poetry of the Old Trobadores, the of more than three hundred authors a most interesting collection of the among them, between the eleventh and sixteenth centuries; and the erudite De Castro has a list of above seven hundred Hebrew books written by them, of the greater part of which he gives some account. At a time when the Christian world appeared slumbering in indifference and darkness, they awoke to the sunshine of intellect and knowledge. They had their poets, their orators, their philosophers, their mathematicians, their astronomers. † In the midst of ignorance and intole rance, (of which they were often the victims,) the meanest and least among them could read and enjoy the sacred books, while their Rabbies were raising to themselves a monument of fame, which will not now be permitted to decay. It is impossible (in the narrow limits of this paper) to record even the most illustrious names among the Peninsular Jews. The learning of Arisba, the ingenuity of Aubonet Abraham, the profound skill of Isaac Israel Riccini, the various merit of the Abarbanels, the historical knowledge of Zacuth, the controversial dexterity of Cardozo, deserve particular attention. Nor should Duarte Pinel and Usque, the translators of the Bible, § Zamora and Coronel, who assisted Ximenez Cisueros in the publication of his Polyglot, be passed over in silence. To a Jew (Baena) we owe No doubt many volumes have been destroyed by the ravages of time, and the repeated attacks which the Inquisition directed against Hebrew MSS. Eichhorn's List (in his History of Literature, II. vi. Sect. 237-243), of Illustrious Jews, though tolerably correct as far as it goes, is very imperfect indeed. Maimonides that every Jew was required to possess at least one copy of the Pentateuch. says, I am tempted to introduce here a literal rendering of their translation of the famous passage of Isaiah ix. 5 : "For to us a child was born, to us a son was given, and the authority was on his shoulder; and the Wonderful, the Counsellor, the Mighty God, the Eternal Father, called his name Sar Salom." P. 187. And this interpretation was universally adopted by the Spanish Rabbies. It is stated by Michaelis, and has been repeated over and over again, (and among others by the Editors of the Improved Shall the gay sky-lark be despised Because his nest is low and lonely? Shall song's sweet music be unprized When heard from Hebrew minstrels only? So elevated was the rank in society held by the Jews, that it is asserted, and I believe justly asserted, that there is hardly a noble family in Spain which may not trace its origin in the female branches to a Jewish bead; and the illustrious race of Davila are descended in a direct paternal line from Hebrew ancestors. † The history of the Spanish Jews, through the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, is but a record of varied calamity. Their sacred books destroyed, their dwellings devastated, their synagogues razed, imprisonments, tortures, assassinations and extensive massacres, make up the melancholy detail. To preach their doctrines was blasphemy, to hear them, treason. He who protected a Jew was punished as a rebel; he, who insulted or plundered him was deemed a meritorious patriot. It would, however, be doing great injustice to Alonzo el Sabio, not to select his name from among the Spanish monarchs, as a distinguished patron of Hebrew literature. The Alphonsine Tables were drawn up under his immediate direction, by Hazan, a Jew of Toledo. To this illustrious prince we owe one of the earliest translations of the Bible into the vulgar tongue. It was reserved for the Fifth Ferdinand (the splendour of whose reign was derived from others, while its infamy is most truly his own), to close "this strange eventful history." In intolerable incredulity. See a curious account of the preaching of St. Vincent Ferrer, at Tortosa, where the Jews were commanded to assemble, in Zusita's Anales de Aragon. Consult also the Bulls of Benedict XIII. (Sol. Ben Virg. Hist. Jud. 226.) A favourite decree of the Spanish monarchs was issued by Clement V., obliging all Jews to hear sermons thrice a-year, proving that Messias is come, and that unbelievers deserve every sort of panishment here, and eternal damnation hereafter. Lope de Vega expresses his astonishment at their pertinacity, when it was only required that they should surrender their judgment to those who knew more about the matter than themselves : Proseguen el canino, Catolico, sagrado Why Quevedo has neglected the Jews among the different inhabitants of hell, whom he visited, in his Sueños de los muertos, I cannot divine, especially as he says he heard the cries and clamours of Jewesses confined in caves beneath the ground. He has not spared them elsewhere. "Siempre la hypocresia farandulera fué solariega en los Judios. Buscan la honestidad para desvergüenza la religion para impiedades, los generosos para vilenas y autorizan la maldad con el pretexto venerable." III, 89. 