Curiosities of Literature Volume I Part 19

Descartes residing in the commercial city of Amsterdam, writing to Balzac, ill.u.s.trates these descriptions with great force and vivacity.

"You wish to retire; and your intention is to seek the solitude of the Chartreux, or, possibly, some of the most beautiful provinces of France and Italy. I would rather advise you, if you wish to observe mankind, and at the same time to lose yourself in the deepest solitude, to join me in Amsterdam. I prefer this situation to that even of your delicious villa, where I spent so great a part of the last year; for, however agreeable a country-house may be, a thousand little conveniences are wanted, which can only be found in a city. One is not alone so frequently in the country as one could wish: a number of impertinent visitors are continually besieging you. Here, as all the world, except myself, is occupied in commerce, it depends merely on myself to live unknown to the world. I walk every day amongst immense ranks of people, with as much tranquillity as you do in your green alleys. The men I meet with make the same impression on my mind as would the trees of your forests, or the flocks of sheep grazing on your common. The busy hum too of these merchants does not disturb one more than the purling of your brooks. If sometimes I amuse myself in contemplating their anxious motions, I receive the same pleasure which you do in observing those men who cultivate your land; for I reflect that the end of all their labours is to embellish the city which I inhabit, and to antic.i.p.ate all my wants. If you contemplate with delight the fruits of your orchards, with all the rich promises of abundance, do you think I feel less in observing so many fleets that convey to me the productions of either India? What spot on earth could you find, which, like this, can so interest your vanity and gratify your taste?"

THE TALMUD.

The JEWS have their TALMUD; the CATHOLICS their LEGENDS of Saints; and the TURKS their SONNAH. The PROTESTANT has nothing but his BIBLE. The former are three kindred works. Men have imagined that the more there is to be believed, the more are the merits of the believer. Hence all _traditionists_ formed the orthodox and the strongest party. The word of G.o.d is lost amidst those heaps of human inventions, sanctioned by an order of men connected with religious duties; they ought now, however, to be regarded rather as CURIOSITIES OF LITERATURE. I give a sufficiently ample account of the TALMUD and the LEGENDS; but of the SONNAH I only know that it is a collection of the traditional opinions of the Turkish prophets, directing the observance of petty superst.i.tions not mentioned in the Koran.

The TALMUD is a collection of Jewish traditions which have been _orally_ preserved. It comprises the MISHNA, which is the text; and the GEMARA, its commentary. The whole forms a complete system of the learning, ceremonies, civil and canon laws of the Jews; treating indeed on all subjects; even gardening, manual arts, &c. The rigid Jews persuaded themselves that these traditional explications are of divine origin. The Pentateuch, say they, was written out by their legislator before his death in thirteen copies, distributed among the twelve tribes, and the remaining one deposited in the ark. The oral law Moses continually taught in the Sanhedrim, to the elders and the rest of the people. The law was repeated four times; but the interpretation was delivered only by _word of mouth_ from generation to generation. In the fortieth year of the flight from Egypt, the memory of the people became treacherous, and Moses was constrained to repeat this oral law, which had been conveyed by successive traditionists. Such is the account of honest David Levi; it is the creed of every rabbin.--David believed in everything but in Jesus.

This history of the Talmud some inclined to suppose apocryphal, even among a few of the Jews themselves. When these traditions first appeared, the keenest controversy has never been able to determine. It cannot be denied that there existed traditions among the Jews in the time of Jesus Christ. About the second century, they were industriously collected by Rabbi Juda the Holy, the prince of the rabbins, who enjoyed the favour of Antoninus Pius. He has the merit of giving some order to this multifarious collection.

It appears that the Talmud was compiled by certain Jewish doctors, who were solicited for this purpose by their nation, that they might have something to oppose to their Christian adversaries.

The learned W. Wotton, in his curious "Discourses" on the traditions of the Scribes and Pharisees, supplies an a.n.a.lysis of this vast collection; he has translated entire two divisions of this code of traditional laws, with the original text and the notes.

