seem to cloy the appetite of his admirable | dead to instance this resurrectional faculty. guests. Page upon page, volume upon Dumas accidentally mentions the name, and volume of his memoirs appear, and are swal- straightway feels it incumbent upon him to lowed like savory morsels. It is true, the tell the story of the artist's life. He thereculinary artist spares neither sauce nor con- fore summons him from the regions of shade, diment; and when the pieces de resistance, and, when the first mist naturally attendant namely, his own joints, hot or cold, threaten upon all unearthly visitants has partially to become either too tough for public masti- cleared away, and given the pale face of the cation, or too stale for the public nostrils, he spectre to view, Dumas adjures him to listen throws in a variety of sweet-smelling hors while he, in wizard guise, re-weaves the d'œuvre, in the shape of made dishes from chequered web of his destiny. The spectre Byron, or Scott, or Goethe, with a world of stands calm and voiceless; Dumas pompously garnish in the way of flourishing table-talk, recapitulates the items of the sorrowful past, concerning battles, campaigns, revolutions, throws them into shape; and when the fancy adventures, and hairbreadth escapes by flood portrait is finished, gravely calls upon the or field, all tending to his own honor and per- spirit to signify assent, which it is said to do sonal glorification; for, be it remarked, by gathering its cold and tiny breath into a Dumas, deeming himself a model of a man, long, dismal, and whistling oui; whereupon thinks, with Terence, that nothing human he the poor ghost is unceremoniously dismissed may choose to introduce into his memoirs, to the realms of the dead, and the picture however remotely connected with himself, confidently held up to the admiring gaze of can be styled irrelevant. Nevertheless, in the idiot multitude-the conjurer so seemthe midst of much that is utterly vapid in ingly unconscious all the while, with what these memoirs, there is much also of life, and indescribable ease he can merge into the bustle, and movement. The portraits of his thaumaturge, the worker of miracles; how early literary contemporaries, those at least admirably nature has gifted him for the part dashed off at a sitting-we except the frothy of a literary Cagliostro—a character he might attempts at apotheosis in the case of roman- not unwillingly assume, did not the temper tic associates-are sometimes graceful, often of the times and the public mind sufficiently humorous, always captivating. His indis- warn him of the impossibility of clearing excretions are not at all times of a very enor- penses. It is an observation of Franklin's, mous nature, unless, indeed, he shows up the that, in reading the life of any great man, you peculiarities of others. His own idiosyncrasy are sure to meet with a greater than he; one is best gathered from the general tone of the endowed, that is, with every element of narrative, and from his braggadocio habits of grandeur, but unfortunately either stranded thought and expression, rather than from any or mercilessly struck down by fate. The rereal wish to initiate bis reader into the more mark will hardly apply to the memoirs of offensive arcana of his physical or moral ex- Dumas, whose great or greater men do but periences when these are decidedly nau- swell his train, or, in more intelligible lanseous, the author drops a speaking hint, speaking hint, guage, usefully increase the bulk and numetches a tell-tale line, and the intelligent ber of his volumes. Hugo is, it must be alreader, whether suffused with shame or pale lowed, the object of much fulsome adulation. with disgust, can still fancy he detects, de- The details even of his nonage are dwelt and spite the affectedly abrupt retreat, the conse- expatiated upon with most lackadaisical tenquential delinquent's thick-lipped smile of derness. But this proceeds from another complacency. Dumas is eminently an im- motive than that of getting up a foil to the provisatore. From the most chance medley advantage or disadvantages of his own greatof dates, from the most insignificant face, the ness; a motive which brings out one of the most unmeaning character, he can extempo- least heroic features of this roystering comerise reminiscenses, extract colors for his pal- dian. With all his boasted love of opposilet, matter for his page, and amusement for tion, and despite the lion's skin, from the his reader. Death itself can neither shroud folds of which he has occasionally affected nor shield its victim. He invades the silence to peep with a certain fierceness on public of the tomb, evokes the sullen or consenting men and measures, Dumas has never been shade, extorts or exorcises his secret, and able to attract from any body of individuals, again remands him to his frightful durance. his creditors perhaps excepted, that degree The painter or the engraver Johannot, we of attention necessary to constitute the reknow not which (both brothers are now de- ally serious opponent. To mask this grievous ceased), was the first of our contemporary deficiency, he at times becomes actually bois terous in honor of those who have won the palm of political martyrdom. Not that he ever attempts publicly to advocate their opinions. This, he well knows, would be overshooting the mark, as it would be immediately followed by an official call for silence, from a quarter his promptly quiescent submission to which would be but a lamentable index of the nature of his status, and the value of his personal utterings. He has, therefore, recourse to rhetorical fence; and, as he is not unskilled in the art of playing off politics for sentiment, so he very naturally, when necessary, reverses the process, playing off sentiment for politics. Thus, by indulging in the loudest of pæans possible, whenever the name of the exiled poet Hugo crosses his pen, he maintains with the most perfect impunity as regards the powers in being his swashbuckler look, while in the case of his banished friend he evinces the