ashamed of myself and of my former prejudice against her. The latter feeling will prove a salutary lesson to me for life. I shall endeavour to resist every impulse or suggestion to judge unfavourably of any person by appearances, without knowing the whole complication of circumstances, prosperous and otherwise, in his or her annals, which may have contributed to produce the appearance.

Miss Ignota joined the household and guests the following morning at prayers in the family sanctuary, as one of the most devout, earnest, and grateful worshippers. Expression and fervent feeling was plainly legible in her every feature. Her voice was the most thrilling in the canticles and hymns. After the short service, Miss Paltiel left her place at the organ, and asked her friend to play the dismissal symphony. Miss Ignota acquiesced in the request; she took every heart by storm, by the pathos and softness with which she invested her performance. She, unconsciously to herself, put me to such shame and confusion of face as, I devoutly pray, may never be my lot to experience again. To add to my discomfiture, Asher must needs follow me to my sanctum, and appeal to me whether his father, mother, sister, and Dr. Benamram were not better judges of character than either he or myself were? Did I ever see in womandom, except his sister Salome, any one half so fascinating And with as the ex-boarder of Adamantine House, yclept Miss Ignota ? other such rhapsodies he added fuel to my burning confusion of face. "There will be one good result," I broke in, to save myself from betrayal of temper which I felt was gaining upon me, "which this sudden metamorphosis in Miss Ignota's character will produce; we shall have no more paroxysms of interruptions in my Lord's memoirs, THE BANISHED ONES FETCHED HOME. I wish you would set about it, and get your father to fix the evening for continuing his narrative."

"That I must do through Salome." In the course of that day it was settled that the thread of the adventures of the PALTIELS should be taken up again on the evening of the Tuesday in the following week. On that evening it was taken up in the strain and style that I am about to report it, from my notes taken at the time that the tale was told.

Before I proceed with my report I ought to mention that some individuals, who formed part of the audience at the commencement of the narrative, were absent when the tale was resumed, and, on the other hand, several persons who were not present at the beginning, were now amongst the guests at the Toledo Villa when the Lord of the mansion took up his place again on the platform, in the alcove in the large drawing-room, behind the table scroll and books which I have already described. The absentees were Signora SHECHOOLA GALMOODA, who left early on the morning after the eventful evening described in the last chapter of the former book,- -no one knows whither; Dr. Benamram and Moschele Bargerschon proceeded to Careweltone. The former arranged an exchange of duties for a couple of Sundays with the rector of that parish; the latter, after waiting and examining several places in that neighbourhood, started for Italy.

Amongst the new guests were Mr. Goodall, the Rector of Careweltone, who takes the pastoral care of Dullynomore, in lieu of Benamram, his daughter, Miss Tabitha Goodall, and a friend of his, Lord Soulwinner, ho follows Mr. Goodall as closely as that Christian minister follows s heavenly Master, and several other notabilities. The three young

ladies-the Misses Paltiel, Ignota, and Goodall-grouped together and looked the embodiment of brilliant beauty and fascinating felicity;the two last being old friends and quondam fellow labourers amongst the poor and indigent in the parish of Carewel tone. The nature and character of their work I shall give in Lord Soulwinner's words, in a subsequent chapter. There were several other new listeners, but their names have no particular bearing upon the concomitants of my narrative, and I therefore omit them. Great was the interest which pervaded every one present in the coming narrative; it showed itself by the intense silence which the great expectation produced, and by every eye being directed towards the alcove. The occupant of the latter did not keep his audience long in suspense. He took up the thread of his theme in somewhat the following style and strain:

The name, therefore, by which my ancestor, who first settled in this island, made himself known to the intimate friends and acquaintances that he made in this country was SAUL MARCOUS PALTIEL. The first two names he received in his infancy, when his own father baptized him. The first of the two names signifies in Hebrew" ASKED," or "SOUGHT". for his father Zerah and his mother Naomi prayed earnestly for a sonand the second name signifies, also in the sacred tongue, BITTER CUP, both parents apprehended that much bitterness would be mingled in the eap which their Heavenly Father would cause their sought-for son in his ripe years. Of all this, and of many other such like particulars, to which I dare not even allude for want of time, I am informed by this PALTIEL Scroll. I must keep to events of general interest.

I need hardly inform such an intelligent audience as I have before me, that the arrival of this my ancestor in this country was at a time when this land was fearfully tried by various processes, preparatory to her eventual greatness and glory. It was during the repeated Saxon invasions; it was not very many years after the monk Augustine and his companions-sent to this country by Queen Bertha's encouragement and intercession-settled here, and helped to unsettle the then unhappy natives and settlers. That state of things had no unbeneficial effects upon our own people, some of them having settled in this island long ere Roman, Saxon, Dane, or Norman even knew its whereabouts. Our people took no part in the great changes, either pro or con. They endeavoured to supply the necessary requirements of life to all parties concerned in the struggle and strife. Peaceful and industrious, they acquired great wealth and influence. They dispensed their riches without stint or partiality. They made large benefactions to Christian abbeys, monasteries, and convents, as I shall demonstrate to you, in the course of my remarks, from this scroll and other chronicles.

