and the truce which was granted to the lists have been destroyed by the division Jews by the more enlightened policy of of land amongst the peasantry, the poor Charles IV. was of short duration. In freeholder is reduced to borrow capital on 1507, and again in 1545, an attempt was mortgage of the Jews, who have thus made to drive them wholly from the city. stepped into the place of the feudal lord, In 1703, the Emperor Leopold I. confirm- exacting the same service and the same ed the privileges which had been so often dues as the noble families which are now granted and so often broken by his prede- impoverished or extinct.* cessors: he acknowledged the good ser- After crossing the frontiers of Poland, vice which the Jews had done the state in the Jewish population assumes a more divers perils of revolution and war, by striking and important character than it the incorporation of a regular Jewish ma- has retained to the west of the Vistula. gistracy for their quarter of the city. But Throughout the Russian empire, the Jews, in 1744 an order was issued by Maria despised as they are, depraved, and even Theresa for the total expulsion of the banished by ukases of the Czars, have acJewish population. In 1745, more than quired a degree of influence over properten thousand Jews left the country; and a ty which no class of Christians enjoys; protest still exists, addressed by the Bohe- for the management of estates and the mian Stadtholder to the Imperial cabinet, whole internal trade of the country is in showing the immense loss which the mea- their hands. The Polish Jews were resure brought upon the city by the destruc-markably favoured in the middle ages, at tion of commerce, then wholly in the a time when they were treated with the uthands of Jews, and by the removal of the most rigour in the other countries of Eucapital by which the smaller tradesmen rope. In the beginning of the thirteenth were enabled to subsist. Nevertheless, century, after the country had been detowards the close of 1746, the Juden-Stadt vastated by the Tartars, they were receivwas' wholly deserted, and those melan-ed with open arms; and in the fourteenth choly streets were occupied by piquets of century, Casimir the Great became enatroops, whilst their wretched inhabitants moured of a fair Jewess, for whose sake were driven to perish of cold, hunger, and disease, in the neighbouring villages. Their total exile, however, lasted for only one night; and in 1749 the richer Jews were legally allowed to re-establish themselves in Prague.

he conferred peculiar privileges upon her people. How often have the dark eyes of the daughters of Judah earned the emancipation of the race of Mordecai!

In Prague-whence I seem unconsciously to have wandered to the banquet of the wealthier Jews have In 1782, the Jews were relieved by Jo- Ahasuerus seph II. from the excessive burdens and houses in the better parts of the city; and hardships inflicted on them by his mother. the lower order of Jewish chapmen have He not only encouraged their own schools, the privilege of exposing wares for sale, but he authorised them to frequent the during the day-time, in an old building schools, gymnasia, and universities of the called the Kotzen. Here, under the veneChristians, without prejudice to their reli- rable vaulted arches, they keep a kind of gion. He opened to them the faculties of perpetual fair: their booths are lined with law and medicine; he did away with the pipes, toys, and all kinds of manufactured odious distinction of dress; he empow-goods: one side of the street is occupied ered them to farm and purchase land; and to complete this system of assimilation to his German subjects, he enjoined upon them the adoption of German names. Alike unchanged by persecution and concession, the Jews pursue their mercantile occupations, rising occasionally to the possession of wealth with few of the enjoyments which attend it, and going on to flourish, like the old and sacred misseltoe upon the oak, in spite of the ineradicable hatred and contempt of Germans and Slavonians.

by Christians, and the other exclusively by Jews. All the cries of a cock-pit are soft music to the vociferations of this Jew's Tandelmarkt in Prague. As I pursued my way through the throng of eager sellers, I was baited like an animal in a bear-garden; every kind of stuff was thrust upon me; my coat was pulled by

*The conduct of the Prussian government to the Jews has been of late years of the most illiberal kind. At the very time when M. de Labourdonnaye, as minister of the Restoration in A large portion of the floating capital, France under Charles X., founded a rabbinical which is available for the purposes of college at Metz, Baron Altenstein, the Prussian commerce in Bohemia, Silesia, and the minister of Public Instruction, decreed that the adjacent provinces, is in the hands of Jew-Jewish priests should not be allowed to preach in ish merchants. The retail trade in com- German. And an order emanated last year from mon articles of clothing, &c. is carried on by Jews, who, from their manner of life, their irregular traffic, and their constant communication with the great fairs, almost always find means to undersell the Christians. In some districts of Prussia, where the hereditary aristocratic capital-lomo!!

VOL. III.