greatest generosity, showing how firm and unshaken he can be in all his attachments. This, in the eyes of the undiscerning, ever in the majority, enables him to assume a rather becoming attitude, on the graces of which he can afford to speculate, for the time being, with tolerable decency. Should the tide of democracy once more rise, such devotedness empowers him to take it at its very first swell, and ride majestically into port with the air of one whose political party is again in the ascendant. From Tait's Magazine. THE JEWISH SUBJECTS OF THE CZAR. MUCH interest was awakened, a short time ago, by an account in the daily papers of a visit paid by Sir Moses Montefiore to what were called his Russian co-religionists among the prisoners of war brought home by our ships. The interest felt would no doubt have been greater still, had the history of the Jewish communities to which these individuals belong been better known. This history, in a consecutive form and in a philosophical spirit, remains to be written; but in the meanwhile a few jottings relative to the past and present condition of the Jews among whom Russia recruits her fleets and her armies, may prove acceptable. The indiscriminate application of the name of Russian to the various peoples under the dominion of the Tzar, is one among the many indications of how imperfect a knowledge we have hitherto had of the true constitution of the colossal empire with which we are at present engaged in so close a struggle. In no case is the denomination more inapplicable than in that of the Israelites who live under the sceptre of the Tzars, but who have never been tolerated on Russian soil. From the early times this people was denied the right of establishing themselves in the Russian dominions, and to this day they are not al lowed to sojourn for any length of time in Russia proper; and it was not until Poland was brought under subjection to the Russian Tzars, that the latter ever counted any Jewish communities among their subjects. Poland, on the contrary, may be considered the home of the Jews in Europe; for in that country their numbers amount to that of a nation, and they hold a position which, however degraded it be, gives them a certain weight in the State, and could under present circumstances be filled by no other class. In every town throughout the countries which once constituted the independent kingdom of Poland, all handicrafts, with the exception of that of the smith and the carpenter, all branches of trade, be it en gros or en détail, are in the hands of the Jews; and no business, be it of the most important or the most insignificant nature, can be transacted without their aid. Through the mediation of a Jew the nobleman sells the corn grown on his estate to the skipper who exports it; and through the mediation of a Jew the serf sells his pigs and his fowls to the consumer in the town. Through the mediation of a Jew the upper classes engage their servants, and sometimes even the tutors and governesses for their children; and through the mediation of a Jew the voiturier settles his contract with the traveller who requires his conveyance. Through the mediation of the Jews landlords settle conditions with their tenants, and housewives lay in their winter provisions. In short, whether you would eat or drink, rest or travel, change your lodging or renew your toilet in Poland, you must have recourse to the Jews, who divide among themselves, houses, inns, lands, and every description of property belonging to the Christians; so that each Jew has his prescribed tield of activity, from which he inay draw as much profit as it will yield, while he is strictly prohibited from trespassing upon the hunting-grounds of his neighbors. The Jews swarm in the streets of the towns throughout all the Polish provinces, and are met also in great numbers in the villages and on the high-roads; ever busy in turning a penny, but almost invariably presenting a picture of squalid misery, and mental and moral degredation painful to behold, and in strange contrast with their importance as the monopolizers of almost all the industrial activity in the society amid which they live, and with their numbers, which amounting to upwards of two millions and a half, must give them a certain weight in the State; and the stranger inquires, with startled curiosity, how it is that a people has so multiplied on a soil which seems to deny them every comfort of life. There are, perhaps, few instances in history in which we can trace in such unmistakable evidences the elevating influences of just laws, and the debasing effects of lawlessness and persecution, on communities as well as on the individuals who compose them, as in the case of the Jews of Poland. At a very early period of Polish history, when in other Christian countries the commonest rights of humanity were denied to the Israelites, they enjoyed in Poland the protection of the laws; and in the 14th century, when the most atrocious persecutions drove them from all the Western countries of Europe, they flocked in thousands to the banks of the Vistula, where the Polish king, Casimir the Great, afforded them an asylum, and extended to them privileges commensurate with those of his other subjects. Invested with the rights of citizens, the Jews soon became such in the best sense of the word, and Casi mir reaped his reward in the rapid develop *This strange custom is called Chazak; and though now prohibited by law, continues in a great measure to prevail. ment of the prosperity of his realm. The people of Poland were divided into two classes: the nobles and the peasants; the first of which considered the pursuit of commerce or of the useful arts as beneath their dignity, while the second occupied themselves exclusively with the tillage of the soil. The Jews thus proved most useful in filling up the gap between the two; and during Časimir's reign already seventy towns arose on the banks of the Vistula, and commerce and industry were developed and flourished, these branches being entirely in the hands of the