and Adah, regulate their estimate of a young gentleman's understanding by his bodily presence, and find wisdom and learning in a handsome figure, and dulness and ignorance in a dumpy one. Shallom we take to have been six feet two, with vast black mustaches, and a beard rolling down to his waistcoat. It is agreed, nem. con., that the handsome cavalier is to have an interview in the morning with the princess, and a long monologue follows by that discreet young lady, which we do not translate, as it contains very nearly the sentiments that must occur to every one in such a situation. Burnt with love, or burnt for love!-it seems a sad situation certainly; and if, as Lengerke says, there is any allegory in the play at all, this scene must be emblematic of the ancient adage, "Out of the frying pan into the fire." But gracious me, or gracious us rather!—as we are plural-we had forgotten to mention a dreadful misfortune that nearly befell the false confidant, Adah. The conjurer Eri tries his hand at an abduction, in imitation of Pluto; but his Proserpine is more than his match, and by some means or other gets him pushed into a river. We fear the old wizzard was somewhat rude in his endearments; for obscure intimations are given that he disapproved highly of the tedious processes of respectable courtship, and was a socialist in the noblest sense of that comprehensive word. Adah, however, escapes without much damage, except probably a little toozling, and the main thread of the story is resumed at the moment of the appointed interview. This we also omit, as our translation can give no idea of the versification; and we shall only give an analysis of the story, if we can trace it, for a more confused jumble it has seldom been our fortune to encounter. Adah of course goes and tells the old king what a naughty girl his daughter is, to go flirting with handsome young men when she is engaged to be married to our idiotical acquaintance young Siphah. The old fellow, who seems a prodigious stickler for law, determines to let it, in this instance, take its course; Shlomit is put in irons; Shallom, as was to be expected of so perfect a gentleman, offers to die for her; Adah finds she has gone

wrong in her reckoning, for even Siphah turns up his nose at her. And in the midst of all these wonderful incidents, Shallom lets fall some words about the Tower that attract the. king's attention. He is confronted with Siphah, who seems rather a pusillanimous spoon for a pretender; and on certain threats being administered, and probably a promise of pardon held out if he confessed-the whole secret comes out. There is a great quantity of rigmarole about a poisoned packet sent to the Jewish edition of Lord Noodle, which we can hardly make out, but it all comes right at last, as was naturally to be expected; and we have every reason to suppose that the enactment about burning was immediately repealed, to the great delectation of all the young flirts in Kedem. And this is a drama held out to the German public as a translation from the Hebrew of Moses Chajim Ben Jacob Luzzato. Now,

we have a word or two to say on that. The introduction by Lengerke certainly led us to expect some small twinkles of the original Hebraism in his translation, but we search in vain for the remotest inkling of Jewism of any kind. Sometimes we have felt inclined to suspect that the whole play was a hoax ; but the versification is so incredibly bad, that we do not believe the respectable editor of the periodical it appeared in would have admitted it as only a Jew-d'esprit, or have admitted it at all unless on the strength of its being a translation. We conclude, therefore, that it has some slight foundation in a Hebrew original; but no power shall persuade us that it gives any thing like a true specimen of a real drama. Probably Cæsar von Lengerke has seen a notice of some poem of the kind in the writings of Delitsh, who is a well-known Hebraist; and has given the confused version of it we have exhibited in the foregoing pages, with such additions and improvements as his own fancy or taste could supply. But till he can produce some more favourable specimen than this, we must go back to our original belief, that the Jews have no turn for literature of any kind, or, at all events, not for the drama.

WHAT is the Iliad about? What is the true and proper subject of the Iliad? If that could be settled, it would facilitate our enquiry. Now every body knows, that according to the ordinary notion, founded upon the opening lines of this poem, the subject is the Wrath of Achilles. Others, however, have thought, with some reason, that the idea was not sufficiently self-diffusive-was not all-pervasive it seemed a ligament that passed through some parts of the poem, and connected them intimately, but missed others altogether. It has, therefore, become a serious questionhow much of the Iliad is really interveined, or at all modified, by the son of Peleus, and his feud with Agamemnon? To settle which, a German Jew took a singular method.

We have all heard of that barbarous prince, (the story is told of several,) who, in order to decide territorial pretensions between himself and a brother potentate, sent for a large map of the world; and from this, with a pair of scissors, cutting out the rival states, carefully weighed them against cach other, in gold scales. We see no reason for laughing at the prince; for, the paper being presumed of equal thickness, the map accurate, and on a large scale, the result would exhibit the truth in a palpable shape. Probably on this hint it was, that the Jew cut out of a Greek Iliad every line that could be referred to Achilles and his wrath-not omitting even the debates of Olympus, where they grew out of that. And what was his report? Why, that the wrath of Achilles formed only "26 per shent" upon the whole Iliad; that is, in effect, onequarter of the poem.