39

the cabinet of Berlin, though I am informed that it has since been rescinded, to compel the Jews to bear names taken from the Old Testament; and

adding, that these names are henceforward not to be pronounced according to the European custom, but like the original Hebrew; thus Samuel was to be called Schemöel, and Solomon, Sche

one, my arms seized by another, whilst on the banks of the Moldau, to throw pelmy ears were assailed like those of the lets of bread into the running stream, acPrincess Parizade, who climbed the Black companied by a suitable prayer, in the beMountain to fetch the speaking bird, the lief that each pellet carried away by the singing tree, and the golden water. Like water bears a sin away with it. This Talthat adventurous heroine, I advanced mudic superstition has more than once without looking behind me; and congra- given rise to dreadful persecutions of the tulated myself when I had escaped from Jews, from a popular notion that the pellets were meant to poison the waters and fountains of the city.

this confusion of the tribes.

The last time I crossed the city of the Jews was on the evening of what is styled But long before the hour at which this the "Long Day"--the day after their Fast ceremony is performed, I had loitered of Atonement. That it should seem long homewards through the enchanted city. to the faithful Hebrews is the less wonder- The night of which I speak was remarkful, as complete fast is kept from dawn to ably clear: the heavens were bare: and sunset; and the moment the first star is the moon, then in her second quarter, was seen to glitter in the sky, the men, already shining with perfect brilliancy. The narexhausted with abstinence, hasten to the row streets of the Jews' town were darkly synagogues, where they spend the whole shaded, but the fantastical caves and jutnight in beating their breasts, and uttering ting peaks of the houses were sharply rethe most discordant cries. As I passed lieved by the clear air, and the walls asalong the narrow streets, none of the sumed a sober tint from the reflected light houses seemed to be closed; but they were of the moon. I passed the cemetery, whose lighted up, in their several stories, with aged trees shook their berries in the chill brass lamps hanging from the ceiling of autumnal wind, whilst I heard the Jews' the rooms, which shed a bright light upon chorus from the illuminated synagogues the quaint furniture and singular groups and hospitals which surrounded its prewithin. The public way, usually so decincts. A street as narrow as the apserted, was filled with comers and goers; proach to a fortress, which was, in fact, the curious from different parts of the anciently one of the fortified passages town were clustered round the corners: opening a communication between the and the Jews themselves, dressed in white cities of the Christians and the Jews, gaberdines, with white scarfs and caps, brought me into the wider thoroughfares were flitting like ghosts towards the synagogues, whence we already heard the wild chorus of their wailings. Within the buildings the incoherence of their gestures, the violent paroxysms of their lamentations, and the fantastic garb of these strange-featured beings in their white robes, presented an indescribable picture of fanatical excitement. Nothing seemed to stop their clamour-nothing to assuage the violence of their artificial grief: and if it was occasionally interrupted by the voice of a priest at the altar, it broke forth again with renewed force, and seemed to tear their very frames. To make the contrast more striking, the wives and daughters of these frantic penitents were sitting smartly dressed, in a gallery above, and looking on with the greatest complacency. I was informed that a very singular custom has been retained amongst the Jews of Prague at this fast-day, somewhat analogous to a practice which existed in Germany amongst Christians during the middle ages. They assemble at midnight,

* Petrarch gives so graceful an account of this ceremony in one of his letters, that I cannot resist the pleasure of transcribing a translation of it from manuscript notes on the prose works of that eminent poet and admirable philosopher. The letter (Ep. fam. 1. 4.) is addressed to John Colonna, and gives a detailed account of Cologne, where Petrarch had recently been staying.

"The eve of St. John the Baptist happened to fall during my visit; and just as the sun was setting,

has gained me more friends than I deserve) from my
I was ledby my friends (for even here my reputation
lodging to the river, to behold a very curious sight.
My expectations were not deceived; the whole
bank was covered with an immense number of
women, all of surpassing beauty, both in figure, in
features, and in dress: so that any one whose heart
was not already engaged, could not fail to have fallen
in love there. I stood upon a slight elevation, whence
I could see all that passed; the crowd was very great,
but no offence was given to any one, and all seemed
to be in high glee: some were engarlanded with
odoriferous herbs, and with their sleeves tucked up
above the elbow, they washed their white hands and
the gentle tones of their foreign tongue.
arms in the stream, murmuring I know not what in
Now as I was ignorant of the ceremony which I was
then witnessing, I asked one of my companions in
the words of Virgil,

'Quid vult concursus ad amnem Quidve petunt animæ ?'