There are two Talmuds: the Jerusalem and the Babylonian. The last is the most esteemed, because it is the most bulky.

R. Juda, the prince of the rabbins, committed to writing all these traditions, and arranged them under six general heads, called orders or cla.s.ses. The subjects are indeed curious for philosophical inquirers, and multifarious as the events of civil life. Every _order_ is formed of _treatises_; every _treatise_ is divided into chapters, every _chapter_ into _mishnas_, which word means mixtures or miscellanies, in the form of _aphorisms_. In the first part is discussed what relates to _seeds_, _fruits_, and _trees_; in the second, _feasts_; in the third, _women_, their duties, their _disorders_, _marriages_, _divorces_, _contracts_, and _nuptials_; in the fourth, are treated the damages or losses sustained by beasts or men; of _things found_; _deposits_; _usuries_; _rents_; _farms_; _partners.h.i.+ps_ in commerce; _inheritance_; _sales_ and _purchases_; _oaths_; _witnesses_; _arrests_; _idolatry_; and here are named those by whom the oral law was received and preserved. In the fifth part are noticed _sacrifices_ and _holy things_; and the sixth treats of _purifications_; _vessels_; _furniture_; _clothes_; _houses_; _leprosy_; _baths_; and numerous other articles. All this forms the MISHNA.

The GEMARA, that is, the _complement_ or _perfection_, contains the DISPUTES and the OPINIONS of the RABBINS on the oral traditions. Their last decisions. It must be confessed that absurdities are sometimes elucidated by other absurdities; but there are many admirable things in this vast repository. The Jews have such veneration for this compilation, that they compare the holy writings to _water_, and the Talmud to _wine_; the text of Moses to _pepper_, but the Talmud to _aromatics_. Of the twelve hours of which the day is composed, they tell us that _G.o.d_ employs nine to study the Talmud, and only three to read the written law!

St. Jerome appears evidently to allude to this work, and notices its "Old Wives' Tales," and the filthiness of some of its matters. The truth is, that the rabbins resembled the Jesuits and Casuists; and Sanchez's work on "_Matrimonio_" is well known to agitate matters with such _scrupulous niceties_ as to become the most offensive thing possible.

But as among the schoolmen and casuists there have been great men, the same happened to these Gemaraists. Maimonides was a pillar of light among their darkness. The antiquity of this work is of itself sufficient to make it very curious.

A specimen of the topics may be shown from the table and contents of "Mishnic t.i.tles." In the order of seeds, we find the following heads, which present no uninteresting picture of the pastoral and pious ceremonies of the ancient Jews.

The Mishna, ent.i.tled the _Corner_, i.e. of the field. The laws of gleaning are commanded according to Leviticus; xix. 9, 10. Of the corner to be left in a corn-field. When the corner is due and when not. Of the forgotten sheaf. Of the ears of corn left in gathering. Of grapes left upon the vine. Of olives left upon the trees. When and where the poor may lawfully glean. What sheaf, or olives, or grapes, may be looked upon to be forgotten, and what not. Who are the proper witnesses concerning the poor's due, to exempt it from t.i.thing, &c. They distinguished uncirc.u.mcised fruit:--it is unlawful to eat of the fruit of any tree till the fifth year of its growth: the first three years of its bearing, it is called uncirc.u.mcised; the fourth is offered to G.o.d; and the fifth may be eaten.

The Mishna, ent.i.tled _Heterogeneous Mixtures_, contains several curious horticultural particulars. Of divisions between garden-beds and fields, that the produce of the several sorts of grains or seeds may appear distinct. Of the distance between every species. Distances between vines planted in corn-fields from one another and from the corn; between vines planted against hedges, walls, or espaliers, and anything sowed near them. Various cases relating to vineyards planted near any forbidden seeds.

