cilious dependents. Our Griselda is hardly put to the torture before her sufferings are ended. So far, then, she is less an object of commiseration. But the real difference consists in the motives for which they suffer. The one obeys a command, which she has promised to bow to, be it ever so cruel, and returns to her husband from the same impulse. The other would have resisted the authority of the man, but sacrifices herself and her child for the husband, because she loves him better than herself and child. She loves him better, because she believes his love for her is as strong as her own for him. She refuses to return to him, because she finds she has been deceived-because all her confidence is lost-because she feels that she shall be happier with her child in a hovel, than by the side of a husband who has forfeited her allegiance by his misconduct in a palace. She becomes for the first time in her life selfish; her heart is broken in losing her faith in her husband's affection. If she had had the magnanimity to forgive the treachery-forget it she could not-we will not say, she would not have been a more perfect character; whether she would have been a more natural one, we must leave it to our lady readers to decide.

Petrarch, and his close copyist Chaucer, have deduced from the story a moral which would not have been perhaps quite in character in Boccaccio, and could not well have been brought into a drama. But here again he shows the cloven foot; for he says, that he has not translated the story in order to make other women imitate Griselda's example of patience, which he does not believe any other woman capable of; but to inculcate the duty of every created being to submit without a murmur to the will of the Almighty, and to show the same unquestioning obedience to his commands, as Griselda did to those of her mortal master.

The subordinate characters in the drama are too insignificant to call for particular notice; but we must say a word in passing on our old friend Launcelot. His passionate love for Ginevra, the theme of Troubadours and Romauncers, here yields to his abhorrence of her cruelty in subjecting the unoffending Griselda to such an inhuman trial. Disgusted at her persisting in the ruthless ordeal, he refuses to wait for its termination, preferring a voluntary exile to witnessing the woman he adored degraded by such revolting barbarity.

In conclusion, we would most strongly recommend "Griselda" to our readers; assuring them that, in our opinion, they will not easily meet with anything so deserving of popularity, either from the purity of the style, the interest of the story, the fidelity of the translation, the easy flow of the rhythm, or the elegance of the language.

639

ART. XII.—1. "Hundert und ein Sabbath," von Herrmann Schiff. 2. "Der Israelit des Neunzehnten Jahrhunderts." Journal. Redakteur, Dr. Hess.

3. "Jenny," ein Roman von der Verfasserin des "Clementin."

In this, our 19th century, when one money-seeking commercial interest has almost swallowed up all others, the Jew is beginning to be better understood. The general scramble for gold and gain has brought all other nations to the Jewish level; and now they all boast one common battle-cry and one common goal. Money is now the aim and end of the endless, but peaceful, strife around us; and it is only when this end is employed again as a means to some ulterior result, that the still characteristic divisions of thought and feeling are once more brought to light.

From the immense advantage of their peculiar monetary position, one restrictive law after another as to this nation falls to the ground; and when a new restrictive law, opposed to the spirit of the age, does make its appearance, it is received with general indignation and ironical disdain. Let us not be mistaken for mere 66 enlightened" parrots, who echo a liberal factious cry. No! We feel that a great barrier must ever remain betwixt believing Christians and Jews; whilst the latter, as of old, would crucify our Lord and Saviour, and deny their promised Immanuel. But it is not by cruel sternness, by unjust tyranny, that we may ever trust to win the Jewish nation to a knowledge of truth. Love is the Gospel's sword, not hate and carnal enmity; and thus is social emancipation the Israelite's due. In England this is already his; in Germany it is not so. Thus, then, the social barriers betwixt the Jew and the Christian are still, in Germany, perpetually assailed; the prejudices of the public are giving way one by one, and the governments cannot retain them when public opinion has abandoned them.

The Jews, too, have a thousand means of influencing public opinion; for, state service being altogether denied to them, they have all but possessed themselves of German literature. Numberless journals are edited by Jews; Jews have become the correspondents of all the principal publications of the day; Jews write novels, poems, criticisms, articles, histories; and, in fine, German literature has become a portion of the Jewish inheritance. But all of these writers employ their power and means of action with their usual unity of spirit, to work for the emancipation of their people; and it must be admitted that there is not a little left to work for.

