And lingering pause and lightly tread;
Fond wretch! as if her step disturb'd the dead!

Away; we know that tears are vain,

That death nor heeds nor hears distress:
Will this unteach us to complain?

Or make one mourner weep the less?
And thou who tell'st me to forget,

Thy looks are wan, thine eyes are wet.'

Sun of the sleepless! melancholy star!
Whose tearful beam glows tremulously far,
That show'st the darkness thou canst not dispel,
How like art thou to joy remembered well!
So gleams the past, the light of other days,

Which shines, but warms not with its powerless rays;
A night-beam Sorrow watcheth to behold,
Distinct, but distant-clear-but, oh how cold!'

On Jordan's banks the Arabs' camels stray,
On Sion's hill the False One's votaries pray,
The Baal-adorer bows on Sinai's steep-

Yet there-even there-Oh God! thy thunders sleep:

There where thy finger scorch'd the tablet stone! where thy shadow to thy people shone !

ben There

Thy glory shrouded in its garb of fire:

Thyself none living see and not expire!

Oh! in the lightning let thy glance appear!!

Sweep from his shiver'd hand the oppressor's spear:
How long by tyrants shall thy land be trod!
How long thy temple worshipless, Oh God!'

- some

In these extracts we find something to praise and something to blame a considerable portion of spirit, and many of those conceits which are destructive of spirited effect; powerful versification, and some weak and frivolous alliteration; some originality, and some plagiarism. We object to the word unteach' in the sense of teach us not; and methought it did appear a violet-dropping dew' is weak. We are aware that these are little more than venial blemishes; and we should perhaps forbear from insisting on them in a work of any magnitude: but, in a collection like the present, every piece is supposed to be a sort of bijou, in which little flaws and specks are serious objections.

V

The most spirited poem is "On the Day of the Destruction of Jerusalem by Titus,' and we quote it with much pleasure:

From the last hill that looks on thy once holy dome,

I beheld thee, Oh Sion! when rendered to Rome:
'Twas thy last sun went down, and the flames of thy fall
Flash'd back on the last glance I gave to thy wall.

I look'd for thy temple, I look'd for my home,
And forgot for a moment my bondage to come;
I beheld but the death-fire that fed on thy fane,
And the fast-fettered hands that made vengeance in vain.
On many an eve, the high spot whence I gazed
Had reflected the last beam of day as it blazed;
While I stood on the height, and beheld the decline
Of the rays from the mountain that shone on thy shrine.
•And now on that mountain I stood on that day,
But I mark'd not the twilight beam melting away;
Oh! would that the lightning had glared in its stead,
And the thunderbolt burst on the conqueror's head!
• But the Gods of the Pagan shall never profane
The shrine where Jehovah disdain'd not to reign;
And scattered and scorn'd as thy people may be,
Our worship, Oh Father! is only for thee.'

Here also the dactylic metre is an objection, and we wish that our ears were less offended by alliteration: but the general effect is both impassioned and chaste.

It is proper to observe that Lord Byron, in a short preface, mentions that this is not a work of his own choice, but was undertaken at the request of a friend. Under such circumstances, a poet is intitled to some indulgence: but, making every allowance for the restraint thus occasioned, our opinion on the whole is that the publication is not calculated to advance his Lordship's high poetic fame.

ART,

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a

ART, IX. Narrative of Joseph Samuel C. F. Frey, with an Address to Christians of all Denominations, in Behalf of the Descendants of Abraham. Second Edition. 12mo. Gale and Co.

MR. R. FREY is certainly a singular and interesting character; and, as a descendant of Abraham embracing the Christian faith, he has obtained considerable notice in this country. The literary world are also under no small obligations to him for his new and beautiful edition of Van der Hooght's Hebrew Bible; an edition which he is executing with indefatigable industry, and which will transmit his name to posterity, though he has modestly abstained from the mention of this undertaking in the narrative before us. While, however, we are cordially disposed to give him full credit for sincerity and zeal in the cause of the Gospel, we cannot altogether approve the style in which these memoirs are written; nor can we think that he has adopted the most judicious course in his appeal to the Jews. How far he is strictly correct in the representation of his brethren according to the flesh," we have not the means of fully ascertaining: but when he tells us (p. 5.) that those Haphtoroth, (or sections or lessons out of the prophets,) which speak the plainest respecting the Messiah, are left out in the reading of the Scriptures by the modern Jews, and particularly that the liiid chapter of Isaiah is skipped over,' he brings to our recollection a publication intitled "The Constancy of Israel," by Solomon Bennett, a Polish Jew, in which this assertion is flatly denied; and in which, as it now appears to us, Mr. Bennett sneers at Mr. Frey for this representation, which he has elsewhere given. We shall not quote the contemptuousterms by which Mr. B. designates this convert from Judaism: but it may be proper, for the sake of obtaining the matter of fact, to restate his averment, in opposition to that of the author of the present narrative. "I testify," says Mr. Bennett, (see p. 34. note,) "that I never heard of such a prohibition; yet there is some truth in it, that the Jews (i.e. English) do neither read this chapter nor the whole Bible: novels and romances being so much more to their taste than their sacred records, that they scarcely comprehend their common Hebrew prayers; but with respect to the innumerable Israelites throughout our dispersion, to my knowledge they read, understand, and reflect on it also." To the English Jews, Mr. Bennett is not very civil; and, as far as they are concerned, he seems to allow that Mr. Frey has not misrepresented them: but the great majority of the Israelites he rescues from Mr. Frey's charge, and boldly affirms their perfect acquaintance with the liiid chapter of Isaiah. Other particulars, which we have not room to mention, specified in Mr. Bennett's book, (published in London in 1809, and noticed in M. R. Vol.