In their seventh, or sabbatical year, in which the produce of all estates was given up to the poor, one of these regulations is on the different work which must not be omitted in the sixth year, lest (because the seventh being devoted to the poor) the produce should be unfairly diminished, and the public benefit arising from this law be frustrated. Of whatever is not perennial, and produced that year by the earth, no money may be made; but what is perennial may be sold.

On priests' t.i.thes, we have a regulation concerning eating the fruits carried to the place where they are to be separated.

The order _women_ is very copious. A husband is obliged to forbid his wife to keep a particular man's company before two witnesses. Of the waters of jealousy by which a suspected woman is to be tried by drinking, we find ample particulars. The ceremonies of clothing the accused woman at her trial. Pregnant women, or who suckle, are not obliged to drink for the rabbins seem to be well convinced of the effects of the imagination. Of their divorces many are the laws; and care is taken to particularise bills of divorces written by men in delirium or dangerously ill. One party of the rabbins will not allow of any divorce, unless something light was found in the woman's character, while another (the Pharisees) allow divorces even when a woman has only been so unfortunate as to suffer her husband's soup to be burnt!

In the order of _damages_, containing rules how to tax the damages done by man or beast, or other casualties, their distinctions are as nice as their cases are numerous. What beasts are innocent and what convict. By the one they mean creatures not naturally used to do mischief in any particular way; and by the other, those that naturally, or by a vicious habit, are mischievous that way. The tooth of a beast is convict, when it is proved to eat its usual food, the property of another man, and full rest.i.tution must be made; but if a beast that is used to eat fruits and herbs gnaws clothes or damages tools, which are not its usual food, the owner of the beast shall pay but half the damage when committed on the property of the injured person; but if the injury is committed on the property of the person who does the damage, he is free, because the beast gnawed what was not its usual food. As thus; if the beast of A.

gnaws or tears the clothes of B. in B.'s house or grounds, A. shall pay half the damages; but if B.'s clothes are injured in A.'s grounds by A.'s beast, A. is free, for what had B. to do to put his clothes in A.'s grounds? They made such subtile distinctions, as when an ox gores a man or beast, the law inquired into the habits of the beast; whether it was an ox that used to gore, or an ox that was not used to gore. However acute these niceties sometimes were, they were often ridiculous. No beast could be _convicted_ of being vicious till evidence was given that he had done mischief three successive days; but if he leaves off those vicious tricks for three days more, he is innocent again. An ox may be convict of goring an ox and not a man, or of goring a man and not an ox: nay; of goring on the sabbath, and not on a working day. Their aim was to make the punishment depend on the proofs of the _design_ of the beast that did the injury; but this attempt evidently led them to distinctions much too subtile and obscure. Thus some rabbins say that the morning prayer of the _Shemah_ must be read at the time they can distinguish _blue_ from _white_; but another, more indulgent, insists it may be when we can distinguish _blue_ from _green_! which latter colours are so near akin as to require a stronger light. With the same remarkable acuteness in distinguis.h.i.+ng things, is their law respecting not touching fire on the Sabbath. Among those which are specified in this const.i.tution, the rabbins allow the minister to look over young children by lamp-light, but he shall not read himself. The minister is forbidden to _read_ by lamp-light, lest he should trim his lamp; but he may direct the children where they should read, because that is quickly done, and there would be no danger of his tr.i.m.m.i.n.g his lamp in their presence, or suffering any of them to do it in his. All these regulations, which some may conceive as minute and frivolous, show a great intimacy with the human heart, and a spirit of profound observation which had been capable of achieving great purposes.

The owner of an innocent beast only pays half the costs for the mischief incurred. Man is always convict, and for all mischief he does he must pay full costs. However there are casual damages,--as when a man pours water accidentally on another man; or makes a thorn-hedge which annoys his neighbour; or falling down, and another by stumbling on him incurs harm: how such compensations are to be made. He that has a vessel of another's in keeping, and removes it, but in the removal breaks it, must swear to his own integrity; i.e., that he had no design to break it. All offensive or noisy trades were to be carried on at a certain distance from a town. Where there is an estate, the sons inherit, and the daughters are maintained; but if there is not enough for all, the daughters are maintained, and the sons must get their living as they can, or even beg. The contrary to this excellent ordination has been observed in Europe.

