The salong was profoundly still when I took my apartments, and I understood that it was not in ordinary use. Alas! when I take possession of them I find it is the only sitting as well as eating-room of the household; and the gabble of voices, and the loud laughs of which I have the full benefit through the folding doors, give me plenty of noise without society, and cause me fully to experience what it is to be a solitary in a crowd. See what it is to yield to persecution. I fled from the flies, but I have only exchanged one plague for another. And when I opened the folding doors, thinking I would begin my acquaintance with social life in Sweden, what do you think was the first thing? A little woman in a Bloomer costume-a tunic and trousers of coarse brown merino. "What is it?" I inquired. "One of my young ladies is on the gymnastics," said my new hostess. So it is; in summer every one who can rushes from the capital to the country, to take baths or drink waters; and in winter, or autumn rather, every one who suffers any bodily complaint, and can manage to move, moves up to Stockholm to take gymnastic exercises; young men and maidens, old men and children, if they are too weak or too stout, too little worked or too hard worked, they must "go on the gymnastics" when winter draws on. And when these doors are shut, I have sufficient evi dence through that barrier, that Swedish hilarity at home bears some proportion to Swedish quietness abroad. Such ringing laughter, such fearfully loud voices, might be tolerated, were it not for the offensive-to refined ears I could term it appalling-practice of mingling in common, and even jocund discourse, the most reverend, sacred, or awful words and phrases. My own ears, at least, tingle at some of these sounds, uttered often amid bursts of laughter, or with trifling expressions of pleasure, surprise, or admiration. The commonest, vulgarest of Swedish exclamations is Kors Jesu-Cross of Jesus!-the most sacred words to Christian hearts! And this, contracted usually to Kors, prefaces a remark that a dress is pretty, or a dance is pleasant. The little children can exclaim Herr Gud! with their first accents; and a young lady, who is one of my next-door neighbours, appears to be quite an adept in stringing whole lines of sacred words together, and uttering them as the only means of attracting observation to what she says. We may ask, Why do not the priests of the land set themselves against this vile practice? Alas! the priests themselves are not exempt from it. formance Miss Bunbury's Life in Sweden isThe reader now knows what manner of perlight, sketchy, agreeable gossip, and no more. The British Jews By the REV. JOHN MILLS. Post 8vo. London: Houlston and Stoneman. THIS is the production of a clergyman of the Church of England, who assures us that he has had more extensive intercourse with the British Jews, and collected more materials on the subject of their history, than any other living man. His aim has here been to describe the various religious duties and ceremonies in vogue at the present day among what may be termed the strict but enlightened Jews. He has not attempted to collect all the absurd superstitions of the ignorant, nor has he omitted those duties which only the irreligious among the Hebrews neglect. The treatise is compendious, written in a popular form, without any aim or pretension to be considered a learned work. Had it been otherwise, Mr. Mills might have greatly enhanced the value of his labours had he consulted those standard works that treat minutely of the laws and observances of this strange people; such as Bingham's "Christian Antiquities," Churdon's "Histoire des Sacrèmens" (tome VI.), Seldon's "Uxor Ebraica" (Vol. II. pages 529-836). The persecutions inflicted on the Jews during the early period of England's history are too well known to need more than a passing allusion. It was in the reign of the first Edward that the whole of their property was confiscated, numbers of them were slain, and the rest banished from the kingdom, nor were they again allowed to take up their abode here until the 1853. time of Cromwell. They now perhaps thrive in this country more than in any other part of Europe. Mr. Mills furnishes us with a curious and succinct detail of their religious customs and domestic habits. The ceremony that ensues when an Israelite declines to marry the widow of his brother is in many respects singular. Having expressed his disinclination, the Chief Rabbi calls for "the shoe," and commands the man to put it on: the Rabbi then twists and ties certain laces around his leg. The widow, having been led by the Rabbi to the man, she repeats in Hebrew these words, "My husband's brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel. He will not perform the duties of my husband's brother." She then unties the knots, a somewhat difficult matter, as she must do so with her right hand only. Having loosed the shoe, she throws it on the floor, and spits before the man, (although it is currently believed no Israelite can perform that vulgar act), repeating after the Rabbi this formula: "So shall it be done unto that man who will not build up his brother's house; and his name shall be called in Israel, 'The house of him that hath his shoe loosed.'" All those who witness this strange ceremony exclaim, as audibly as they are able, "His shoe is loosed! His shoe