Still does the Jews-tax exist in Austria, by which they are restricted to certain employments and to certain gains. Still are there Jewish streets and Jewish quarters in Prague, and many other great towns, beyond the domain of which no Jew may domicile himself. There are towns, too, in which no Jew can obtain a "Heimaths-schein; "

that is, an official paper certifying him to be an inhabitant of that place, without which a poor German may not travel at all: there are other towns again in which only a certain number of Jewish families may dwell, the number being most strictly adhered to. There are states in which the possession of the soil is denied them, and in which the laws allow the eldest son only to follow the calling of trade or commerce. However great may have been the wisdom of the law-givers who passed these laws, perhaps influenced by no personal hatred to the Jews, and after due consideration of what might most benefit the public zeal, still the Jew must be naturally anxious to oppose himself to all laws made against him directly as a Jew. He wishes equal rights with the Christian-neither greater nor less; and as he is now strong and wealthy, his wishes cannot be treated with such contempt as must have formerly necessarily greeted them.

Those who imagine that religion is the sole or even chief source of all these restrictions, are very greatly mistaken. We find these restrictions still existing, with the fears and prejudices from which they took their rise in countries where the upas tree of rationalism has long flourished. But the Jews have now become a power; and they are feared as rivals in the race for gold. Despite all restrictive provisions of the law, the Jews gain more largely than the Christians. The little Jewish boy, fourteen years old, perhaps son of the Jewish widow, loads his pack of wares on his shoulders,-wares which his mother has purchased for him with borrowed money,-and wanders forth, over hill, over dale, freezes, thirsts, and hungers, nay, all but starves; and yet, when the year has run its course, he comes again, pale and thin, it is true, but with a trebled capital, with part of which he pays his debts, whilst the other two-thirds support his mother and himself. Were all Jews permitted to trade, we should soon have a wealthy and a miserably poor population together, in all those countries where very many Jews are domiciled, the former of which would be Israelites, and the latter the less active Christians. It must be remembered, however, that this remark would scarcely apply to England, for John Bull is active and stirring, and all but a match for Levi. The good, theoretical, lazy Germans, on the contrary, could never attempt, we should say, to run the race of competition with the active Jew.

In the public schools the Jewish boy is almost always found to learn faster than his comrades, for this wondrous nation is naturally ambitious, quick, and unphlegmatic; in fine, the Jewish mind always tends upwards and onwards. This is the consequence of the Jewish ancestral blood, which has preserved its nationality through all times and changes, and brings forth all the good and evil tendencies, which it did thousands of years ago, the latter, owing to circumstances, more strongly developed than ever.

This restless, ever-striving, ever-mounting spirit of the Israelite, manifests itself also in all his literary efforts. But this same spirit now actuates the writings of all our best Christian authors of the nineteenth century, as it is impossible to attract any attention, to float at all in the

great book-ocean of literature, and find either publishers or readers, without this effort for the startling, the bustling, and the effective. Thus there is now little distinction in this respect, at least in Germany, betwixt the literary productions of Jew and Christian.

Cleverness and extensive knowledge are two of the prevailing characteristics of the Jewish mind; to these must be added wit. Wit is the weapon of the oppressed; and the Jew's wit is sharp, prompt, and goes directly to the point. The Jew is also cautious and observing, and looks round him with mistrusting eyes; it is from these latter qualities that he is so often employed as a correspondent to literary journals. The Jewish editor is generally punctual in the settling of money accounts with the contributors to his publication, and so naturally finds valuable fellow workmen amongst the professors of all religions. In short, the Jew possesses, and he deserves, that important station in the literary world, which his own efforts have obtained for him.