These few t.i.tles may enable the reader to form a general notion of the several subjects on which the Mishna treats. The Gemara or Commentary is often overloaded with inept.i.tudes and ridiculous subtilties. For instance, in the article of "Negative Oaths." If a man swears he will eat no bread, and does eat all sorts of bread, in that case the perjury is but one; but if he swears that he will eat neither barley, nor wheaten, nor rye-bread, the perjury is multiplied as he multiplies his eating of the several sorts.--Again, the Pharisees and the Sadducees had strong differences about touching the holy writings with their hands.

The doctors ordained that whoever touched the book of the law must not eat of the truma (first fruits of the wrought produce of the ground), till they had washed their hands. The reason they gave was this. In times of persecution, they used to hide those sacred books in secret places, and good men would lay them out of the way when they had done reading them. It was possible, then, that these rolls of the law might be gnawed by _mice_. The hands then that touched these books when they took them out of the places where they had laid them up, were supposed to be unclean, so far as to disable them from eating the truma till they were washed. On that account they made this a general rule, that if any part of the _Bible_ (except _Ecclesiastes_, because that excellent book their sagacity accounted less holy than the rest) or their phylacteries, or the strings of their phylacteries, were touched by one who had a right to eat the truma, he might not eat it till he had washed his hands. An evidence of that superst.i.tious trifling, for which the Pharisees and the later Rabbins have been so justly reprobated.

They were absurdly minute in the literal observance of their vows, and as shamefully subtile in their artful evasion of them. The Pharisees could be easy enough to themselves when convenient, and always as hard and unrelenting as possible to all others. They quibbled, and dissolved their vows, with experienced casuistry. Jesus reproaches the Pharisees in Matthew xv. and Mark vii. for flagrantly violating the fifth commandment, by allowing the vow of a son, perhaps made in hasty anger, its full force, when he had sworn that his father should never be the better for him, or anything he had, and by which an indigent father might be suffered to starve. There is an express case to this purpose in the Mishna, in the t.i.tle of _Vows_. The reader may be amused by the story:--A man made a vow that his _father should not profit by him_.

This man afterwards made a wedding-feast for his son, and wishes his father should be present; but he cannot invite him, because he is tied up by his vow. He invented this expedient:--He makes a gift of the court in which the feast was to be kept, and of the feast itself, to a third person in trust, that his father should be invited by that third person, with the other company whom he at first designed. This third person then says--If these things you thus have given me are mine, I will dedicate them to G.o.d, and then none of you can be the better for them. The son replied--I did not give them to you that you should consecrate them.

Then the third man said--Yours was no donation, only you were willing to eat and drink with your father. Thus, says R. Juda, they dissolved each other's intentions; and when the case came before the rabbins, they decreed that a gift which may not be consecrated by the person to whom it is given is not a gift.

The following extract from the Talmud exhibits a subtile mode of reasoning, which the Jews adopted when the learned of Rome sought to persuade them to conform to their idolatry. It forms an entire Mishna, ent.i.tled _Sedir Nezikin_, Avoda Zara, iv. 7. on idolatrous wors.h.i.+p, translated by Wotton.

"Some Roman senators examined the Jews in this manner:--If G.o.d hath no delight in the wors.h.i.+p of idols, why did he not destroy them? The Jews made answer--If men had wors.h.i.+pped only things of which the world had had no need, he would have destroyed the object of their wors.h.i.+p; but they also wors.h.i.+p the sun and moon, stars and planets; and then he must have destroyed his world for the sake of these deluded men. But still, said the Romans, why does not G.o.d destroy the things which the world does not want, and leave those things which the world cannot be without?

Because, replied the Jews, this would strengthen the hands of such as wors.h.i.+p these necessary things, who would then say--Ye allow now that these are G.o.ds, since they are not destroyed."

RABBINICAL STORIES.

