spirit as the Sampson of Milton; and the more especially, as we think Mr. Lamb, the very best of living dramatic critics, has certainly mistaken the character. Neither is it altogether beside the purpose, when speaking of the past and present condition of the Jews.

Shylock," says Mr. Lamb, "in the midst of his savage purpose, is a man; his motives, feelings, resentments, have something human in them. Barabbas is a mere monster, brought in with a large painted nose to please the rabble. He kills in sport, poisons whole nunneries, invents infernal machines." Now, but we speak with becoming deference, this judgment seems to us altogether erroneous. Barabbas is anything but a monster. He is just one of those subjects on which a philosopher might read a lecture on human nature;→ he is an evidence of the entire moulding of the desires, affections, and even of the will, by the prejudices and persecutions of society. "If you wrong us, shall we not revenge?" might be as truly spoken by Barabbas as by Shylock; and his motives, feelings, and resentments had "something human in them," while his wrongs were within human bearing, or his revenge within human compass. If the inhumanity of Barabbas be the more extravagant and indiscriminate, he is less a volunteer in wickedness. The nature of Barabbas, before he is despoiled of his property, and his character afterwards, are distinct things. There is to the full as much humanity in Barabbas as in Shylock, and more, while there was any proportion in their sufferings. If we may take his daughter's word, Shylock's house, even in his prosperity, was no very pleasant place, and his conduct had raised no very passionate affection in the daughter. Not so Barabbas. Abigail never deserted him, till he deserted himself, made mad with wrongs;-in the depth of their misery, what says she?—

"Not for myself, but aged Barabbas,

Father, for thee lamenteth Abigail."

And, indeed, if we may believe the men themselves, which has the more humanity? Barabbas, in all the triumphs of his prosperity and success, never forgets his daughter among his blessings

"I have no charge, nor many children,

But one sole daughter, whom I hold as dear

As Agamemnon did his Iphigene."

So much for the "monster." But the "man" would have his daughter "dead at his feet," so his "jewels were in her ear"

hearsed, so the ducats were in her coffin." Barabbas loved his daughter; he loved his riches; he loved himself;

"Let them combat, conquer, and kill all,

So they spare me, my daughter, and my wealth;"

there was nothing else left for him to love. If his affections were thus limited, it was because he could find nothing else in the world that sympathised with him. As to "cozening, extorting, and tricks belonging unto brokery," 'twas his vocation, and "tis no sin for a man to labour in his vocation." Besides, the world had left him no other. It had directed his ambition, as it had confined his feeling and humanity ;-" Jews come not to be kings."

This was Barabbas to the hour of his gross wrongs; to.. the hour that he was despoiled of every thing, and left houseless and friendless; and not by the savage and brute violence of one man, but by the want of common sympathy in all men. To insults offered in common to Shylock, and his whole tribe, he had learned to "duck" and "kiss his hand;" as his sufferings were common, so was his revenge limited to ill-wishing; but here his injuries were exclusive, and his own. Let me be used as my brethren are," was asked and was refused him; he then felt with the Duke of Gloucester, "I have no brother, I am like no brother," and might and did add, in his heart, let

"love, which grey beards call divine,

Bè resident in men like one another,

And not in me."

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All men, in opinion, justified the wrong done to him, without which it could not have been done, and they equally shared his hatred; even his revenge was not more desolating than his enemies were universal.

There is nothing throughout to contradict the supposition that the active malignity of Barabbas was then, and not till then, engrafted on him; and in the mad relation of his atrocities to Ithamore, and the scene where he receives his concealed gold from Abigail, there is much in support of it. From that hour, the whole aim and purpose of his life was changed his ruling passions, his love of his daughter, and his love of wealth, were swallowed up in hate: he was cut off by one frightful wrong from all humanity, even the humanity in his own heart. When he exclaims, before he was assured of Abigail's success, "here lives my soul's sole hope," he was too poor to hate, too impotent to dream of revenge; he speaks of his money, therefore, as of that on which his actual exis

:

tence was depending, and with an enthusiasm that his poverty still left as a master-passion; but once possessed of it, even in the first transport of possession, it is not only "strength to my soul," but "death to mine enemies;" from that hour, he neither thought nor cared for money, but as a powerful instrument to redress his wrongs; the loss of "a hundred tuns of wine," he dismisses with the snap of a of a finger:

"I have wealth enough;

For now, by this, has he kiss'd Abigail.”

Ludowick was now within his grasp. As to his extravagant relation to Ithamore,-his "killing sick people groaning under walls, his poisonings, his practices in Germany and Italy,"it is the mere trickery of the imagination; he joys in what he would do, as in what he had done. Perhaps, too, he had some secret purpose in familiarising Ithamore to such an employment. Neither does he reject the first slave for the avowed reason that "a stone of beef" would not maintain those chops," but because he was somewhat of Cæsar's judgment, and wanted not men that " sleep o' nights." Even the lean Ithamore he questions as to his breeding and bringing up; but, being satisfied of this, he has no scruples about a stone of beef; he is as generous as an emperor :"be true and secret, thou shalt want no gold;" nor is it clear that he afterwards gives Borza the money so reluctantly, but that it might excite suspicion to be more liberal to a slave.