1485 he caused "a great process" to be instituted against heresy, and gave to the Inquisitors previous sanction for whatever they should do. In the exertion of such unlimited power they little scrupled to pass the boundaries which prudence would have marked out in a country whose forms of civil freedom have excited the admiration even of our days. The Arragonese felt how much their liberties were insulted by the delegation of such an intolerable authority, and many of them made common cause with the Jews in opposing the tyrannical proceedings of the Inquisitors. Great and continued tumults were the consequence, and an ecclesiastic, (Arbués,) one of the most active agents of persecution, was murdered at the foot of the altar. † This event, no doubt, hastened those merciless measures, which from that hour to this have severed the Peninsular Jews from the land of their ancestors. In March sued, commanding every Jew to quit 1492 the decree of Ferdinand was isSpain before the following July, on pain of death. The order was signed by the first Inquisitor-general, and was one of his earliest public acts, ‡ * The declaration (for instance) of the Arragonese, before they conferred the regal dignity, speaks in the best and boldest spirit of liberty. * Many interesting circumstances, connected with the old Spanish constitutions, may be found in the Teoria de las Cortes, a work written by Marina, and published in Madrid, during the short era of liberty. This fellow was sainted by Alexander VII. in 1664. Ferdinand and Isabella erected to his memory a magnificent tomb, whose virtues wrought innumerable miracles. One virtue it claimed was scarcely miraculous, fortissimus lapis, Qui arcet virtute cunctos à se Judæos." Lope de Vega says of the Inquisition, cally or not,) (it would be hard to say whether equivo"Esta santa y venerable El Justicia de Aragon decia al Rey en nombre de las Cortes y de la Nacion "Nosotros que valemos cada uno tanto como vos y que todos juntos somos mas poderosos que vos, prometemos obedecer á vuestro gobierno si manteneis nuestros derechos, fueros y privilegios, y si non, non." worthy, indeed, of that tribunal which boasted that the blood of more than 300,000 victims, shed in less than three centuries, had attested its glorious triumphs. There are few events in history whose details are so distressing as those connected with the expatriation of the Spanish Jews. † More than 500,000 wretches were pursued by fire and sword and famine and pestileuce, whom it was made felony to assist with shelter, food or clothing. § Some fled to the mountains, where they perished by the hand of assassins, or the less merciful, but no less fatal attacks of hunger. Thousands committed themselves to frail and faithless barks, and were swallowed up, with all they possessed, by the unpitying ocean. Some who reached Naples, brought with them calamities not less frightful than those they left behind, and 20,000 died of the plague, which they introduced into that city. Tens of thousands purchased a temporary protection from John II. of Portugal, and when the truce expired, those whom suffering and disease had spared were landed on the coast of Africa, where the Moors gave them so cruel a reception, that they hurried back to the inhospitable lands from whence Inquisicion instituida por aquellos esclarecidos, felicissimos y enternamente venerables reyes con que enpenada la libertad de la conciencia vivis quietos, humildes y pacificos al yugo de la Romana Yglesia. V. 91. Llorente calculates that the Inquisition has caused the total destruction of 500,000 families, and that Spain has lost twelve millions of inhabitants by its devastating decrees. Hist. de l'In. IV. 242. For a list of learned Jews driven from Spain, see Inquisition Unmasked, II. 75. Mariana says 800,000 fled from Castille and Aragon alone; but I conclude this is an exaggeration. VII. 336. Bernalden, a contemporary historian, declares that he saw Jews giving a house in exchange for an ass, and a vineyard for a small piece of cloth. Os Moiros os affrontáram, os roubáram, os escarnicéram e á vista dos pais e dos maridos dormiam com as molheres e as filtas. Aos consentidos espancavam, aos vozos tiravam as cabegas, aos indifferentes carregavam de opprobios. Lemos Farià e Castro, VIII. 208. they had been driven, where they apostatized and mingled with the people. Some were so happy as to reach the more liberal regions of the north, and the works written by them and their descendants, prove that the love of literature could not be extinguished by the terrors of persecution, nor the ravages of death. Į I SIR, B. May 20, 1819. BEG leave to introduce myself to you as a zealous Unitarian, whose lot in life is cast more among Trini tarians at the west end of the metropolis, than among those of my own faith; but wherever I find an opening, either by conversation or the loan of books, to introduce a glimmering of the