The preceding article furnishes some of the more serious investigations to be found in the Talmud. Its levities may amuse. I leave untouched the gross obscenities and immoral decisions. The Talmud contains a vast collection of stories, apologues, and jests; many display a vein of pleasantry, and at times have a wildness of invention, which sufficiently mark the features of an eastern parent. Many extravagantly puerile were designed merely to recreate their young students. When a rabbin was asked the reason of so much nonsense, he replied that the ancients had a custom of introducing music in their lectures, which accompaniment made them more agreeable; but that not having musical instruments in the schools, the rabbins invented these strange stories to arouse attention. This was ingeniously said; but they make miserable work when they pretend to give mystical interpretations to pure nonsense.

In 1711, a German professor of the Oriental languages, Dr. Eisenmenger, published in two large volumes quarto, his "Judaism Discovered," a ponderous labour, of which the scope was to ridicule the Jewish traditions.

I shall give a dangerous adventure into which King David was drawn by the devil. The king one day hunting, Satan appeared before him in the likeness of a roe. David discharged an arrow at him, but missed his aim.

He pursued the feigned roe into the land of the Philistines. Ishbi, the brother of Goliath, instantly recognised the king as him who had slain that giant. He bound him, and bending him neck and heels, laid him under a wine-press in order to press him to death. A miracle saves David. The earth beneath him became soft, and Ishbi could not press wine out of him. That evening in the Jewish congregation a dove, whose wings were covered with silver, appeared in great perplexity; and evidently signified the king of Israel was in trouble. Abishai, one of the king's counsellors, inquiring for the king, and finding him absent, is at a loss to proceed, for according to the Mishna, no one may ride on the king's horse, nor sit upon his throne, nor use his sceptre. The school of the rabbins, however, allowed these things in time of danger. On this Abishai vaults on David's horse, and (with an Oriental metaphor) the land of the Philistines leaped to him instantly! Arrived at Ishbi's house, he beholds his mother Orpa spinning. Perceiving the Israelite, she s.n.a.t.c.hed up her spinning-wheel and threw it at him, to kill him; but not hitting him, she desired him to bring the spinning-wheel to her. He did not do this exactly, but returned it to her in such a way that she never asked any more for her spinning-wheel. When Ishbi saw this, and recollecting that David, though tied up neck and heels, was still under the wine-press, he cried out. "There are now two who will destroy me!"

So he threw David high up into the air, and stuck his spear into the ground, imagining that David would fall upon it and perish. But Abishai p.r.o.nounced the magical name, which the Talmudists frequently make use of, and it caused David to hover between earth and heaven, so that he fell not down! Both at length unite against Ishbi, and observing that two young lions should kill one lion, find no difficulty in getting rid of the brother of Goliath.

Of Solomon, another favourite hero of the Talmudists, a fine Arabian story is told. This king was an adept in necromancy, and a male and a female devil were always in waiting for an emergency. It is observable, that the Arabians, who have many stories concerning Solomon, always describe him as a magician. His adventures with Aschmedai, the prince of devils, are numerous; and they both (the king and the devil) served one another many a slippery trick. One of the most remarkable is when Aschmedai, who was prisoner to Solomon, the king having contrived to possess himself of the devil's seal-ring, and chained him, one day offered to answer an unholy question put to him by Solomon, provided he returned him his seal-ring and loosened his chain. The impertinent curiosity of Solomon induced him to commit this folly. Instantly Aschmedai swallowed the monarch; and stretching out his wings up to the firmament of heaven, one of his feet remaining on the earth, he spit out Solomon four hundred leagues from him. This was done so privately, that no one knew anything of the matter. Aschmedai then a.s.sumed the likeness of Solomon, and sat on his throne. From that hour did Solomon say, "_This_ then is the reward of all my labour," according to Ecclesiasticus i. 3; which _this_ means, one rabbin says, his walking-staff; and another insists was his ragged coat. For Solomon went a begging from door to door; and wherever he came he uttered these words; "I, the preacher, was king over Israel in Jerusalem." At length coming before the council, and still repeating these remarkable words, without addition or variation, the rabbins said, "This means something: for a fool is not constant in his tale!" They asked the chamberlain, if the king frequently saw him? and he replied to them, No! Then they sent to the queens, to ask if the king came into their apartments? and they answered, Yes! The rabbins then sent them a message to take notice of his feet; for the feet of devils are like the feet of c.o.c.ks. The queens acquainted them that his majesty always came in slippers, but forced them to embrace at times forbidden by the law. He had attempted to lie with his mother Bathsheba, whom he had almost torn to pieces. At this the rabbins a.s.sembled in great haste, and taking the beggar with them, they gave him the ring and the chain in which the great magical name was engraven, and led him to the palace. Asehmedai was sitting on the throne as the real Solomon entered; but instantly he shrieked and flew away.