is loosed! His shoe is loosed!" neither more nor less than three times. After this, the Rabbi declares the lady free to wed whomsoever she pleases, and gives her his consent, and the Secretary of the Synagogue writes a certificate to that effect when the ceremony is completed. The washing or purifying of hands is not a morning ritual solely: it is a duty strictly enjoined on many occasions, though we fear not as rigidly observed. We have no explanation given of the accredited fact, that the Jews, as a race, are the dirtiest people in the world. The Old Clothes' Exchange affords sufficient evidence to convince the most sceptical, that the only clean, or comparatively clean inhabitants of that locality are the costermongers, who have introduced themselves into this New Exchange, and earn a living by bartering glass and different kinds of ornaments with the public for antiquated apparel. In Petticoat Lane and its adjacent parts there are no less than three miles of shops for the sale of old clothes. Great bales of worn clothes, including many once dazzling liveries, are exported to Holland, Belgium, and Ireland, &c. They are generally packed up and despatched on Sundays. At the old Rag Fair, unquestionably the commodities offered for sale are among the cheapest that can be conceived. Pickles, cucumbers, ginger-beer, and a spurious sort of soda-water, are passing cheap; and so are good scissors and knives sold by Jew children, and other things of a similar character. A single visit to Petticoat or Rosemary Lanes will not, we are assured, be thrown away. The people there are invariably very civil, or as they call it, polite. To shew at what extremely low rates raiment may be purchased for the poor, we give the following statement of the expense of fitting out a pauper bridegroom and his bride As we were here providing for a female, and the winter was approaching, we added the extra clothing of the last item, but a summer dress would have been complete without it, which would have reduced the total to 28. 3d. This account is taken by Mr. Mills from an article in the City Mission Magazine. The vendor was a "literary dustman," fluently speaking English, German, Dutch, Swedish, and Danish, and gaining his livelihood by raking dusthills and selling the bones. It would scarcely be right to pry into the antecedents of the bride. Sunday is of course utterly disregarded by the Hebrews: it is with them one of the busiest days at the Old Clothes' Exchange in Houndsditch, until about two o'clock: a halfpenny is paid for admission on week days, but nothing on Sundays. The Hebrews are very particular in the matter of food. Animals intended for their use must be killed by a Jew butcher, who attaches a leaden seal, with a Hebrew inscription, to the meat. A Jewish butcher assured the writer that his method of slaughtering animals was the most cruel of all, for they cut the poor beasts' throat and let it bleed slowly to death; while the stunning blow from the Christian butcher's pole-axe destroys all further sensation. As there is no specific mark to distinguish the cleanness or uncleanness of poultry, all birds, not prohibited by Moses, are lawful food. Fishes with fins and scales are permitted, but every kind of shell-fish is strictly forbidden: oysters, however, are sold and eaten by the Jew boys if their freshness be on the wane. Mixtures of divers natures are to be strenuously avoided, such as the grafting of one descrip tion of fruit tree upon stocks of another kind; but no Jew could eat a pear or an apple off a grafted tree if he were strictly to obey this injunction. A Hebrew must not sow different seeds simultaneously in the same ground. We are furnished with an enumeration of the Jewish schools, but they are said to be greatly neg lected, and many of the pupils who have attended them long can neither read nor write. They prefer employing their time in selling fruit, and pass their evenings quarrelling and gam bling in the coffee-houses about the Londonroad, leading to the Elephant and Castle, near which is a Synagogue of considerable size. Their favourite diversion is backgammon, one of the oldest games known. Many Jewish children are employed for the merest pittance in cigar making, but even they also spend much time in gambling. The Synagogues, except on the Passover and THE BRITISH JEWS. such like occasions, are very sparely attended: all seem to neglect the ritual, walking in and out as they please. An idle, desultory conA knot of Jews in versation is carried on. their seats in the Synagogue were, on one occasion, overheard talking of Mendoza the boxer, and saying how well the "old fellow" looked, and that they would back him still if they The Jew found him going to "a mill." fighters, such as the Belascos and Mordecais, now keep the most disreputable houses in London, their wives assisting them in the infamous business. The Jewish community comprises three kinds of members-the Cohen, or priest, belonging to the family of Aaron; the Levite, who has, under the Mosaic dispensation, to perform specific duties long since dispensed with; the term Israelite comprises every Jew having no claim to the distinctions just mentioned. The Chief Rabbi is Dr. Adler, a native of Hanover, and his income is about 1200l. a year. Many of the members of the Synagogues did not think it worth their while to vote at the last vacancy, and