agreeable to the usage among the Jews. He studied seven years at Prague, and then, on his returning home, married "Ientild, daughter of that wealthy Jew, Solomon Cohen, who, according to the Jewish opinion of piety, bore an unblemished character, and under whose roof I lived in the happy state of matrimony." His first wife dying suddenly, within a few years, left him a daughter six months old. Upon this, Duitsch began to moralize, and he tells us" it was the first means by which the eternal love of God chose more effectually to work upon his heart.” He did not, however, leave it to work long, for, in little more than three months, he married Sara, the second daughter of that same "wealthy Jew, Solomon Cohen," and the sister of his first wife. Duitsch, notwithstanding his evident inclination for the daugh. ters of the "wealthy Jew," seems to have had no great passion for their company: "being," says he, "exceedingly fond of the Talmud, I commonly staid in my study till after midnight;" and midnight study had the effect on Solomon, it often has on weak minds, which is told with all the supernatural nonsense of our modern Methodist tracts; he hears strange noises, sees strange visions, is struck with "inexpressible fear and terror,”— "a cold sweat covered my face, and I felt, as it were, the agonies of death. The world seemed now too confined for me: yea, I desired every instant, that the earth would open her mouth and swallow me up like Korah." His wife, whom he designates as "subtle, cunning, and serpent-like," although, by his own confession, he lived "very comfortably" with her, as well as her sister, until she was driven from her home by its gloom and melancholy, if not by his madness, reasons with him very sensibly, and very affectionately." Upon this, my wife, who had heard my weeping and grieving, entered my closet, with the child in her arms, and addressed me in the following words: "O my dear! Why weepest thou? What does so grievously affect thy heart? Thou art quite consumed with grief, and almost no more resembling a human being. This is the ready way to bring bodily sickness upon thyself, and at last lose thy senses; so that thou wilt be a shame and reproach to me and my family. Are not thy brethren, the Jews, in the right to scorn and deride thee? Where is thy reason, in forfeiting thy honour and good name so foolishly? The greatest part of them lay the blame upon me, for my indulging thee so much in thy studies, and not raising thy spirits by taking a walk, and playing at cards, or going to musical entertainments with me. But, alas! they little know how often I have endeavoured to divert thee from melancholy thoughts. Pray, think on me, and have pity on this innocent babe in my arms." This, however, not succeeding, she returned to her parents; and soon after, he tells "the Rabbines and elders assembled, and unanimously us, "it agreed to blot or strike out my name from amongst the living, meaning their communion. They compelled me not only to write a letter of divorce to my wife, but they also excommunicated me from their community." How they compelled him to write a letter of divorce Solomon does not tell us, unless he means by excommunication, which is a very novel way, and not very likely to succeed with a man who had received "a call," and was therefore, or was about to be, self-excommunicated. But the reasons of this interference of the Rabbins and Elders, is not to us very intelligible, and we suspect Solomon intended it should not be. "His thoughts," it appears, were employed to find out Christ," but it does not appear that he told his wife so, and the Rabbins, we presume, could not read his thoughts. But they too might have overheard "the call;" and we cannot otherwise understand the grounds of his expulsion. It was not from suspicion of his dabbling with interdicted subjects, for his reading was confined to the Talmud ; even the Bible he had scarcely looked into, for he acknowledges, some time after, "I bought a Hebrew Bible; and began now, for the first time, to read it from the beginning;" and as to the New Testament, it was not till afterwards, that he possessed one; and was then tricked into the purchase by a soldier, Solomon himself mistaking it, as he acknowledges, for "the last will of some great prince and king," but thought it would assist him in learning German. But the whole of this, his excommunication and his conversion, is a mystery; for, long before he had met with this "last will of some great king," or had read, or could read, one line or one word of it, or, to use his own words, "could give account or reason for my faith," he was able to see and to oppose the subtle errors of the Romish church. The heretics, he says, some Priest told him, were a set of people who, it is true, believe in Christ, but have no faith in the Virgin Mary, and St. Joseph.' "From this moment I thought within myself, who can convince me that the Roman Catholic religion is the true religion? and can prove that the heretics have revolted or separated themselves from the Roman Catholics? It may be that they themselves have dissented from the former, in the like manner as Israel, in former times, separated from Juda, and worshipped the idols on Mount Ephraim. It is possible that amongst those whom they call heretics, the true religion is only to be found." This is argued like a Protestant Doctor; and being merely intuitive, a sort of theological instinct, how can we poor prosing fellows, who are accustomed to wade through volumes, to seek for knowledge, and to dig deep and wearily for it, presume to judge such a man. His knowledge, like his faith, "surpasseth all understanding ;" the Rabbins of such a tribe may have an equal instinct in discover ing people, that are tainted with it. A Rabbin might, indeed, insinuate that this wonderful instinct for Christianity was first mentioned when he was fed and clothed by Christians; and a Romanist, that these feeders, and clothiers were heretics. this would be a vile insinuation. But However, we must admit, that this early and resolute faith of Solomon's, for which he half insinuates he was turned out of the Synagogue, does throw a little suspicion on his after conduct. The more especially, as we find him, long after" the call," and long after he had possessed and read the New Testament itself, accepting the office of Rabbi among the Jews of Arnheim, and afterwards at Wesel. But one of the reasons assigned for accepting the office, ought, perhaps, to quiet our scruples. "I wished greatly," he says, " to enjoy some rest for studying the gospel with more attention." Truly, the Jews of Arnheim must have been greatly benefited by so conscientious a Rabbi. But