Whilst my ancestor Saul Marcous' agents, stewards, and shipmasters occupied themselves in trading for him in his ships on the sea, doing his business for him on the great waters along these coasts-I am translating the original record contained in this scroll-he himself travelled about from place to place over this island, where our people had domiciled themselves. He was anxious to make himself master of the few fragments of the history of their settlement in this part of the world. He found considerable numbers of our people in the following places,I will give you each name of those places first, as it is given in this scroll, as the Romans designated it, and then as it is known to us by the new

name which Saxon, Danish, and Norman nomenclature bestowed upon each town:-in Londinium, or Augusta, London; Verulamium, St. Albans; Durovernum, Canterbury; Portus Dubris, Dover; Camboricum, Cambridge; Venta Icenorum, Norwich; Venta Belgarum, Winchester; Aqua Solis, Bath; Durnovaria, Dorchester; Isca, Exeter; Deva, Chester; Eboracum, York; Camalodunum, Colchester; Durobrivis, Rochester; Regnum, Chichester; Sorbiodunum, Old Sarum; Durocornovium, Cirencester; Luguvallum, Carlisle; Macunium, Manchester; Lindum, Lincoln; Rata, Leicester.

In each of those places he found some brother after the flesh, who made it his business to preserve the chronicles, oral or documentary, of Israel's vicissitudes in Albion, or Britain, and also to make a record of his own times. I can only furnish you at present with the result of this my ancestor's extensive researches, which are somewhat comprehensively given in his quota to this scroll:-A small remnant of Solomon's subjects, who visited this island in our king's navy when it accompanied that of Tyre and Sidon, to fetch tin for the glorious temple which David's successor was privileged to rear, remained in Cornwall since that time. That remnant he traced by the paths of philology and the byways of nomenclature. He collected a long array of whole sentences, exactly alike in the languages of Hebrew and the ancient Cornish, as well as a list of the proper names which prevailed among the aboriginal Britons long before they knew anything about Christianity; such as Adam, Abraham, Asaph, Benyon, Daniel, Solomon, of which latter name the ancient Britons had three kings. A Duke of Cornwall of that name openly professed Christianity in the middle of the fourth century. Solomon was not his baptismal name, but one by which he was known before the sacrament of baptism was administered to him.

Let me just glance (observed our narrator) at a few fragments from the ruins of Jewish history, to show that considerable numbers of our sacred scattered nation were in this island at an early period of the Roman occupation. A copy of a letter preserved by the Jewish apocryphal historian, Josephon ben Gorion, which the Jews of Asia sent to Hyrcanus and the nobles of Judah, contains the following passage:— "Be it known unto you, that Augustus Cæsar, by the advice of his ally Antoninus, has sent throughout all the countries of his dominions, as far as beyond the Indian sea, and as far as beyond the land of Britain; that is, the land in the midst of the ocean, and commanded that in whatever places there be a man or woman of the Jewish race, man servant, or maid servant, to set them free without any money ransom. By command of Cæsar Augustus and his ally Antoninus."

Permit me to translate to you a passage from another work before me, the production of Rabbi David Ganz. In this his TZEMACH DAVID, a Hebrew chronicle of some importance, I find the following record:"Cæsar Augustus was a pious and God-fearing man, and did maintain judgment and justice, and was a lover of Israel. And that which is stated at the commencement of the book SHAYVET YEHOODAH, that Cæsar Augustus caused a great massacre amongst the Jews, the informant misled the author of that work. I have not met with a hint even respecting it, in all the chronicles that I have ever seen. On the contrary, in all their (i.e., Gentiles') annals, and also in the fifteenth chapter of

Josephon, it is recorded that he (Augustus) was a genuine lover of Israel. The same writer records, in his forty-seventh chapter, that this Cæsar sent an epistle of release to the Jews in all the countries of his dominion; to the east as far as beyond the Indian sea, and to the west as far as beyond the British territory (which is the country Angleterre, and which is designated England in the vernacular)." Bear with me whilst I make one quotation more, and this time from a living Jewish author. Lindo, in this his very learned "Jewish Calendar for Sixty-four Years," recently published, a work which displays most laborious research, has the following item in "A Chronological Table, forming a summary of Jewish history, from the Flood to the present day" (1838), appended to his work, "A.M. 8775, c.E. 15, Augustus' edict in favour of the Jews, directed to all the governors of the Roman provinces, even to Britain." Take all this for what it is worth, but all the pros and cons on the subject of the early settlement of our people in this island cannot add aught to, or diminish aught from, the value of the conclusive evidence on the interesting question adduced in this heirloom scroll of my family.

