE JEWS SINCE THE DESTRUCTION OF JERUSALEM.

THE Jews, obliged to quit their country, irritated and provoked by the cruel treatment they had received, meditated to avenge themselves of their enemies. They began to put their murderous designs into execution at the city of Cyrene, in Lybia, and in the island of Cyprus, where, since their flight, they had increased considerably. They were headed by an enterprising but artful man, named Andrew, under whom they not only committed the greatest excesses, but also gained some advantages over the Egyptians, and even over the Romans. The emperor Trajan found himself obliged to march an army against them; but they were not reduced until after several engagements, maintained with the greatest obstinacy; they were at length overcome, and were treated by the Romans rather as enemies of the human race, than as rebels against the power of Rome. Lybia became so far depopulated in this conflict, that the Ro mans deemed it necessary to send a colony to repeople the waste.

The Jews, notwithstanding their recent misfortunes in Palestine, again revolted. Adrian, the successor of Trajan, sent Julius Severus against them. This general (according to Dion), killed five hundred and eighty thousand in different battles; and, he further asserts, they could not reckon those that perished by famine, or otherwise; so that very few Jews escaped in this war. They razed (continues Dion), fifty fortified castles, pillaged and burnt nine hundred and ninety-five cities and towns, and made such a general massacre of the inhabitants through the country, that all Judea was in a manner converted into a desert. Before this massacre the number of Jews, according to calculations made under Nero, and estimating those destroyed under Titus, amounted to two million five hundred and forty-six thousand persons. Adrian, after having ruined and massacred the greatest part of the remaining number, prohibited, by a solemn edict, confirmed in the senate, any of those that had escaped the sword, from returning into their own country; and from that time this unfortuHate people have been entirely dispersed.

Notwithstanding the prodigious numbers which perished in the successive overthrows of the Jewish nation, it is clear that very considerable colonies of them settled in different countries, as the travels of the apostles alone amply testify. In Rome, Alexandria, and many other places, there were flourishing communities. Some devoted themselves to the cultivation of the arts and sciences, others pursued handicraft trades, many practised as physicians, but most of them turned their attention to commercial speculations, and soon became notorious for their wealth and

overreaching cupidity. In the fifth century they were banished from Alexandria, where they had been established from the time of Alexander. They rendered themselves the ridicule of all nations by their enthusiasm in favour of a false Messiah, who appeared at the time in Candia. This impostor, who was named Moses, and pretended to be the ancient legislator of the Jews, asserted that he had descended from Heaven, in order to enable the children of Abraham to enter the Land of Promise.

A new revolt in Palestine, in the sixth century, served to show the turbulent disposition of the Jewish race, and the increase of the massacres of that people. Phocias drove them from Antioch, and Heraclius from Jerusalem. While some of the scattered families resorted to Egypt, Babylon, and other polished countries in the East, there were others who settled in Arabia, penetrated to China, or wandered over the European continent. But many still remained in Palestine. After the conversion of the Roman empire to Christianity, Judea became an object of religious veneration, and the empress Helena repaired thither in pilgrimage, and built various splendid temples. A crowd of pilgrims resorted thither subsequently from every part of the world; the most numerous arriving from the west, over which the church of Rome had fully established its domination. In the commencement of the sixth century, however, an entire change took place. Judea was among the countries first exposed to the fanatical followers of Mahomet, and soon fell under their sway. But when the Turks poured in from the north, they no longer observed the same courtesy. They profaned the holy places, and the intelligence of their outrages being conveyed to Europe, roused the religious spirit of the age into those expedi tions called the crusades. All Europe seemed to pour itself upon Asia; the Saracen armies were routed, Jerusalem taken by storm, and its garrison put to the sword. The leader of the first crusade, Godfrey of Bouillon, was made king; and a petty Christian sovereignty established, which endured for above eighty years; the Holy Land continually streaming with the blood of Christian and Saracen. The Mahometan states, whose resources were all at hand, gradually, however, regained the ascendancy. In 1187 Judea was conquered by Saladin; on the decline of whose kingdom it passed through various hands, till, in the 16th century, it was eventually swallowed up in the Turkish empire.

Great calamities to the Jews occurred during the crusades. Wherever the fanatical soldiers who were on their way to Palestine passed, they pillaged and murdered the scattered inhabitants of the once happy land of Canaan, and the people of the nations among whom they dwelt robbed them of their valuables without remorse. The persecution was general, their furious enemies endeavouring, as it were, to extirpate the very name of Israel. It should be observed, however, that both Mahometans and Jews being animated by a like hatred of the Christians, we often find them acting in concert, especially during the Saracenic conquest of Africa and Spain. Nay, under the rule of the Spanish Moslems, the Jews not only enjoyed toleration, but they cultivated science, and were entrusted with the high offices of state.

In the twelfth century, Philip Augustus, king of France, banished them twice from his kingdom; and during the reign of Philip le Bel, they were accused, and not without justice, of cruel exactions and usurious extortions. They were also accused with having committed outra ges against the host, of having crucified children on Good Friday, of having insulted the image of Jesus Christ, &c. They were put into the hands of the judges; and, although no proof whatever was brought forward to substantiate their guilt, they were delivered over to the populace to be dealt with according to their pleasure. Philip banished them entirely from France in 1308, and confiscated all their effects. Louis X., his successor, permitted them to re-establish themselves in his kingdom,

on condition of their paying him a large sum of money. In the reign of Philip the Long, brother and successor of Louis, they were massacred and pillaged. In 1395, Charles V. banished them and confiscated all their property. This was their fourth and last banishment. In 1393 they experienced in Germany a treatment similar to that which they had received in France. In Castile they purchased their peace at a high price; but in Catalonia, Arragon, and the other parts of Spain, they were most horribly persecuted, and nearly two hundred thousand of them were compelled to embrace the Christian religion, or at least appear so to do.