I was then informed that this was an old custom of the place, and that the common people, and especially the women, were persuaded that any impend. ing calamity was washed away by that day's ablution in the river, and that happy seasons were sure to follow, so that this ceremony is performed every year with unabated zeal. At this Í smiled, saying, O! happy inhabitants of the banks of the Rhine, whose misfortunes are swept away by your river, whilst neither Po nor Tiber can rid us of ours. You throw your ills on the bosom of the Rhine, who bears them away to Britain; we migh send ours to the Afric or Illyrian coast, but (as I am given to understand) our rivers are far too lazy in their course.'

of Prague, and through the archway on to the bridge. The moonbeams were shivered into a thousand splinters of light upon the white foam of a low weir a little higher up the stream; whilst a fire on the bank, such as Vernet loved to paint, contrasted its ruddy blaze with their silver lustre. The admirable architectural harmony of the city was yet more softened by the vague tints of night, and the proportions of the towers and arches around were brought out by the intensity of the shadows. The vast front of the palace on the heights shone like a wall of talc; and the snow-white convents rose majestically out of the dense woods and vineyards about the base of the hills on which they stand. The statues on the bridge seemed awake; the mystical ornaments of the saints, and the brazen wings of the angels glittered like blades of gold; and whilst I gazed on these majectic groups, with their outstretched arms and upraised foreheads, I felt as if some solemn and silent act of christian devotion was going on, which responded to the benignant influence of the

stars.

FAMILY INTERFERENCE.*

A TALE FOR YOUNG MARRIED PEOPLE.

BY MRS. ABDY.

on the blossoms of almond trees, and Lucy continued:

"While Caroline was in London, she had not sought any interview with her mother-in-law; she imagined that it would be distressing to both parties; she would willingly have offered her pecuniary aid if she had stood in need of it; but she knew that she was still an inmate of the house of her sister, Miss Chesterton, who was well able to support her. Caroline had been settled in her new house about two months, when she received a letter from her sister Emily; it contained the following paragraph.

I do not think you can be sorry to hear that your old torment, Mrs. Clifford, is very uncomfortable in the house of her sister, and made keenly to feel her dependence. I met a lady the other day who is intimate with them, and she told me that Miss Chesterton is quite tired of the airs and interference of Mrs. Clifford, and has informed her in plain terms, that she must not expect to rule and govern her, as she did her poor daughter-in-law. Miss Chesterton keeps a great deal of company, which her sister is seldom able to join, for she has latterly had a complaint in her eyes, which is painful as well as dangerous, and she is obliged to confine herself almost entirely to her own room, without the ability to read, and without any one to talk to. I think she is now pretty well punished for her unkindness to you; I would not be ill tempered for the world, for I am sure all ill-tempered people are punished sooner or later."

"MR. LUCAS was the patron of a living, "Caroline brought this letter to me in which he had always intended for a cousin tears; I returned it to her without any of his own, but by one of those remarka- comment, although in my own mind I ble coincidences, which seem as if they could not help longing to inform the occurred to mock the plans and the fore- thoughtless Emily, that a defective tempor sight of man, the gentleman for whom the may be shown in exultation over the misliving was destined, died within a week of fortunes of our fellow-creatures, as well as the incumbent. Mr. Lucas had no friend in irritable and peevish remarks to them. in the church to whom he wished to pre-'You have often asked me, Lucy,' said sent it; Caroline was warm in the praises Caroline, 'whether I forgave Mrs. Clifford of my husband; Mr. Lucas took measures to inform himself of his general character, and the result was, that the living in which we are now fixed, was presented by Mr. Lucas to Bernard. This event decided the plans of Caroline. Mrs. Dornton had been endeavouring to prevail on her to take a house in Russell Square, give pleasant parties, and go to Cheltenham in the summer, and Brighton in the autumn; but Russell Square was connected with too many distressing reminiscences to be a scene of temptation to Caroline; she was resolved to fix her abode near us, and after we were settled here, she engaged the pretty house which you see from this window; that is, you may see the blossoms of the almond trees." Ellerby looked with all due veneration

• Continued from page 230.

as a Chritian, and I answered you in the affirmative: I hope that I did not say more than I really felt, and I hope that I may be enabled to act up to that feeling. Poor Mrs. Clifford is the mother of my once dear, my still dear husband-she is ill, neglected, and in sorrow-she has nothing to make life pleasant, and I fear she is scarcely prepared to die. She has treated me with unkindness, but what have I ever done to soothe or to amend her? what christian graces have I displayed to her? I have returned scorn for scorn, and railing for railing; I cannot be easy till I have seen her, exchanged forgiveness with her, and offered her the means of leaving her present abode, and seeking one where she will meet with respect and attention.' I did not attempt to dissuade Caroline from putting this resolution in practice; and as both she and ourselves had received a pressing invitation from the newly-mar