faith Solomon certainly had, a faith in the gullibility of other people; for it was not till driven a second if not a third time from out the Synagogue, and wandering about in actual want, and without a home; and when the conversion of the Jews was become a fashion in Germany, and converts were taken into pay and supported; that his early " call," and his early faith, and all the miracles that brought him to the faith, drew from him a public profession. We confess, we have been altogether disappointed in this book, and have little inclination to pursue our narrative. Any pleasure in the narration itself is out of the question; we never, indeed, expected it. But, like most other people, we feel a great interest in the Jews, not so much theologically, as psychologically; we desire to be admitted into the deep mystery of the human heart and mind, and the Jews are a phenomenon in this way, which we would willingly comprehend, and inelude under known and recognized principles; we, therefore, desire to understand their feelings and opinions, and the grounds and strength of those opinions; and nothing would throw more light on these, than the honest corfession of some one who became, from reason and conviction, a convert to Christianity. But Solomon Duitsch was a drivelling imposter. When a man professes to have no ground whatever for abandoning one opinion and adopting another,-for leaving Judaism, in which he was educated, and embracing Christianity, of which he was utterly ignorant, even to the name of the book which contained its doctrine, but direct miracles, known only to himself;when we see him disregarding all these miraculous interferences so long as it was his interest, and only declaring them when his interest pointed the opposite way; we have no hesitation in treating him as a cheat, and throwing his book. aside as of no use in the philosophy of mind; another specimen, therefore, and we have done. It appears that at Amsterdam, he determined to hear a sermon, and knowing nothing of the Dutch language, he very naturally, but, as it afterwards appeared, unnecessarily, sought out for a German preacher; but was disappointed after all, for the sermon was in Dutch; notwithstanding which, he gives us the very words of the text, and then adds, "It is known to the all-knowing God alone, who searcheth the heart and reins, with what emotions of heart I remember this sermon, even to this very day; and much more what my soul felt at the hearing it. I was so transported in spirit by the explication of the text, that it seemed to me as if the minister spake plain Hebrew, so perfectly could I understand every word he said." ART. VI.-Amorum Troile et Cresseida, libri duo priores AngloLatine, per Franc. Kinaston. Oxon. 1635. 4to. Chaucer's Troilus and Creseide was the first example of a regular serious narrative poem, on a large scale, in the English language. It may be considered as our oldest epic, to use the word in its common, though sufficiently vague, acceptation; and for a long time, with the exception of the Knyghtes' Tale by the same author, it continued to be the only one. Hence, it was held in that value which always attaches to the first of any thing, and which adheres to it even for some time after it has been superseded by more beautiful and finished specimens of the same kind. It was reverenced as the earliest work in which the powers of English, as a cultivated language, were developed; its author was regarded as the Virgil of his country; his poem was made the foundation of the fictions of subsequent writers; and, according to a practice common in former ages, when, as a contemporary critic expresses it," the notion of the perishableness of modern tongues, and of the necessity of preserving works worthy to last, by embalming them in the immortal language of Rome," was not yet exploded, it was thought expedient, upwards of two centuries after its publication, to translate it into Latin. We have deemed this translation worthy of notice as a literary curiosity, and as one of the most successful specimens of a rare species of composition-rare, we mean, when attempted on so large a scale; for the practice itself, of writing Latin verses in vernacu lar metres, is of old standing, and has been applied to a great variety of subjects, from the early hymns of the Romish church, (many of them celebrated for their beauty) to the sportive jeux d'esprits of our own days.* We cannot say much in praise of this species of composition. Like other devices, in which two things, each by itself pleasing and familiar to us, but wholly unallied to each other, are forced into combination, it is productive of pleasure indeed, but a pleasure purely fantastic, and incapable of long continuance, unless sustained by some other and more durable source of interest. Such are the whimsically-compounded figures of barbarian sculpture; such is macaronic verse, of which we shall have another occasion to speak; such, to ascend a little higher, is that joco-serious style of poetical narrative, which has lately become so fashionable from merits not its own; and the glaring contrasts of which, compared with the easy shading of Whistlecraft, serve to illustrate the difference between a natural mode of writing and an unnatural one. But what bears the most analogy to the practice of which we are now speaking, is the attempt at naturalizing the Greek ard Roman metres in various modern languages: on both, especially on the latter, eminent wits have been employed; and in neither case with any extraordinary success. To say the truth, neither of these experiments has had a fair trial; for on the one hand, our Latin rhymers have generally, if not universally, written as if the Roman pronunciation was precisely the same with the modern; and on the other, later writers at least have substituted modern accent for ancient quantity, so that, instead of naturalizing the Roman metres, they have merely introduced new varieties into their own metrical system. Thus, Dr. Watts's and Dr. Southey's sapphics are merely repetitions of a particular form of the English ten-syllable verse, wound up with a shorter species of line, which, though less common, is equally English. Such attempts, however, may by a happy accident produce excellent harmony of the vernacular kind; as in the last-mentioned writer's Vision of Judgment, a poem more abused than read, and of which the assailants, in their animosity to its * Sometimes, as in the Leonine verses, the ancient Roman metres are employed, with the addition of rhyme. The oldest instance which we remember of this is a hymn of Damasus, who was Bishop of Rome, A.D. 366-384. "Martyris ecce dies Agathæ Virginis emicat eximiæ, |