Dr. Adler was returned by a great majority, although, in 1844, This salary is there were four candidates. raised partially by fines for absence from all religious worship, and the wealthy Jews contribute the rest. The greed of the Jews is manifested in their neglect of their own literature. A valuable work on the Hebrew language was brought, not long since, from Poland, to be disposed of in England. Even the Rothschilds, who are enormously rich, would not advance a farthing to get it printed. The Jews assert that their women are far more chaste than the generality of Christian women—an assertion that we are not prepared to admit. If true, however, how is it to be accounted for? They traffic in all the vile houses in London, without the smallest apparent compunction, and laugh at any remonstrance at such a money-making avocation. Their laziness in these haunts, and their drunkenness, are notorious. Yet they attend the Synagogue once or twice a year, and subscribe for the help of the poor when the churchwarden calls upon them. This plainly is a tax for a toleration of their immoral practices, and not a word of reprobation is heard by them, as themselves admit. They are generally reputed to be not over honest in their dealings. Many hundreds of them indeed are receivers of stolen goods, realizing, of course, immense profits. Their very children carry on this trade at the rag and marine-store shops until they are wealthy enough to aspire to something better. They seldom get convicted: many of them make no scruple at perjury. Even in the days of hang- We may conclude by observing that they On the day of atonement the Maphtir reads a portion of the book of Jonah, and closes the ritual with the Nergilah, or great concluding thanksgiving. The Shophar is then blown, The festival is and they conclude with the words, "Next year we shall meet in Jerusalem." then commenced after a fast of twenty-four hours. Neither leather shoes nor any thing made of calf-skin are allowed to be worn on account of the the day of atonement on Golden Calf worshipped by their forefathers, and certainly as fondly adored by themselves. So the majority wear on that occasion cloth boots or shoes, or go with stockings only on their feet. The most honourable portion of the Synagogue is that near the ark, less so is that next the doors at the west end. All the seats increase in honour, and in price, as they approach the ark. A goodly number have visited the gold dig- prevails among the Jews there; thus adding The metropolitan Jews number about 20,000, while 5000 are to be found settled in the provinces, or as wandering pedlars. There are now forty-one registered Synagogues in the kingdom; besides which, there are three others in process of construction-one at Birmingham, one at Glasgow, and another at Edinburgh. With respect to the Talmud, Mr. Mills ob serves and that above a thousand years have elapsed since those opinions were collected. The piety of its authors is unquestionable. Its morality, with the exception of a few isolated opinions, is excellent. To believe that its multifarious contents are all dictates of unerring wisdom, is as extravagant as to suppose that all it contains is founded in error. Like all other productions of unaided humanity, it is not free from mistakes and prejudices, to remind us that the writers were fallible men, and that unqualified admiration must be reserved for the works of divine inspiration, which we ought to study, the better to adore and obey the all-perfect Author. But while I should be among the first to protest against any confusion of the Talmudic Rills with the ever-flowing Stream of Holy Writ, I do not hesitate to avow my doubts, whether there exists any uninspired work of equal antiquity, that contains more interesting, more various, and valuable information, than that of the still-existing remains of the ancient Hebrew Sages. Until we read Mr. Mills' book we had no idea how little is popularly known of this curious people domiciled among us, and holding so many of us free Britons in bondage. The Stones of Venice. Vol. II. The Sea Stories. By JOHN RUSKIN. With Illustrations drawn by the Author. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 65 Cornhill. 1853. THE first volume of this most interesting and beautiful work treated of THE FOUNDATIONS, the present, concludes the account of the ancient architecture of Venice. After a most vivid and sparkling description, which forcibly recalls to our recollection the Queen of the Sea, our author aptly remarks, that "They little thought, who first drove the stakes into the sand, and strewed the ocean reeds for their rest, that their children were to be the princes of that ocean, and their palaces its pride;" and yet, he proceeds to observe, how strange was the preparation of those matters upon which the whole existence and fortune of the Venetian nation were in future ages to depend. Had their islands indeed been separated by deeper currents, the nascent city would over and again have been reduced, by hostile navies, to servitude: had the shores been lashed by sterner waves, all the richness and glory of Venetian architecture must have been replaced by the unpretending massiveness of a common port. Had there been no tide, as in the rest of the Mediterranean, the marsh surrounding the city, and the narrower canals within it, would have yielded continually