4

Ixviii. N.S. p. 396.) are completely at variance with Mr. Frey's representations; and which, for the purpose of turning the Jews from" the error of their ways," the author of this narrative should have combated.. Instead, however, of maintaining the correctness of the Nazarene comments, as the followers of Moses call our strictures on their law and prophets, in opposition to those of the Rabbis, Mr. Frey, after having informed us of the horrid terms in which he was taught, when a child, to speak of our blessed Saviour, adopts a kind of style, in relating the circumstances of his birth, education, and conversion, &c. which we will honestly say is not much adapted to our taste. He tells us that he was born, or, as he expresses it, • was favoured by God with the light of this world,' Sept. 21. 1771, at Maynstockheim, in Franconia; in which country his father was for nineteen years a private tutor in a Jewish family, and, being devoted to the study of the Scriptures and the tra ditions of the elders, became their Morah Tzedek, or religious conductor. Having such a parent, versed in all the niceties of tradition, as well as of the ceremonies of the law, the subject of this memoir was regularly circumcised on the eighth day, according to custom, receiving the name of Joseph Samuel, and became early instructed in the Pentateuch and Talmud.

Before I was' (says Mr. F.) three years old I began the Hebrew alphabet, and when but six years of age I could perfectly read any chapter of the five books of Moses.'

When I was nine years old, the holy book of God was shut up and laid aside, and in its stead the productions of men, as the Mishnah, Gemarah, &c. were brought forth and eagerly studied by me in succession, with fresh pleasure and satisfaction, for they were nourishment to my earthly and sensual affections, and fuel to

vain specu

heart; and thus was I for four years longer absorbed in corrupt lations, spending my strength for nought. On the first Sabbath after I was thirteen years and a day old, I read in the synagogue, according to custom, the section of the law appointed for the day, which happened to be the second, called Noach.

When a Jewish boy has arrived at the age of thirteen years and a day, he is considered a man, fit to be one of the ten necessary to constitute a full number for public worship. He is now obliged to observe the precepts for himself, and is no longer considered under the power of his father. He is also accounted of age to manage business, and his contracts are valid.. I was now arrived at that period of life in which it is usual with the Jews to decide, whether a person will engage in business, or qualify himself farther for any religious office Having chosen the latter, I continued five years longer in the study of the Talmud and its various commentators."

As Mr. F. was so thoroughly qualified for arguing with the Jews on their own ground, and detecting their false glosses, we could have wished that he had employed more argumenta ad bomines: but, we know not for what reasons, he follows a difREY. SEPT. 1815. E

ferent

ferent course. When he was eighteen, he acted for himself in the capacity of a tutor at Hesse; for which service, in addition to board and lodging, he received sixteen guineas per annum.

Thus,' says he, (but we wish that he had not said it, for never was Scripture quoted more mal-a-propos,) I thought myself "rich, and encreased with goods, and had need of nothing, not knowing that I was wretched, and miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked." Rev. iii. 17.

At the age of twenty-one, the author read in the synagogue the public prayers and the law of Moses; and so anxious was he to recommend himself among his brethren, that he says,

1

I spent a whole year in obtaining the knowledge of the Jewish method of preparing the knife for killing fowls or beasts, and of the nature of the lungs. None but those who have learned these ceremonies can judge how difficult they are to be acquired, so as to be master of them all.

At length I likewise obtained this degree of honour by the con sent of the then presiding Rav or Rabbi, of Hesse Castle. In the use of these ceremonious observances I was extremely strict, although not one of them is to be found expressed in the whole book of God, but they are only a few of the innumerable, vain, and extremely burdensome traditions received of the fathers. O blessed Jesus! thy yoke is easy, and thy burden is light, for by thee the weary and heavy laden find rest. Happy, thrice happy those who are brought into the holy liberty of thy glorious and everlasting Gospel.' This apostrophe in this place might have been spared, because we are not come to the period of the writer's conversion.

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Resolving to ramble, Mr. F. visited several places in Ger many; and, accidentally meeting with a Christian who was traveller for a tobacco-manufactory at Hamburgh, a conversation ensued, which first led him to a change of sentiment; a change which seems to have been very sudden, and is strangely expressed:

I stayed at the same inn with my Christian friend. My soul was disquieted within me all the night. Early in the morning my friend went into the city on his business. Soon after he was gone, all that he had said to me came suddenly into my mind with great force, and his kind and affectionate behaviour had such an influence on my my mind, that I immediately sat down and wrote a letter to him, inti mating I would travel in his company to Berlin, in order to enquire into the truth of Christianity. Having written this letter and sealed it, I left it for him in the inn, and went into the synagogue without thinking for a moment on the great sin which I had committed (according to the Jewish traditions) in writing and sealing a letter on the Sabbath day.

• On my return from the synagogue, I was informed that my Christian friend had left the place, and since that time I have never had the pleasure of seeing him. My conscience was now awakened, and it loudly told me that I was no longer a Jew, for that I had broken the Sabbath.

Hitherto