Jews; who, enjoying the protection of the laws, and being free to follow their religious convictions unmolested, soon ceased in all other matters to distinguish themselves from the people of which they formed a part, and proved themselves as estimable as patriots as they were useful as citizens. The consideration which the Jews enjoyed in Poland during this period is by popular tradition attributed to the influence of the beautiful Esterka, or Esther, a Jewish maiden, who for a time held captive King Casimir's fickle heart. But although Esther's influence may have been great in consequence of her having bestowed two sons' on the king, who had no legitimate children, and may have been exercised in favor of her race, Casimir's extension of favor and protection to the industrious and prosecuted Jews was too much in accordance with the general character of the system of wise and beneficent policy which acquired for him the surname of the "King of the Peasants," whom also he protected from the oppression of the nobles, to need any such inspiration; and as long as his spirit continued to animate the Polish rulers, the country was prosperous and powerful. Cardinal Commendoni, the Pope's legate in Poland during the reign of the last of the Jaghellons in the 16th century, expresses as follows his surprise at finding the Jews in that country enjoying the rights and well-being of respected citizens, while in other parts of Europe they were only able to purchase a contemptuous toleration at the cost of immense sums of money: of Jews, who are not despised as elsewhere. There are in these provinces a large number They do not live on the vile profits of usury and service, although they do not refuse such gains; Jews must have been regarded in Poland at that *The extraordinary tolerance with which the time, is evidenced in the fact, that although their sons were educated in the Christian faith, the daughters whom Esther bore to the king were allowed to follow their mother's religion. but they possess lands, are engaged in commerce, and even apply themselves to literature and science, particularly medicine and astrology. They are almost every where entrusted with the levying of customs and tolls on the import and transport of merchandise. They possess considerable fortunes, and are not only on a level with gentlemen, but sometimes hold authority among them. They do not wear any mark to distinguish them from Christians, but are even allowed to wear a sword and to go about armed. In short, they enjoy all the rights of other citizens. But with the extinction of the Jaghellon dynasty matters took another turn in Poland. The monarchy, which had until then been elective in name only, now became so in fact, and the reign of anarchy commenced. The kings, holding the crown by the suffrages of the nobles, ventured not to restrain their unlawful proceedings; and, fanned by the Jesuits-whose disastrous influence in Poland also dates from this period-the superstitious and fanatic hatred of the Jews, which the Polish Christians shared in common with those of Western Europe, though it had been held in check, now burst forth with indescribable fury. Forbidden thenceforward the privilege of bearing arms or of serving the country in a civil capacity; forced to take up their abode in the lowest and dirtiest quarters of the town, apart from all the other inhabitants, and to wear a distinguishing badge of infamy on their vestments; fleeced by all kinds of taxes and extortions, and impeded in every way from gaining openly an honest livelihood, the persecuted race soon sunk down, morally and materially, to a level with their oppressed brethren in other countries, and became deserving of the repugnance they inspired; while the prosperity of the towns, the centres of the industry, commerce and riches of the country, declined, and with them the power and independence of Poland, which, invaded and partitioned, fell a victim partly to the anarchy of the nobles, partly to the influence of the Jesuits. and wider; and what was at first merely a religious difference, became a strong national antipathy, and Jew and Pole, though remaining necessary to each other, became animated by mutual hatred, disgust, and contempt. The strong prejudices which have always characterized the Hebrew race, being not only strengthened by the justice and persecution of their antagonists, but by the study of the works, which were to them the sole fountains of law and justice, they sunk deeper and deeper in the scale of civilization, while their brethren in other lands were slowly emerging from the bondage in which the religious fanaticism of the people and the mistaken policy of the Governments had held them; and the great mass now represent, in a hideous picture, the degrading influences of popular fanaticism and exclusive legislation. The rabbis-who have much to answer for in relation to the degraded state of their co-religionists-having held the threat of anathema over those who learned the Polish language, or who adopted the dress or manners of their Christian countrymen, the greater number of the Polish Jews understand no other language than the corrupt German, which has always been their spoken idiom; and they are thus excluded from such culture even as they might pick up in their business intercourse with the educated classes. Indeed all studies, except that of the Talmud, the Zoar, and the Commentaries upon these, are held in utter contempt among them; and the Jew, who, emancipating himself from the trammels of strict orthodoxy, attempts to raise himself to the level of the age in which he lives, is scouted as a traitor to Israel. He who would enjoy the esteem of his co-religionists, on the contrary, must dress strictly after the Jewish fashion; must let his beard and his peysi, or long sidelocks, grow; must go at least twice a day to the synagogue; must every morning exhibit large thephilin* on his forehead and on his hand; must remain a long time before Chemona Ethrat must pour water over his hands, or rub them on the ground, every time he has touched