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Thus much for Barabbas. But the history of Barabbas is the history of the whole tribe; and more may be learned from this single fiction of the poet's, of the long and obstinate maintaining, and the possible ultimate conversion of this extraordinary people, than from the dull reality of all the Solomon Duitsch's that ever existed. The Jews are, and ever have been, a separate and distinct people, because they were ever treated as such; their very birth-place was to them no home; with their countrymen they were allowed no fellowship; they were separated from others, for none would associate with them; they intermarried from necessity, for who would intermarry with them? they were not drawn together by their own prejudices, so much as shut in by the prejudices of others; their bond of union, and that never strong, was but the persecution and contempt they suffered. But the spell is broken. The rigour and injustice of the law is done away, and even the more bitter and more painful law of opinion,

"Far worse to bear

Than violence,”

is quietly giving way. And what is the consequence? Fifty years since, there was not, probably, a working Jew in all London:-they were all dealers; traffickers on a scale proportioned to their means, and that traffic restricted to some few trades. It followed, of course, in the world's opinion, that they would not work. Now, there is hardly a trade wherein Jews are not actual labourers. They associate readily enough with others, now others will associate with them: they are becoming a part of the common family; and this will do more for their conversion than all the societies specially engaged in that work put together.

Another fact to be deduced from the history of the Jews may be of service even now. We hear every where of the persecution and intolerance of certain sects, as the result of certain opinions; but persecution was common to an age, and not peculiar to a sect, or the consequence of any particular opinions. The Jews, who suffered most,-who had no city of refuge in the whole world,-were themselves persecutors. It was quite as fearful for a Jew to dissent from Judaism, as for a Christian to differ from the Christianity established by law. The Jews, indeed, possessed no municipal power; and if the son of Abraham became a convert to Christianity, they had only to shun and to hate, to injure him by secret ways, or, if opportunity offered, in the same darkness to attack his life. But if the seceder was not backed by the power of his new associates, -if he dissented from one without assenting to another, if they could call upon the civil power to punish, by shewing that he dissented equally from both, there were no means they had not recourse to, no sacrifices they were not willing to make, to punish, and to persecute even to death. The sufferings of Acosta is a proof of this.-Descended from a family of converted Jews, and brought up a Catholic, he became dissatisfied with the new religion of the family, and returned to Judaism. Upon further inquiry, he entertained suspicions of Judaism, only, indeed, of certain ceremonies, and was instantly excommunicated. He afterwards wrote a work, wherein he contended that the resurrection of the dead was not taught by Moses.. Already shunned by the Jews, his mental sufferings now became dreadful; even his own family refusing to have communication with him; his dissent was a plague-spot on his forehead, and he was shunned by all. But this was not sufficient to satisfy the Jews. The promulgation of this new opinion they believed to be an offence against Christianity; and accordingly they, the Jews, the suffering, and long and then persecuted Jews, became, not as before, tacitly, but directly, persecutors, summoning him before a Christian tribunal for an offence against Christianity, where he was subjected

to fine and imprisonment. For fifteen years they shut him out from all associates, and when, with a broken and humbled spirit, he read his recantation, and they could no longer refuse him admission into the synagogue, they never ceased to watch his minutest actions; and, availing themselves of the omission of some one of their many ceremonials, he was again excommunicated. Personal and corporal punishment they could not subject him to, but with his consent; but who has not imagination sufficient to feel the pain, the agony, of solitude, amidst numbers? of total separation from all society? of hatred and contempt, where we most desire love and respect? The spirit, even of Acosta, could not hold out for ever again he signed a public confession of his errors; but before he could be re-admitted, he was publicly, in the open synagogue, subjected to corporal punishment, and then laid on his back at the door, that all who passed might trample on him. To live shut out from all human association, and to live after such self-abasement, were equally impossible; and, driven mad by suffering, Acosta put an end to his existence.

Solomon Duitsch, the "learned Rabbin," whose " wonderful conversion" is the subject of the volume before us, had a very different course to run. He was converted to the established faith, to the creed of the powerful, and above a century later than Acosta. Acosta was a man of a quick and searching spirit; and however extraordinary the changes in his opinion, they were not unaccompanied with personal sacrifice, and were, beyond question, the result of inquiry and conviction. Duitsch, on the contrary, judging from the work before us, was a poor creature of unsettled temper and weak judgment; who, so far from sacrificing any thing to his new opinions, no sooner became a convert than he became a pensioner, and was, we suspect, a trout of that description which is more easily caught with tickling than a barbed hook. His conversion is just one of those miraculous absurdities suited to the taste of the vulgar. It was, professedly, not the result of reason and deliberation, not founded on inquiry and patient investigation; but he had “a call," we mean literally, for he heard a voice saying to him, "Arise out of darkness." Another time it was more particular, adding, "Alas, poor sinner! all thy good works, thy fasting, washing, and chastisement, can profit thee nothing. No; thou must come to Christ the crucified:" and this sort of ventriloquism is made the foundation of an entire faith; for, at that time, he hardly knew what Christianity meant, and had not read one word of the New Testament. But we will let him tell his own story.

Solomon Duitsch, as he here informs us, was born in Hungary, in the year 1734, and, in 1747, made profession of his faith,