At the beginning of the sixteenth century, the Jews established in Portugal underwent all the mischief with which Moses menaced their nation. In 1506, during three days successively, they were barbarously massacred at Lisbon yet as if not content with taking away their lives, they took those among them whom they had mutilated or mortally wounded and burnt them by heaps in the public squares. Two thousand perished in this manner. The fathers not daring to weep for their children nor the children for their fathers, they were mutually overcome by despair on seeing each other dragged away to torment. In the eighth century we find them the property of the Anglo-Saxon kings, who seem to have exercised absolute power over both their lives and goods. In this abject state they remained under the Norman princes and the early Plantaganets, who harassed them by the most cruel exactions, and often treated them with great barbarity. In proof of this, we need only refer to the reigns of Richard I., John, Henry III., and Edward I. If we pursue their history in other European countries, we shall find that if we except the Italian republics, and Spain while under the dominion of its Arab conquerors, the Jews everywhere found themselves the objects of persecution. On the introduction of the Inquisition into Spain and Portugual, that dread tribunal condemned thousands to the flames, before it commenced its diabolical proceedings against those Christians who differed from the see of Rome and it was not until the Protestant states were strong enough to break asunder the shackles of religious intolerance, that the Jew had any chance of ensuring his personal safety.

We thus see that in different ages the Jews have suffered the most dreadful persecutions and massacres: but though the annihilation of the race seemed inevitable, their numbers were still very considerable; and they exercised then, as they do at the present time, no little influence in the affairs of civilized nations. Since arts and learning have revived in Europe, they have felt the benefit of that humane enlightenment, which has extended all over the globe. France, Holland, Austria, and most of the German states, allow them the rights of citizenship; England and Prussia tolerate and protect them; in many of the British colonies they are among the principal merchants and traders; and in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, hey are at least suffered to reside unmolested. The attention of the British nation has of late years been particularly directed towards the improvement of their political condition and their conversion to Christianity But upon the latter topic, as well as the probable restoration of the Jews to the land of their fathers, it is not necessary to offer an opinion; both are concealed from mortal ken by the impenetrable veil which enwraps futurity.

ARMENIA.

THE ancient history of this large and warlike people is connected with that of the several mighty nations who in turn filled the world with the terror of their names. Its first king appears to have been Scython, the next Barzanes, after whose death the kingdom was divided into several

petty kingdoms. The Medes under Astyages subsequently subdued Armenia, which was reduced to a province under Persian governors. It was afterwards divided into Major and Minor by Artarias and Zadriades, who having united their forces, established each himself in his respective province, independent of his master; the former possessing Armenia Major, the other Minor. They were contemporary with Hannibal, who planned for Artarias the celebrated town of Artarata. Assisted by the Roman alliance, these usurpers maintained their power in spite of the several attacks of their former master, Antiochus. After their death, the Armenians suffered considerable loss in a war with the Parthians. Marc Antony put Artavardes, the sovereign of Armenia, to death, to make room for Alexander, his own son by Cleopatra; others say that he led him captive to Rome in golden chains. Trajan reduced Armenia to a Roman province; but in the reign of Constantine the Great, and his successor, it had its own kings, dependent on the emperor. Although St. Barthol. omew is said to have introduced Christianity into Armenia, there can be no doubt that it was Christian in the beginning of the fourth century. The Saracens subdued it in A. D. 687, who gave way to the Turks about a century afterwards. It was then called Turcomania.

Armenia partially recovered its independence, but was again subdued by Occadan or Heccate, son of Genghis, first khan of the Tartars. A remnant of the royal family of Armenia still remained; and we find one of them, Leo, came to England to solicit the aid of Richard II. against the Turks, by whom he had been expelled from his throne. Armenia was again made a province of the Persian empire in 1572. Selim II. reduced it to a Turkish province, in 1522; the greater part of which still remains subject to the Crescent.

ALBANIA.

ALBANIA was nominally a province of the Turkish empire. Its history is diversified, and mixed up with the various fortunes of the surrounding nations. Looked upon as barbarous hy the Greeks and Romans, because very slightly explored by them, Albania, better known to those celebra ted people as Illyricum, and Epirus, still retains the simplicity of primitive habits, so that it is emphatically called the Scythia of the Turkish empire. The ancient historians describe the inhabitants of this country as peculiarly fierce and intractable. The remoteness of its situation, and want of union among the several tribes which inhabited the country of Albania, rendered the valour of its people of little consequence to the general affairs of Greece, and accordingly we find them but slightly mixed up with Grecian politics. Under the conduct of Pyrrhus II., one of the most consummate generals of antiquity, who waged a bloody war with the Romans in Italy, the Albanians, or Epirotes, routed Antigonus, king of Macedonia, and held that country in subjection; but their conquest ended with the death of their commander, and they in turn fell under the power of the Macedonians.

The Romans made some settlements in their country, and availed themselves of the many fine harbours to be found along its coast. At their decline, along with other portions of that once mighty empire, Albania fell a prey to Alaric and the Goths, although some of their descendants afterwards regained possession of the northern district. Sigismund, one of its kings, was celebrated for his alliance with Theodoric, the victor of Clovis and Odoacer, A. D. 526. Albania now became the prey of the Sclavonian nations, till it was settled within its present limits, under the Bulgarians, in 870. As the Greek empire declined, the Alba