ried couple, the young Lucases, to go and second bar; she rang the bell twice before stay with them in London, I resolved to any one attended, and when she uttered a leave home for a few days, and accom-reproof to the housemaid whom I have pany her in her journey. before mentioned, the girl replied with a "The day after we reached London, we flippant sauciness of tone, which testified went to Miss Chesterton's. Caroline had that she was aware that she was speaking decided on not sending up her name, lest to a dependant on her mistress, and the her mother-in-law should feel any unwil-lofty, scornful Mrs. Clifford bore the retort lingness to admit her; she desired that in silence. When, however, the angry Mrs. Clifford might be informed a lady housemaid closed the door after her, who was intimate with her was anxious to see her, and we were consigned to the care of a housemaid, who told us the old lady seldom left her bed-room. As we passed the drawing-room, we heard a loud voice declaiming, and were informed by our guide that the famous Mr. Rantwell was reciting an Ode to Sensibility; she added, that this was one of Miss Chesterton's literary mornings. In a very indifferently furnished attic, we found Mrs. Clifford sitting, wrapt in a shawl, gazing on a slender fire. She uttered a hurried exclamation of surprise at the sight of Caroline, and seemed not to know how to receive her; but Caroline put an end to all doubt by warmly pressing her hand, and making kind inquiries respecting her health. Caroline had so often described Mrs. Clifford to me, that I thought I should immediately have recognised the original of her sketch; but grief and mortification, as I afterwards found, had had all the effect of time in bringing a premature old age upon her.

"Caroline had represented her as stiff and erect, but she was sitting in a stooping attitude, evidently from real weakness; the wide blonde cap' was exchanged for one more suitable to a bed-chamber than to a drawing-room; and even the cold, scrutinising eyes,' wore a completely different expression from the redness attendant on their painful affection. Caroline introduced me as a friend and relation, and we talked for a few minutes on general subjects. Mrs. Clifford then spoke of Sophy Bennet, and spoke of her in terms of great indignation and asperity; in fact, her conduct appeared to be even worse than we had supposed it to be. Mrs. Clifford had ascertained, after her departure, that she had originally become acquainted with Webster, at the house of a family far from respectable, whom she visited without the knowledge of her aunt. He flattered her vanity for his own purposes, he entreated her to present him to Mrs. Clifford and her son; and her creative ingenuity immediately devised that story of his partnership with her late fa ther, and voluntary payment of a sum of money to herself, which introduced him, so much to his credit, in Keppel street. We sympathised with Mrs. Clifford for being thus duped and deceived by her niece, but we soon found other causes for our sympathy. Little incidents sometimes show how a person is valued in a house. Mrs Clifford's fire had sunk down to the

(which she did with a prodigious bang, that might have made a suitable symphony to Mr. Rantwell's Ode to Sensibility,) Mrs. Clifford, subdued and humbled by calamity, disclosed to us the particulars of her uncomfortable situation; her sister, she said, treated her with the most pointed unkindness, constantly taunting her for the imprudent folly which had rendered her a burden on her, and the servants were not only permitted, but she feared encouraged, to treat her with disrespect. O Caroline!' she concluded,' when I sit hour after hour by my lonely hearth, unable to employ myself in any other way than in thinking, how often do I bitterly reproach myself for my conduct towards you, for the delight I felt when I could draw your husband to my house, knowing that you were left to your own thoughts in solitude.'

"Caroline would not suffer her to proceed; she eagerly avowed her conviction that there had been much to blame in her own behaviour. We should both act differently, dear madam,' said she, 'could we recal the past; but let us now resolve to be good friends in future, and as a preliminary step, let me prevail upon you to favour me with a visit at my new house in the country. You will be able to procure the best medical attendance from Bath, the change of air will be likely to do you good, and I will guarantee you as pretty a sittingroom, and as civil a hand-maiden as you can possibly desire.'

"The proud spirit of the poor old lady was quite vanquished by this speech, and she wept and blamed herself, till I absolutely began not only to pity, but to like her. It was settled that she should go back with us in a week; Miss Chesterton considered it a delightful arrangement, was all smiles and suavity, and for the first time in her life, asked Caroline to have the goodness to write something in her album. Caroline, however, politely excused herself. Mrs. Dornton and her daughters were not so well pleased with the plan; the former thought it the most mean-spirited thing she had ever heard of in her life, and the latter said that Caroline must be very whimsical and contradictory, to dislike the old lady's visits so much when she was obliged to receive them, and now to court her society when there was no necessity to do so. Caroline, however, had the approbation of her own heart and feelings, and her conduct to her visitor was uniformly kind and con. siderate; she allotted two rooms entirely

