minor religious tricks, soon strip the stranger of his last farthing; he then becomes dependent upon the charity of his nation, upon foreign subsidies, or upon the fervour of some inexperienced pilgrim. Those who go abroad as missionaries generally realise some property, as they are allowed ten per cent. upon all alms collected, besides their travelling expenses. The Jewish devotees pass the whole day in the schools or the synagogue, reciting the Old Testament and the Talmud, both of which many of them know entirely by heart. They all write Hebrew; but I did not see any fine hand-writing among them; their learning seems to be on the same level as that of the Turks, among whom an Olema thinks he has attained the pinnacle of knowledge, if he can recite all the Koran together with some thousand of Hadeath, or sentences of the Prophet, and traditions concerning him; but neither Jews, nor Turks, nor Christians in these countries, have the slightest idea of that criticism, which might guide them to a rational explanation, or emendation of their sacred books. It was in vain that I put questions to several of the first Rabbins, concerning the desert in which the children of Israel sojourned for forty years; I found that my own scanty knowledge of the geography of Palestine, and of its partition amongst the twelve tribes, was superior to theirs.

There are some beautiful copies of the books of Moses in the Syrian synagogue, written upon a long roll of leather, not parchment, but no one could tell me when or where they were made; I suspect, however, that they came from Bagdat, where the best Hebrew scribes live, and of whose writings I had seen many fine specimens at Aleppo and Damascus. The libraries of the two schools at Tiberias are moderately stocked with Hebrew books, most of which have been printed at Vienna and Venice. Except some copies of the Old Testament and the Talmud, they have no manuscripts.

They observe a singular custom here in praying; while the Rabbin recites the Psalms of David, or the prayers extracted from them, the congregation frequently imitate by their voice or gestures, the meaning of some remarkable passages; for example, when the Rabbin pronounces the words, "praise the Lord with the sound of the trumpet," they imitate the sound of the trumpet through their closed fists. When "a horrible tempest" occurs, they puff and blow to represent a storm; or should he mention "the cries of the righteous in distress," they all set up a loud screaming; and it not unfrequently happens that while some are still blowing the storm, others have already begun the cries of the righteous, thus forming a concert which it is difficult for any but a zealous Hebrew to hear with gravity.' p. 322-327.

We must only indulge ourselves in a few extracts from the long and somewhat elaborate account of the convent of Mount Sinai, although we are aware that it has been visited and described by Dr. Clarke, Turner, De Miot, and other travellers.

The convent of Mount Sinai is situated in a valley so narrow, that one part of the building stands on the side of the western mountain, while a space of twenty paces only is left between its walls and the

eastern mountain. The valley is open to the north, from whence approaches the road from Cairo; to the south, close behind the ' convent, it is shut up by a third mountain, less steep than the others, over which passes the road to Sherm. The convent is an irregular quadrangle of about one hundred and thirty paces, enclosed by high and solid walls built with blocks of granite, and fortified by several small towers. While the French were in Egypt, a part of the east wall which had fallen down, was completely rebuilt by order of General Kleber, who sent workmen here for that purpose. The upper part of the walls in the interior, is built of a mixtnre of granite-sand and gravel, cemented together by mud, which has acquired great hardness.

The convent contains eight or ten small court-yards, some of which are neatly laid out in beds of flowers and vegetables; a few date-trees and cypresses also grow there, and great numbers of vines. The distribution of the interior is very irregular, and could not be otherwise, considering the slope upon which the building stands; but the whole is very clean and neat. There are a great number of small rooms, in the lower and upper stories, most of which are at present unoccupied. The principal building in the interior is the great church, which, as well as the convent, was built by the Emperor Justinian, but it has subsequently undergone frequent repairs. The form of the church is an oblong square, the roof is supported by a double row of fine granite pillars, which have been covered with a coat of white plaster, perhaps because the natural colour of the stone was not agreeable to the monks, who saw granite on every side of them. The capitals of the columns are of different designs; several of them bear a resemblance to palm branches, while others are a close but coarse imitation of the latest period of Egyptian sculpture, such as is seen at Philo, and in several temples in Nubia. The dome over the altar still remains as it was constructed by Justinian, whose portrait, together with that of his wife Theodora, may yet be distinguished on the dome, together with a large picture of the transfiguration, in honour of which event the convent was erected. An abundance of silver lamps, paintings, and portraits of saints adorn the walls round the altar; among the latter is a Saint Christopher, with a dog's head. The floor of the church is finely paved with slabs of marble.'