pestiferous exhalations. If, on the other hand, the tide had but occasionally risen a few inches higher, all access to the doors of the palaces would have been impossible, their courts and entrance-halls would have been continually flooded, and covered with masses of dripping sea-weed and slimy limpets. In short, the streets would have been widened, the sagene of canals filled up, and all the present striking peculiarities of Venice utterly destroyed. Thirteen centuries ago, the sand-banks which stretch irregularly to the northward of the city, the long dreary tracts of moorland beyond them, the purple mountains reflecting the "light of the dying day," all bore much the same aspect as at this very hour; but the sad wail of woe mingled then-once-with the rippling murmur of the wave as the terrified inhabitants of Altinum fled in anguish from their burning city, and sought a doubtful safety in the shallows of the Adriatic. Lowing herds are grazing on the site of the town whence they were banished; the chief street it boasted once is now a level meadow. Let us go down into that little space of meadow land. The inlet which runs nearest to the base of the campanile is not that by which Torcello is commonly approached. Another, somewhat broader, and overhung by alder copse, winds out of the main channel of the lagoon the Piazza of the city, and there, stayed by a few grey up to the very edge of the little meadow which was once stones which present some semblance of a quay, forms its boundary at one extremity. Hardly larger than an or dinary English farmyard, and roughly enclosed on each briar, the narrow field retires from the water's edge, traside by broken palings and hedges of honeysuckle and versed by a scarcely traceable footpath, for some forty or fifty paces, and then expanding into the form of a small square, with buildings on three sides of it, the fourth be Two of these, that ing that which opens to the water. on our left and that in front of us as we approach from the canal, are so small that they might well be taken for the out-houses of the farm, though the first is a conventional building, and the other aspires to the title of the "Palazzo publico," both dating as far back as the beginchurch of Santa Fosca, is far more ancient than either, ning of the fourteenth century; the third, the octagonal yet hardly on a larger scale. Though the pillars of the portico which surrounds it are of pure Greek marble, and their capitals are enriched with delicate sculpture, they, the height of a cattle-shed; and the first strong impres and the arches they sustain, together only raise the roof sion which the spectator receives from the whole scene is, that whatever sin it may have been which has on this spot been visited with so utter a desolation, it could not be diminished as we approach, or enter, the larger church to which the whole group of building is subordinate. It has evidently been built by men in flight and distress, who sought in the hurried erection of their island church such a shelter for their earnest and sorrowful worship as, on the one hand, could not attract the eyes of their enemies by its splendour, and yet, on the other, might not awaken too bitter feelings by its contrast with the churches which they had seen destroyed. There is visible the form of the temples which they had loved, and to do everywhere a simple and tender effort to recover some of honour to God by that which they were erecting, while distress and humiliation prevented the desire, and prudence precluded the admission, either of luxury of ornadevoid of decoration, with the exception only of the western ment or magnificence of plan. The exterior is absolutely entrance and the lateral door, of which the former has at least have been ambition. Nor will this impression carved sideposts and architrave, and the latter, crosses of rich sculpture; while the massy stone shutters of the windows, turning on huge rings of stone, which answer the double purpose of stanchions and brackets, cause the whole building rather to resemble a refuge from alpine storm than the cathedral of a populous city; and, internally, the two solemn mosaics of the eastern and western extremities, one representing the Last Judgment, the other the Madonna, her tears falling as her hands are raised to bless, and the noble range of pillars which enclose the space between, terminated by the high throne for the pastor and the semicircular raised seats for the superior clergy, are expressive at once of the deep sorrow and the sacred courage of men who had no home left them upon earth, but who looked for one to come,-of men "persecuted but not forsaken, cast down but not destroyed." I am not aware of any other early church in Italy which has this peculiar expression in so marked a degree; and it is so consistent with all that Christian architecture ought to express in every age (for the actual condition of the exiles who built the cathedral of Torcello is exactly typical of the spiritual condition which every Christian ought to recognise in himself, a state of homelessness on earth, except so far as he can make the Most High his habitation), that I would rather fix the mind of the reader on this general character than on the separate details, however interesting, of the architecture itself. From Torcello and Murano our author leads us to contemplate, with veneration and awe, St. Mark