any thing, be it only his own hair; he must shun even the neighborhood of a Christian temple; take care that * Words from the Scriptures, worn thus in litaccordance with the words in Deut. vi. 5. The fourteen benedictions of Esdraz. The numerous laws concerning the Jews which emanated after this period, having merely reference to their relations with the Christians, while all transactions between themselves were left to the jurisdiction of the rabbis, who even possessed the right of pronouncing sentence of death or of exile, the Israelites of Poland were thrown backeral upon the Books of Moses and of the Talmud for their laws. Jewish customs in their most rigid form became in consequence their rule of conduct; and thus the chasm between them and their fellow-citizens grew wider As late as 1834, some Jews who had followed the funeral of a Polish nobleman, whose virtues had made him beloved by all classes of his countryof their having entered a Christian church. men, were anathematized by their Rabbi, because for the zizesses, or tufts attached to the skirts of | handkerchief in his pocket on the Sabbath, his caftan in memory of the commandments but if he can not do without such useful apof God, be of the orthodox length; and pendage, must tie it round his arm or wrap kiss the mesures, or words of the law en- it round his hand, in which case it passes graven on his door-posts, each time he enters part of his vestments, so well has Jewish inor goes out. He must, moreover, when ris genuity known how to evade the inconveing in the morning, wet his hands three times niences of Jewish orthodoxy. Whoever dewith water, to drive away the evil spirits stroys an aireph is severely punished. The that settle upon the nails (the evil spirit of fact of the destruction or disseverance of dirt being alone left unmolested), taking care such a cord, in whatever manner it may have that the ewer containing the water be of the occurred, is made known in the synagogue, prescribed form, and that he begin with the and until it be repaired, the encircled preright hand; and if he would have a reputa- cincts cease to enjoy the immunities it contion for piety, he must three times a day re- ferred. Happily, children under the age of peat various prayers and read passages from thirteen do not come within the ordinances the Talmud, the Mishna, the Zoar, and other of the aireph law; and by their aid the inholy books, written in Hebrew or Chaldean, convenience is in some measure mitigated. of which languages he most likely does not The reknitting of the broken line can not be understand a word; and he must pare his performed by a lesser personage than the nails every Friday, and carefully burn or rabbi of the place. If it be a rope, it must conceal the parings, and then make a notch not be mended by the application of a knot, in his table or his window-post, to mark that but an entirely new cord must be provided; it has been done, lest after death he should if it be a wire, the dissevered parts may be be condemned to return to earth to fetch the linked together again by means of a hook spoils. Such, and many more, are the ob- and eye. Among the things interdicted on servances which occupy the leisure time of the Sabbath are also driving in a carriage, the Jews in Poland, and which are consider- or walking to a greater distance than 2,000 ed necessary for peace with God; and it is ells from the house in which they dwell,plain that the violence done to the religious which distance may, however, be doubled, if, feelings of those who serve in the armies on the preceding Friday, a fresh wheaten and navy of Russia, must tenfold aggravate loaf be deposited midway on the road. all the other sufferings they have to endure. Well may Sir Moses Montefiore have been greeted as an angel of consolation, when he brought to the poor prisoners the means of celebrating one of their most important religious festivals. To how many of these poor Russian prisoners will not, in every respect, captivity in England seem liberation from the house of bondage! The strict orthodoxy that prevails among the Polish Jews is further evidenced by certain cords or wires, called aireph, or Sabbathcords, which run from roof to roof across the openings in the streets in the quarters of the towns inhabited by the Jews, and which have so much puzzled travellers in Poland, and given rise to so many absurd stories. The origin of these cords is derived from the law which forbids the Jews to carry any thing in their hands or about their persons on the Sabbath, and which being attended with great inconvenience, mothers being even interdicted to carry their babes in their arms, it became necessary to invent some lawful means of evasion. The aireph marks the boundary within which the law may be transgressed without sin; beyond these precincts, however, the Jew must not even carry his The customs here alluded to no doubt are, or at least have been, common to the Jews all over the world; but the distinction between the Polish Jews and their co-religionists of the West, is that the former adhere to them in the present day as rigidly as in the middle ages, and mix them up with as numerous superstitions. Scenes are of daily occurrence in Poland, and attract no attention, which would excite the greatest wonder in other parts of Europe were they exhibited there. At full-moon tide, for instance, you may, in any Polish town, come upon a crowd of Jews in the street performing what looks very much like worship of the moon, some gazing at the luminary with fixed glance and murmuring indistinct prayers, while others make obeisances to it and cry out in a loud voice; others again, in long white flowing robes bordered with black, grouped around small reading-desks on which their holy books lie open, read in these by the light of lanterns, and from time to time lift up their voices and smite their foreheads. When observing the rigid orthodoxy of these stagnant Israelites, one can not help regretting that among the religious observances so staunchly adhered to, there are none |