• The convent formerly resembled in its establishment that of the Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem, which contains churches of various sects of Christiaus. Every principal sect, except the Calvinists and Protestants, had its churches in the convent of Sinai. I was shewn the chapels belonging to the Syrians, Armenians, Copts, and Latins, but they have long been abandoned by their owners; the church of the Latins fell into ruins at the close of the seventeenth century, and has not been rebuilt. But what is more remarkable than the existence of so many churches, is, that close by the great church stands a Mahometan mosque, spacious enough to contain two hundred people at prayers. The monks told me that it was built in the

sixteenth century, to prevent the destruction of the convent. Their tradition is as follows: when Selim, the Othman Emperor, conquered Egypt, he took a great fancy to a young Greek priest, who falling ill, at the time that Selim was returning to Constantinople, was sent by him to this convent to recover his health: the young man died, upon which the Emperor, enraged at what he considered to be the work of the priests, gave orders to the governor of Egypt, to destroy all the Christian establishments in the peninsula; of which there were several at that period. The priests of the great convent of Mount Sinai being informed of the preparations making in Egypt to carry these orders into execution, began immediately to build a mosque within their walls, hoping that for its sake their house would be spared; it is said their project was successful, and that ever since the mosque has been kept in repair.

The discipline of these monks with regard to food and prayer, is very severe. They are obliged to attend mass twice in the day and twice in the night. The rule is that they shall taste no flesh whatever all the year round; and in their great fast they not only abstain from butter, and every kind of animal food and fish, but also from, oil, and live four days in the week on bread and boiled vegetables, of which one small dish is all their dinner. They obtain their vegetables from a pleasant garden adjoining the building, into which there is a subterraneous passage; the soil is stony, but in this climate, wherever water is in plenty, the very rocks will produce vegetation. The fruit is of the finest quality; oranges, lemons, almonds, mulberries, apricots, peaches, pears, apples, olives, Nebek trees, and a few cypresses, overshade the beds in which melons, beans, lettuces, onions, cucumbers, and all sorts of culinary and sweet-scented herbs are sown. The garden, however, is very seldom visited by the monks, except by the few whose business it is to keep it in order; for although surrounded by high walls, it is not inaccessible to the Bedouins, who for the three last years have been the sole gatherers of the fruits, leaving the vegetables only for the monks, who have thus been obliged to repurchase theirown fruit from the pilferers, or to buy it in other parts of the peninsula.

The excellent air of the convent, and the simple fare of the inhabitants, render diseases rare. Many of the monks are very old men in the full possession of their mental and bodily faculties. They have all taken to some profession, a mode of rendering themselves independent of Egypt, which was practised here when the three hundred private chambers were occupied, which are now empty, though still ready for the accommodation of pious settlers. Among the twenty three monks, who now remain, there is a cook, a distiller, a baker, a shoemaker, a tailor, a carpenter, a smith, &c. &c. each of whom has his work-shop, in the worn-out and rusty utensils of which are still to be seen traces of the former riches and industry of the establishment. In the distillery they make brandy from dates, which is the only solace of these recluses, and in this they are permitted to indulge even during the fasts.