and the Byzantine palaces; he then points, with evident feelings of exultation, to the remains of the Gothic period. The former, he justly affirms, contribute but little to the effect of the streets, that effect being almost entirely due to those of the Gothic and the Renaissance eras. In themselves the Renaissance buildings are neither pleasing nor picturesque, but they afford an agreeable contrast, by their combined severity and refinement, with the wildness and variety of the sealife beneath them, and by the solidity of their white marble, around which the soft green waves incessantly play. The Gothic edifices, on the other hand, are in themselves essentially picturesque, and exercise over the spectator an independent power. Under any sky, even the dull, leaden pall of our own ungenial clime, they would still be essentially beautiful.* The principal of these is of course THE DUCAL PALACE. In spite of all architectural theories and teachings, the paintings of this building are always felt to be delightful: we cannot be wearied by them, though often sorely tried; but we are not put to the same trial in the case of the palaces of the Renaissance. They are never drawn singly, or as the principal subject, nor can they be. The building which faces the Ducal Palace on the opposite side of the Piazzetta is celebrated among architects, but it is not familiar to our eyes; it is painted only incidentally, for the completion, not the subject, of a Venetian scene; and Mr. Ruskin here takes occasion to observe, that the most characteristic sentiment of all that we trace in the working of the Gothic heart, was the frank confession of its own weakness; that of the Renaissance, firm confidence in its own wisdom; and this view of the matter he loses no opportunity of inculcating. even the Renaissance arcades of St. Mark's Place, though frequently painted, are always treated as a mere avenue to its Byzantine church and colossal tower. And the Ducal Palace itself owes the peculiar charm which we have hitherto felt, not so much to its greater size as compared with other Gothic buildings, or nobler design (for it never yet has been rightly drawn), as to its comparative isolation. The other Gothic structures are as much injured by the continual juxtaposition of the Renaissance palaces, as the latter are aided by it: they exhaust their own life by breathing it into the Renaissance coldness; but the Ducal Palace stands comparatively alone, and fully expresses the Gothic power. And it is just that it should be so seen, for it is the original of nearly all the rest. It is not the elaborate and more studied developement of a national style, but the great and sudden invention of one man, instantly forming a national style, and becoming the model for the imitation of every architect in Venice for upwards of a century. It was the determination of this one fact which occupied me the greater part of the time I spent in Venice. It had always appeared to me most strange that there should be in no part of the city any incipient or imperfect types of the form of the Ducal Palace; it was difficult to believe that so mighty a building had been the conception of one man, not only in disposition and detail, but in style; and yet impossible, had it been otherwise, but that some early examples of approximate Gothic form must exist. There is not one. The palaces built between the final cessation of the Byzantine style, about 1300, and the date of the Ducal Palace (1320-1350), are all completely distinct in character, so distinct that I at first intended the account of them to form a separare section of this volume; and there is literally no transitional form between them and the perfection of the Ducal Palace. Every Gothic building in Venice which resembles the latter is a copy of it. I do not mean that there was no Gothic in Venice before the Ducal Palace, but that the mode of its application to domestic architecture had not been determined. The real root of the Ducal Palace is the apse of the Church of the Frari. The traceries of that apse, though earlier and ruder in workmanship, are nearly the same in mouldings, and precisely the same in treatment (especially in the placing of the lions' heads) as those of the great Ducal Arcade; and the originality of thought in the architect of the Ducal Palace consists in his having adapted those traceries, in a more highly developed and finished form, to civil uses. This edifice, unlike many others as widely celebrated that fall upon the eye, endows with undiminished attractiveness every picture or drawing in which-it forms the principal subject. From it we learn that Venetian architecture is divisible into two periods-one, in which was developed no consistent type of domestic building, though it exhibited many irregular Gothic tendencies. The second, on the other hand, from direct imitation of the great design of the Ducal Palace, insensibly formed a consistent school of domestic architecture. Our author discusses very ably these two peoiods, and adverts to their relative merits, their products, and results. In 1419 a fire occurred which damaged much, both the church of St. Mark's and a large portion of the palace. The noble old Doge Mocenigo proposed its re-construction on a vaster scale and of mightier proportions than before; though in so doing he incurred and paid, a fine of a thousand ducats, the |