Yet to his last day was Solomon afraid of the prince of devils, and had his bed guarded by the valiant men of Israel, as is written in Cant.

iii. 7, 8.

They frequently display much humour in their inventions, as in the following account of the manners and morals of an infamous town, which mocked at all justice. There were in Sodom four judges, who were liars, and deriders of justice. When any one had struck his neighbour's wife, and caused her to miscarry, these judges thus counselled the husband:--"Give her to the offender, that he may get her with child for thee." When any one had cut off an ear of his neighbour's a.s.s, they said to the owner--"Let him have the a.s.s till the ear is grown again, that it may be returned to thee as thou wishest." When any one had wounded his neighbour, they told the wounded man to "give him a fee for letting him blood." A toll was exacted in pa.s.sing a certain bridge; but if any one chose to wade through the water, or walk round about to save it, he was condemned to a double toll. Eleasar, Abraham's servant, came thither, and they wounded him. When, before the judge, he was ordered to pay his fee for having his blood let, Eleasar flung a stone at the judge, and wounded him; on which the judge said to him--"What meaneth this?"

Eleasar replied--"Give him who wounded me the fee that is due to myself for wounding thee." The people of this town had a bedstead on which they laid travellers who asked for rest. If any one was too long for it, they cut off his legs; and if he was shorter than the bedstead, they strained him to its head and foot. When a beggar came to this town, every one gave him a penny, on which was inscribed the donor's name; but they would sell him no bread, nor let him escape. When the beggar died from hunger, then they came about him, and each man took back his penny.

These stories are curious inventions of keen mockery and malice, seasoned with humour. It is said some of the famous decisions of Sancho Panza are to be found in the Talmud.

Abraham is said to have been jealous of his wives, and built an enchanted city for them. He built an iron city and put them in. The walls were so high and dark, the sun could not be seen in it. He gave them a bowl full of pearls and jewels, which sent forth a light in this dark city equal to the sun. Noah, it seems, when in the ark, had no other light than jewels and pearls. Abraham, in travelling to Egypt, brought with him a chest. At the custom-house the officers exacted the duties. Abraham would have readily paid, but desired they would not open the chest. They first insisted on the duty for clothes, which Abraham consented to pay; but then they thought, by his ready acquiescence, that it might be gold. Abraham consents to pay for gold. They now suspected it might be silk. Abraham was willing to pay for silk, or more costly pearls; and Abraham generously consented to pay as if the chest contained the most valuable of things. It was then they resolved to open and examine the chest; and, behold, as soon as that chest was opened, that great l.u.s.tre of human beauty broke out which made such a noise in the land of Egypt; it was Sarah herself! The jealous Abraham, to conceal her beauty, had locked her up in this chest.