It is not to be conceived that Jews, striving, upwards-tending, thinking Jews, educated in Christian schools, born and living amongst, and often most intimate with Christians, should adhere blindly to the religious prejudices of their forefathers. The obstinacy of their national pride, and a certain sense of honour, which forbids them to desert the banuer of the oppressed, as well as a prejudice which still exists against the baptized Jew, are the chief causes which prevent very many of the Israelites from declaring themselves converts to the Christian religion. But the desire of standing by the Christian's side in the service of the state, and of attaining general equality with him, both in the estimation of society, and in their own intellectual developement, have occasioned the Jews to submit the Law of Moses to a severe critical examination, in order to sift it of all those peculiarities which were made the ground of reproach to them, and served as the excuse for their exclusion from an equality of civil rights with the Christian. Their great Lawgiver had himself laid down various regulations, which were then advisable for the maintenance of national prosperity, absolutely independent of those great religious truths which no time could affect or alter. If, therefore, the Jews wished to claim equal privileges with the Christians, in a foreign state, it was indispensably necessary for them so to modify their laws as to make them meet the standard of that state; and this they could do, in their opinion, without any injury to the great religious truths taught by Moses. We fear, however, that the men who thus acted were, as we above hinted, Jews no longer; but rather bare Deists, and rejecters of revelation. For if they really accepted the Old Testament as revelation, how could they thus tamper with it? They there found themselves repeatedly assured that they should be scattered abroad amongst all nations; but they also received an assurance that they should return again in triumph and they could not possibly point to a single passage in Holy Writ which should authorize them to throw aside the Law of Moses, and confound themselves with the nations around them. Either the Redeemer has come, or he

has not come. If he has not come, the Law must be ever binding until his coming. A little consideration will therefore teach us that a man cannot be a Jew, and yet half a Christian : he cannot resign the special privileges of his nation which the Law conferred on him, without recognising those general privileges which the Gospel has given to all nations. Let us, however, for a moment look at this matter in a modern German point of view; and we shall then see much that is good in this movement. German rationalism is, after all, a mere passing excess, although undoubtedly a most fearful one; the reaction in favour of vital religion has already commenced. Tholuck, and many others have erected the standard of Faith, and the banner of Doubt is already wavering. When that great change shall take place in the minds of the German public, which is already on the approach, and which only requires the appearance of one great ruling Christian mind, with the genius of a Schiller, or a Goethe, to triumph almost immediately,-when that change shall take place, and the self-inflated Hegelian becomes an humble believer, the Israelites will follow the direction of the German national mind, and their very present rationalism will only form a road to conduct them to Christianity. At present, the Jew cannot assent to the doctrine of the Trinity, or to that of the God-nature of the Man Jesus; and the silly explanations of German rationalists naturally only serve to inspire the thinking Jew with contempt for a religion which has such professors, and to make him cling more firmly than ever to his ancient prejudices against Christianity. The Jew could not, therefore, wish for an union of the Jewish with the Christian faith, for their differences seem to him irreconcileable. On the other hand, he was disgusted with the proceedings of his own noisy and most undignified synagogue, which laid itself in every way open to ridicule, and rather retarded than aided the intellectual developement of the Jewish national mind. This synagogue he wished to see, therefore, in a more civilized form, which might be in some degree analogous to that of Christian institutions of the same character.

This movement, then, the necessary consequence of that high state of intellectual civilization which Christianity could have alone brought into existence, now divides the Jews of Germany into two parties. The more modern party, or party of progress as they style themselves, count the young and the ardent, as well as many deep-thinking and sensible persons, amongst their numbers. Enthusiastic, and very talented men, several of whom have great powers of public speaking, are their leaders; and thus the work of so-called reformation within the Jewish community, goes on upon the whole successfully.

The Journal, entitled "Der Israelit des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts," ("The Israelite of the XIXth Century,") which has existed for several years, announced its determination to join the banner of Progress some few months ago. The editor of this journal is an extremely worthy man, who is highly respected by all parties-the Rabbi of the Weimarian Oberland, Dr. Hess. Formerly all the circumstances which took place throughout the world at all bearing upon Jews, were commu