To return to it for a while, in connection with the record contributed to it by my ancestor SAUL MARCOUS PALTIEL. The record which details his inquiries informs me that -certain of the dispersed of Israel had found their way into this country as early as the Phoenicians, that some few waifs of our tribes were wafted hither after the great Babylonish captivity, that a goodly number came over during the Roman occupation, and continued to add to the same by each successive Roman immigra

Our people then chose the principal garrisoned places of the island, some of which I have enumerated, for their local habitation, and their early synagogues. Our people lived on the most amicable terms with the aboriginal Britons, and the Roman settlers. There was, however, a greater bond of sympathy between our people and the Britons than between either of them and the Romans. The reason is obvious, the Hebrews and the Britons have first known each other under circumstances of friendly intercourse. The few scraps of civilisation and improvements of which the latter could boast, prior to the Roman invasion, they contracted by their contact with the former. These specimens of gold coins, having on the obverse the figures of sheep and horses, my ancestor SAUL MARCOUS Secured during that his peregrination of discovery, and which have ever been providentially preserved as heirlooms in our family. These coins the Britons were taught to mint by their normal Hebrew neighbours. You need not to be told that cattle in olden time was the principal quid pro quo in barter and business transactions. Hence the figures of sheep and horses on the gold coins; as coin eventually superseded cattle, and became the medium of exchange in buying and selling. The Roman term pecunia, for money, is only an accommodation coinage from the Latin word pecus, a flock, or herd. I am not ignorant of the crude opinions which are espoused by certain archæologists and numismatists, but I have sounder and more accurate data to go upon than their guesses and conjectures. I shall be ready to answer any relevant question on any of the statements which I have made, and shall make, in the course of this evening.

My ancestor, SAUL MARCOUS, also learnt whilst making his inquiries, that several of our people left this island for Gaul when the Romans

abandoned it. The Roman civilisation had a charm for them which they could not find amongst the Britons. Those emigrants took away considerable wealth with them. Two families are particularly mentioned by the chronicler, now under notice, by name, even that of Menasseh and Samson. The great bulk of the early British Hebrews, however, remained in their homesteads which they had made for themselves in this country. They kept their own counsel, determined not to compromise their position by mixing themselves up with the broils which the Picts and the Scots put in motion against the Gentile inhabitants of the island. They acted as good Samaritans to all the contending parties; they bound up their wounds, pouring in oil and wine; fed them when they were famished with hunger; housed them when they had nowhere to lay their heads, irrespective of the sufferer's condition in relation to nationality and religious sentiments. The same quiet mode of life and generous behaviour, doing good to both sides of those that were without their pale, they continued after the conquest of this island by the Jutes, Saxons, and Angles. When the land was divided into the seven petty states-commonly known as the Heptarchy-some of the wealthiest of our people became the main counsellors and supporters of the respective Bretwaldas-as the ruler of each tiny kingdom was then called-of the seven states. This was the case when my ancestor, SAUL MArcous, made the grand and perilous tour which I have mentioned. He had letters of introduction to each Bretwalda's Hebrew secretary, and he was thus enabled to make the personal acquaintance, by the kind offices of his Jewish brethren, of each reigning Bretwalda, whose names are particularised in his chronicles contributed to this scroll. The recorder added, "Happily here there is as yet no envy between Judah and Ephraim, the peoples have not as yet become adversaries the one to the other. There are some features in the religious creed of the Saxons which predispose a son of Jacob to consider the new conquerors of this island as members of the same household with himself. The following, for instance, is their belief respecting the future :-'A great and terrible day is to come, when this earth, the sun, the moon, and all the visible objects of creation are to be dissolved by a great consuming fire. Then a new world, far more beautiful than the old one, is to appear. Also a new sun, with seven times greater effulgence than the one of the old creation shall appear in a new heavens. That sun shall never set. The moon will shine as the sun now doth, and shall never wane or wax old. but hold eternally on her course. Then Balder-perhaps BARDEOR-the loving and gracious God, the giver of light and joy, who died for a time, is to re-appear. The powers of death and evil are then to be destroyed, and never to come into existence again. The kingdom of the Father of all shall then be firmly established for ever and ever, in which the just shall enjoy everlasting felicity.' Such an article of faith could only be framed from the contents of the oracles of God committed unto Israel. It has, moreover, the true ring of one of the epistles from the pen of the Apostle to the circumcision, addressed to the strangers scattered throughout Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia, and Bithynia.'

to God that these Saxons may not be christianised after the fashion and mode of the Goths in our beautiful and once beloved Spain, is the prayer of SAUL MARCOUS PALTIEL."

(To be continued.)