◄ Most of the monks are natives of the Greek islands. In general, they do not remain more than four or five years, when they return to their own country, proud of having been sufferers among Bedouins; some, however, have been here forty years. Few of them only understood Arabic; but none of them write or read it. Being of the lower orders of society, and educated only in convents, they are extremely ignorant. Few of them read the modern Greek fluently, excepting in their prayer books, and I found but one who had any notion of the ancient Greek. They have a good library, but it is always shut up; it contains about 1500 Greek, and 700 Arabic MSS; the latter, which I examined volume after volume, consist entirely of books of prayer, copies of the gospels, lives of saints, liturgies, &c.; a thick folio volume of the works of Lokman, edited, according to the Arab tradition, by Hormus, the ancient king of Egypt, was the only one worth attention. The prior would not permit it to be taken away, but he made me a present of a fine copy of the Aldine Odyssey, and an equally fine one of the Anthology. In the room anciently the residence of the Archbishop, which is elegantly paved with marble, and well-furnished, though now unoccupied, is preserved a beautiful ancient MS. of the Gospels in Greek, which I was told, was given to the convent by “ an emperor called Theodosius." It is written in letters of gold on velfum, and ornamented with portraits of the apostles.

Notwithstanding the ignorance of these monks, they are fond of seeing strangers in their wilderness; and I met with a more cordial reception among them, than I did in the convents of Libanus, which are in the possession of all the luxuries of life. The monks of Sinai are even generous; three years ago they furnished a Servian adventurer, who styled himself a Knes, and pretended to be well known to the Russian Government, with 60 dollars to pay his journey back to Alexandria, on his informing them of his destitute circumstances."

pp. 544-552.

We have extracted these particulars concerning the convent of Mount Sinai, because it is one of the most interesting pictures in the book, and the place is now seldom visited. The regular caravans, that formerly frequented this secluded spot, from Cairo as well as Jerusalem, have nearly ceased. A few Greeks from Cairo and Suez, and the inhabitants of Tor who repair there every summer, and encamp with their families in the garden, are the only persons who venture upon so long and dangerous a journey through the desert. But we must now take our leave of this enterprising and intrepid Traveller. In the extracts which we have made from his work, we are not certain whether we have selected those parts in which the peculiar and characteristic talents of Burckhardt are the best exemplified. But the dryness of mere geographical research, and a barren nomenclature of towns and rivers, however subsidiary to the advancement of this most important science, would have been insupportably heavy in a popular journal. It is, however, our

duty to remind our readers, that it is in laborious and correct discovery, prosecuted with a zeal which no difficulty discourages, and no dangers intimidate, that the great qualities of Mr. Burckhardt are chiefly exhibited. Picturesque description, ingenious theory, and the species of delineation by which the traveller communicates to others the emotions which the changeful objects of his expedition presented to his own eye, or pictured upon his own mind,-all this must be looked for in other writers of travels. They also who are enamoured of the fastidious refinements of composition will not find them in Burckhardt. His style, though corrected by his intelligent editor, is still remote from the purity and force of the English idiom. But in exchange for these trifling and inconsiderable advantages, we have the more substantial and useful requisites of patient and minute research, and diligent and faithful observation. Every page of his volume is a mirror of the man, and he carries us along with him by a charm which we can better feel than define, the charm of honest simplicity, and that heroic and highminded zeal for knowledge, which does not even shrink from martyrdom itself in the pursuit of it.

Art. IV. Lectures on the Book of Ecclesiastes. ot law, D.D. 8vo. 2 vols. pp. 730. Price 18s.

By Ralph WardLondon. 1821.

"O Curas hominum! O quantum est in rebus inane! The vicissitudes of human life, the instability of fortune, the vexatious disappointments, the corroding disquietudes, experienced by mankind in the commerce of the world, and the entire vanity of earthly pursuits, have ever afforded subjects of vivid description and impassioned declamation to the poet and the moralist, and are among the most impressive lessons which the instructions of history comprise. On these topics it were easy to select from the classic pages of ancient writers, passages of great beauty and force, and of no inconsiderable utility in aiding the moral culture of human beings. But those lessons of practical wisdom from which our estimate of present good may be most advantageously collected, and our minds most suitably regulated in regard to it, are not to be taken from the classic writers of antiquity, but from the superior teachers of morals, who delivered to men the oracles of heaven. In their pages, not only are the mutations of the world, and the varying discontents of mankind, represented in the most faithful manner, but there we also find the reasons which enable us to account for the insatiable cravings of the human heart, and there too the objects in which alone the mind can find its repose, are exhibited. The master question of the schools, the summum