truth, I do not neglect to work with all diligence. And in consequence of my having lately lent two of our many able controversial tracts to a man of rank and fashion, with an inquiring mind, who has always been more a thinker than a reader, I re * Many particulars of these sufferings may be found in “Consolagam as Tribu lagoens de Israel," a book written to console the Jews under their trials, by Samuel Usque, an expatriated Portuguese Jew. + Many must have been overlooked by John, for in 1496 Ferdinand applied to Manuel of Portugal, urging him to extirpate the infidel race of Jews and Mabommedans, whom, in consequence, he col lected together in Lisbon, and ordered them to embark for Africa, after tearing from them their children under 14 years old. Those who could not embark were sold as slaves. "Nos e nossos avós (says a Portuguese historian) vemos o fructe desta acgam tam pouco justa." The Jews were treated with infinitely greater severity than the Moors, which Damiam de Goes accounts for, by saying, that the latter might have retaliated on their Christian slaves, while the former were as helpless as miserable. He who wishes to obtain information respecting the writings of the Spanish Jews, may consult the first volume of Castro's Biblioteca Española. The best account of the Portuguese literary Jews is to be found in the papers written by Anto. Ribo. dos Santos, and printed by the Lisbon Academy of Sciences. Barrios also published, iu Amsterdam, an Account of the Poets and Authors among the Jews of his nation. ceived the following letter from him, with permission to offer it to you without his name, for insertion in your Repository, if you approve of giving it a chance of a reply : "I have found a great deal of ingenuity in the arguments with which the Trinitarians are attacked, and I am not sorry to see them roughly handled, for there has been a too great mixture of pride and arrogance in the manner of our orthodox explainers of the gospel; but I must. confess, that my feelings of religion incline me to think that the doctrine of Unitarianism leads farther from truth than that of a Deity dividing himself into different characters for the carrying on the design of the creation. There is something captivating in the idea of Unity, but I cannot apply it, in my mind, to any thing but to a state of absolute repose or har mony throughout all space. I can consider God as one single being, concentrating in himself all power and intelligence; but he can only exist as such, in my contemplation of him, before he determined to manifest his attributes in a system of worlds; a system, in which power, life and intelligence were to be distributed in a variety of degrees and characters. The Deity in his creation is not the same as to mode of being, that he was antecedent to it. If what was his property exclusively before the creation (namely, power and wisdom and life) is in the creation, God is a component part of his creation. He is wherever there is either power or intelligence or life. I cannot separate my idea of him from the world; and the Unitarian who tells me that I must not connect my worship of the Deity, with what it is possible to conceive of perfection united with human life, gives me a kind of barreu religion, that neither warms my heart nor comes home to my understanding, I cannot believe or not believe as I please; I can adopt no faith from a principle of fear, interest or duty; and in dictating belief, the Unitarian is fully as unphilosophical as his opponent. My faith must be given me by a higher authority than that of a preacher of any sect; and my human nature, must have some intercourse with, in other words, some similitude VOL. XIV. 35 with a divine nature, to know and have the feeling of what is divine. The Unitarian, in denying the divinity of Christ, drives me farther than I should be (if believing it) from the idea that all men may have, from their nature, a participation in Deity. His simplification of worship seems to me a severation of God from the world. I cannot feel a love for a Deity that creates and then keeps himself, as it were, at a distance from his works. I can only love him as thinking that he is in his own works, governing his own nature, through the weakness and infirmity it has from its subdivision; leading it to a reunion of parts, and feeling it not inconsistent with his dignity to declare, that even such a frail, humble thing as man, could be one and the same with himself, when the wisdom, the benevolence and the will were the same in both. The Unitarian throws me farther off from the hope of a future state, than the Trinitarian who blends the Deity with the nature of man. The Unitarian tells you there will be a future state, because he finds it promised in the gospel; but he considers resurrection as a miracle, contrary to the known laws of nature. Now if man can be led to believe that God himself is intimately connected with their nature, he is