to her, and engaged a new servant, that this villain on me by a fraud, she concealshe might transfer to her one of her pre-ed from me her attachment to him, and I vious establishment, of whose civility and therefore believed her disinterested in all readiness to oblige, she entertained a good her high-flown encomiums on his honour opinion. The complaint in Mrs. Clifford's and principle; she made herself a delieyes continued troublesome, and her berate party with a swindler, to ruin her daughter-in-law frequently read aloud to benefactress.' Caroline here ventured her. Caroline told me once, with a smile, gently to suggest, that it was but charitathat her husband had occasionally held ble to suppose Sophy was herself deceived up to her the example of some female re- in the character of Webster; at least in lation of his own, who was accustomed the first period of her acquaintance with to read a sermon to her mother-in-law on him. You are the last person, Caroline,' a Sunday; but Caroline far exceeded this said Mrs. Clifford, 'who ought to defend lady in her devotional attentions, for not Sophy Bennet; she has been your most only on Sundays, but on week-days, it bitter enemy. I am convinced I could newas her practice to read to Mrs. Clifford ver have remained so long blind to your the works of the best religious writers. good qualities, had it not been for her artful insinuations, her constant lamentation over your evident dislike to me, and avowal that it was with difficulty she could command her temper when she saw how disrespectfully her dear aunt was treated. Depend upon it, Caroline, she will make you suffer even yet, in some way or other, if you caress and encourage her.'

"I am not going to caress or encourage her,' calmly replied Caroline; 'I have no wish ever to see her again; but she is a person with whom I lived many months in habits of intimacy, she is nearly related to my husband, and as Providence has so largely endowed me with the goods of fortune, I cannot reconcile it to my conscience to allow her to undergo want and destitution. I have already thought of a plan by which I can procure her the comforts of life, without exposing you or myself to the least inconvenience from her society.'

"Mrs. Clifford, however, although sincerely grateful to Caroline, was not, I fear, for some time imbued with a proper reli- | gious spirit; her temper was softened and humbled, but an indication of her want of real christian charity and forgiveness at length displayed itself. She had been staying about three months with Caroline, when one morning she received a letter, dated from an obscure court in London, and signed Sophy Bennet. Sophy, it appeared, had accompanied her husband to France, and was soon treated by him with the greatest neglect and barbarity; he seemed to wish to provoke her to leave him, but this she was not inclined to do, (it was, as Mrs. Dornton used to observe, no easy matter to affront Sophy,) til at last a first wife made her appearance to claim her husband, who, probably from the attraction lent to her by a long separation, seemed greatly to prefer her com- "Caroline mentioned her plan to me, pany to that of his second; and poor So- and I fully approved it. A favourite upphy, who had just money enough to carry per servant belonging to Mrs. Dornton, her to London, took a cheap lodging on | had, some years ago, married a nursery her arrival there, and endeavoured to sup- gardener in the neighbourhood of London. port herself by needle-work. This, how-Caroline and her sisters had occasionally ever, proved a precarious resource; and visited her to procure flowers and fruit, a violent cough, attended by consumptive and they knew that she sometimes receisymptoms, rendered her frequently unable ved an invalid lodger into her neat little to complete in time the work she had pro- cottage. Caroline wrote to Mrs. Gilbert, cured; she was in arrears for the rent of enclosing a sum of money, giving her her apartment, and her landlady threaten- Sophy's direction, and requesting that she ed to turn her out of doors. She had sought would pay all that she owed, bring her Miss Chesterton, and had requested her to her own house, and procure for her assistance, but was repulsed by her with everything that was comfortable and nethe utmost anger and contempt: she, how-cessary. ever, gave her the address of Mrs. Clifford, and Sophy earnestly hoped her aunt would take pity on her, since she was actually without the common necessaries of life. Mrs. Clifford had scarcely patience to read this letter to an end; she declared that all that Sophy suffered was little enough, in comparison to the punishment which she deserved, that she had neither the ability nor inclination to give her a shilling, and that she earnestly hoped nobody else would.

"How can she dare,' pursued she angrily, 'to ask me for assistance, when her deceit and falsehood have robbed me of everything I possessed? She imposed

"Mrs. Gilbert soon replied to Caroline's letter, telling her that all she desired had been done, and her account would to most people have appeared highly satisfactory. Mrs. Gilbert was absolutely delighted with the poor dear lady, who was so grateful for all that she did for her, and who was never tired with talking of the goodness of Caroline, saying, that 'her conduct, admirable as it was, excited no astonishment in her, for she had always been persuaded that if there ever was an angel upon earth, Caroline Clifford was one. Mrs. Gilbert concluded by expressing her fears that the poor dear lady would not be long for this world, for her cough was incessant,