Thus far, therefore, we must concede to the Chorizontes, or breakersup of the Iliad, that the original stem on which the Iliad grew was probably an Achilleis; for it is inconceivable that Homer himself could have expected such a rope of sand as the Iliad now presents, to preserve its order and succession under the rough handling of posterity. Watch the fate of any intricate machine in any private

family. All the loose or detached parts of such a machine are sure to be lost. Ask for it at the end of a year, and the more elaborate was the machine, so much the more certain is the destruction which will have overtaken it. It is only when any compound whole, whether engine, poem, or tale, carries its several parts absolutely interlocked with its own substance, that it has a chance of maintaining its integrity.

Now, certainly it cannot be argued by the most idolatrous lover of the Iliad, that the main central books ex-hibit that sort of natural intercohesion which determines their place and order. But, says the reader, here they are: they have held together: no use in asking whether it was natural for them to hold together. They have reached us: it is now past askingCould Homer expect them to reach us? Yes, they have reached us; but since when? Not, probably, in their present arrangement, from an earlier period than that of Pisistratus. When manuscripts had once become general, it might be easy to preserve even the loosest succession of parts-especially where great veneration for the author, and the general notoriety of the poems, would secure the fidelity of copies. But what the sceptics require to be enlightened upon, is the principle of cohesion which could carry these loose parts of the Iliad over that gulf of years between Homer and Pisistratus-the one a whole millennium before our Christian era, the other little more than half a millennium ; and whilst traditionary transmission through singers and harpers constituted, perhaps, the sole means of preservation, and therefore of arrange

ment.

Let not the reader suppose German scepticism to be the sole reason for jealousy with regard to the present canon of the Iliad. On the contrary, some interpolations are confessed by all parties. For instance, it is certain-and even Eustathius records it as a regular tradition in Greece-that the night-adventure of Diomed and Ulysses against the Trojan camp,

their capture of the beautiful horses brought by Rhesus, and of Dolon the Trojan spy, did not originally form a part of the Iliad. At present this adventure forms the tenth book, but previously it had been an independent epos, or epic narrative, perhaps locally circulated amongst the descendants of Diomed, and known by the title of the Doloncia. Now, if one such intercalation could pass, why not more? With respect to this particular nightepisode, it has been remarked, that its place in the series is not asserted by any internal indication. There is an allusion, indeed, to the wrath of Achilles; but probably introduced to harmonize it as a part of the Iliad, by the same authority which introduced the poem itself: else, the whole book may be dropped out without any hiatus. The battle, suggested by Diomed at the end of the 9th book, takes place in the 11th; and, as the critics remark, no allusion is made in that 11th book, by any of the Grecian chiefs, to the remarkable exploit of the intervening night.

But of all the incoherencies which have been detected in the Iliad, as arising out of arbitrary juxtapositions between parts not originally related, the most amusing is that brought to light by the late Wilhelm Mueller. "It is a fact," says he, "that (as the arrangement now stands) Ulysses is not ashamed to attend three dinnerparties on one evening." First, he had a dinner engagement with Agamemnon, which of course he keeps, (B. IX. 90;) so prudent a man could not pos sibly neglect an invitation from the commander of the forces. Even in free and independent England, the sovereign does not ask you to dinner, but commands your attendance. Next he dines with Achilles, (B. IX. 221;) and finally with Diomed, (B. XI.578.) Now, Diomed was a swell of the first magnitude, and a man of fashion, as

may be seen in the Troilus and Cressida of Shakspeare, (who took his character from tradition, and makes him the Greek rival of Troilus.) He therefore pushes his dinner as far towards "to-morrow," as was well possible; so that it is near morning before that dinner is over. And the sum of the Ithacan's enormities is thus truly stated by Mueller:-" Deny it who will, the son of Laertes accepts three distinct feeds, between the sunset suppose of Monday and the dawn of Tuesday!"

This is intolerable. Yet perhaps apologists will say, (for some people will varnish any thing,) " If the man had three dinners in one day, often, perhaps, in three days he had but one dinner!" For ourselves, we frankly confess, that if there is one man in the Grecian camp whom we should have believed capable of such a thing, it is precisely this cunning Ulysses. Mueller insists on calling him the "noble" Ulysses; but that is only to blacken his conduct about the dinners. To our thinking, his nearest representative in modern times is "Sixteen-string Jack," whose life may be read in the Newgate Calendar. What most amuses ourselves in the business, is Mueller's so stealthily pursuing Ulysses through two books of the Iliad, in order to watch how many dinner-parties he attended! And there is a good moral in the whole discovery; for it shows all knaves, that, though hidden for 3000 years, their tricks are sure to be found out at the last!

In general, it is undeniable that some of the German objections to the present arrangement, as a possible Homeric arrangement, are valid. For instance, the following, against the present position of the duel between Paris and Menelaus :-" This duel, together with the perfidious shot of Pandarus, and the general engagement which follows, all belonging to the same epos, wear the appearance of

A