himself the saving principle which must prevent the whole from perishing. If the Deity can be believed to have been individual in Christ, the individuality of every man may be believed in common consistency to be immortal, and this, without any miracle or contradiction of fixed laws, but in the natural progress of the scheme of creation." Thus, Sir, does my Correspondent, as it appears to me, admit that Christ is of the same nature with us, but then it is by making us all divinities; and why I am to be "more warmed" by worshiping derived Deity, connected with "what it is possible to conceive of perfection united with humanity," than by worshiping underived Deity, does not, I confess, "come home to my understanding." I shall subscribe myself, as on a former occasion, A STEADY UNITARIAN. SIR, Kidderminster, mity, which will transmit to posterity the knowledge of events occurring in the present day that materially affect the Dissenting interest, either generally or in particular instances, you will probably have no objection to an insertion of the following brief narrative of the late sad contention among the Independents at Kidderminster. I shall not pretend to relate its minutiæ, some of which are differently stated in the rumours of the town, but merely the transactions of common notoriety. About ten years ago the Rev. T. H. was elected by the church and congregation assembling at the Old Meeting-house, not quite unanimously, but with few exceptions, to become their settled minister; and he was accordingly ordained there soon after his acceptance of their invitation. At the beginning of his ministry he was considered a very popular preacher, and was ardently esteemed; but as it often happens, when the fondness is at first excessive, before several years had elapsed the visible attachment to him considerably abated, and not long after degenerated with many of his bearers into cold indifference. About four years ago he received intimations from some of the people of dissatisfaction with his ministerial services, and of certain alterations that would be agreeable in several respects. These it is not necessary to detail, but it is proper to observe that the ground of this dissatisfaction was not any change of doctrinal sentiments, either with him or the congregation. Instead of a compliance with their wishes, what was deemed objectionable continued, and consequently increased the discontent until it came to an open rupture. About the end of the year 1816, a meeting of the subscribers was called by a public notice, for important business relating to the congregation, which was for considering the propriety of informing their minister, that his connexion with them must be relinquished at a time to be appointed. Probably from delicacy, as he was present when the notice was given, the particular pur pose of the meeting was not explicitly declared; or it might have been judged unnecessary to express the in such as would sufficiently lead all persons concerned in the business, to understand for what purpose they were desired to meet. At the time specified this meeting was held, and the majority, including the principal supporters of the interest, determined that it was desirable that Mr. H. should cease to be the minister of the Old Meeting at the expiration of six months. This was communicated to him, accompanied with the offer of one hundred pounds if he would relinquish the place agreeably to their wishes; but he did not accede to their proposal. When the time fixed for his removal arrived, which was Midsummer 1817, he refused to surrender the pulpit, and having possessed himself of the key of the house he still continued to conduct the service. His conduct in thus retaining the place of worship, in defiance of the congre gation's resolution, he attempted to vindicate by applying, as some others have done, the rules of the secular establishment of religion to a Dissenting society, and pleading to this effect, that having been inducted and or dained there, he could not be legally ejected except for heresy or immoral behaviour. In this conduct he was countenanced by his adherents, who asserted that the decision of the meeting was not fair and equitable, as the notice by which it was called did not plainly express for what purpose it was con vened, though those of them who had been subscribers were the minority. Under these untoward circumstances the trustees, acting in concurrence with the majority, had the lock taken off from the door, and another placed there in its stead; but this did not prevent Mr. H.'s still keeping pos session, as he had the new lock displaced and another substituted; and for three months he continued preaching to the people, some of whom attended as his friends, and the rest to secure their interest in the building. About the following Michaelmas the trustees acted in pursuance of legal advice, and applied to the high bailiff for constables to be stationed in thể |