The whole creation in these rabbinical fancies is strangely gigantic and vast. The works of eastern nations are full of these descriptions; and Hesiod's Theogony, and Milton's battles of angels, are puny in comparison with these rabbinical heroes, or rabbinical things. Mountains are hurled, with all their woods, with great ease, and creatures start into existence too terrible for our conceptions. The winged monster in the "Arabian Nights," called the Roc, is evidently one of the creatures of rabbinical fancy; it would sometimes, when very hungry, seize and fly away with an elephant. Captain Cook found a bird's nest in an island near New Holland, built with sticks on the ground, six-and-twenty feet in circ.u.mference, and near three feet in height. But of the rabbinical birds, fish, and animals, it is not probable any circ.u.mnavigator will ever trace even the slightest vestige or resemblance.

One of their birds, when it spreads its wings, blots out the sun. An egg from another fell out of its nest, and the white thereof broke and glued about three hundred cedar-trees, and overflowed a village. One of them stands up to the lower joint of the leg in a river, and some mariners, imagining the water was not deep, were hastening to bathe, when a voice from heaven said--"Step not in there, for seven years ago there a carpenter dropped his axe, and it hath not yet reached the bottom."

The following pa.s.sage, concerning fat geese, is perfectly in the style of these rabbins:--"A rabbin once saw in a desert a flock of geese so fat that their feathers fell off, and the rivers flowed in fat. Then said I to them, shall we have part of you in the other world when the Messiah shall come? And one of them lifted up a wing, and another a leg, to signify these parts we should have. We should otherwise have had all parts of these geese; but we Israelites shall be called to an account touching these fat geese, because their sufferings are owing to us. It is our iniquities that have delayed the coming of the Messiah; and these geese suffer greatly by reason of their excessive fat, which daily and daily increases, and will increase till the Messiah comes!"

What the manna was which fell in the wilderness, has often been disputed, and still is disputable; it was sufficient for the rabbins to have found in the Bible that the taste of it was "as a wafer made with honey," to have raised their fancy to its pitch. They declare it was "like oil to children, honey to old men, and cakes to middle age." It had every kind of taste except that of cuc.u.mbers, melons, garlic, and onions, and leeks, for these were those Egyptian roots which the Israelites so much regretted to have lost. This manna had, however, the quality to accommodate itself to the palate of those who did not murmur in the wilderness; and to these it became fish, flesh, or fowl.

The rabbins never advance an absurdity without quoting a text in Scripture; and to substantiate this fact they quote Deut. ii. 7, where it is said, "Through this great wilderness these forty years the Lord thy G.o.d hath been with thee, and _thou hast lacked nothing_!" St. Austin repeats this explanation of the Rabbins, that the faithful found in this manna the taste of their favourite food! However, the Israelites could not have found all these benefits, as the rabbins tell us; for in Numbers xi. 6, they exclaim, "There is _nothing at all besides this manna_ before our eyes!" They had just said that they remembered the melons, cuc.u.mbers, &c., which they had eaten of so freely in Egypt. One of the hyperboles of the rabbins is, that the manna fell in such mountains, that the kings of the east and the west beheld them; which they found on a pa.s.sage in the 23rd Psalm; "Thou preparest a table before me in the presence of mine enemies!" These may serve as specimens of the forced interpretations on which their grotesque fables are founded.

Their detestation of t.i.tus, their great conqueror, appears by the following wild invention. After having narrated certain things too shameful to read, of a prince whom Josephus describes in far different colours, they tell us that on sea t.i.tus tauntingly observed, in a great storm, that the G.o.d of the Jews was only powerful on the water, and that, therefore, he had succeeded in drowning Pharaoh and Sisera. "Had he been strong, he would have waged war with me in Jerusalem." On uttering this blasphemy, a voice from heaven said, "Wicked man! I have a little creature in the world which shall wage war with thee!" When t.i.tus landed, a gnat entered his nostrils, and for seven years together made holes in his brains. When his skull was opened, the gnat was found to be as large as a pigeon: the mouth of the gnat was of copper, and the claws of iron. A collection which has recently appeared of these Talmudical stories has not been executed with any felicity of selection. That there are, however, some beautiful inventions in the Talmud, I refer to the story of Solomon and Sheba, in the present volume.

ON THE CUSTOM OF SALUTING AFTER SNEEZING.