our hope that, as Mr. Hurwitz has thus opened the way, he will continue his researches in the Talmud. He well knows that there is much for him to glean there, and he has only to guard against painting things better than they are. What man of sense is there who is not prepared to find fable, and nonsense, and indelicacy, and intolerance, occasionally mixed with the better matter of a work composed at such a time, and under such circumstances? Let him not expose himself in his researches to the old reproach against the writers of his nation: Qualiacumque volunt Judæi somnia fingunt, Gens nimis in laudes ingeniosa suas. A philosophical view of the whole Talmud, expounding its spirit (which, we may remark in passing, is, with few exceptions, kind, and rather pastoral *)-analyzing the views of those who dictated the code-the circumstances that created it-the effect it has had on the manners and ideas of those for whose guidance it was composed, would be a valuable work; but one which would, perhaps, require the re-appearance of a Selden. But without looking for this, a literary history of the Jews could be made a most amusing book, and it would go somewhat towards filling up that melancholy chasm in the history of literature which extends from the seventh to the fourteenth century; a period, through the great part of which we have no light to guide us. This task has as yet been but imperfectly done. Even scholars do not know much about Hebrew literature-the general reader knows nothing. It may, for instance, astonish the inquirer into the literary productions of our own country, to be informed that one of the earliest books written here after the Conquest was by one of the most eminent of the rabbis, Aben Ezra. In 1159, the sixth year of Henry II., he wrote from London a letter on the proper time of keeping the Sabbath, in verse; and in the same year, his Jesod Mora (the Foundation of Fear) a treatise, in twelve sections, on the various requisites for the study of scripture, tradition, science, &c. This book was printed in Constantinople in 1530, and in Venice in 1566. We are afraid that there is not a copy of it in the British Museum, and yet it ought to be there, as a national curiosity. It would be amusing to speculate on what were the opinions of the critical and scientific Jew on the state of civilization and literature which he saw about him. We were going to conclude by paying a merited tribute to the benevolent spirit and kind-hearted eloquence of our author; but we recollected this had lately been done by Mr. Coleridge, in The title-page of Surenhusius to his first volume, in which he gives vignettes expressive of the subject-matter of the several chapters, reminds one of the peaceful pictures of the shield of Achilles. VOL. XXXV. NO. LXIX. I his his Aids to Reflection,' a book full of passages of the most pow erful eloquence; and we quote his words the more readily, because they refer to a former work of Mr. Hurwitz's, every way deserving of the praise it receives. This latter and more endearing name (fellow-Christian),' says Mr. C., I scarcely know how to withhold even from my friend Hyman Hurwitz, as often as I read, what every reverer of holy writ and the English bible ought to read, his admirable Vindicia Hebraicæ. It has trembled on the verge, as it were, of my lips, every time I have conversed with that pious, learned, strong-minded, and single-hearted Jewan Israelite indeed, and without guile : Cujus cura sequi naturam, legibus uti, Nec fiat melior sors mea sorte suâ!' Any panegyric from us would indeed be superfluous after this. ART. V.1. Rough Notes taken during some rapid Journeys across the Pampas, and among the Andes. By Captain F. B. Head. London. 1826. 2. Travels in Chile and La Plata, including Accounts respecting the Geography, Geology, Statistics, Government, Finances, Agriculture, Manners, and Customs, and the Mining Operations in Chile, &c. By John Miers. London. 1826. AT T the moment when many of the absurd but ruinous speculations were approaching the zenith of extravagance, and just as some of them were but faintly showing themselves above the horizon, we thought that the application of a little ridicule might at least mitigate, if not wholly remove the dog-star heat then raging. Ours, however, was but a voice crying in the wilderness: admonition could gain no listener; discretion slept; fraud and avarice led triumphantly, and folly and delusion joined headlong in the chase. Among the most absurd, and we fear it will ultimately turn out the most disastrous, of the speculations then afloat, was that of working the mines in the South American states and Mexico, which (though the experiment had already been tried and failed, under such able and experienced men as Helms and Trevethick) were represented as wanting only men, money, and machinery from England, to return us such an influx of the precious metals, as might make it matter for serious discussion, whether it would not be necessary for us to resort to something more valuable and rare than than mere gold and silver as our circulating medium. There was scarcely an old lady in the country who did not contrive to save something from her income to lay out in shares; nor a young and inexperienced adventurer in London who was not found dabbling in some mining scheme; while the old and crafty knaves were straining their inventive faculties to discover in what manner and by what juggle they could swindle these easy dupes out of their money, by creating a fictitious rise in the prices of shares. Most of these bubbles have long since blown up, and we see the few remaining ones bursting daily. Had Mr. John Miers published his account of the Mining Operations in Chile,' before the frenzy had begun to rage, some of the mischief might perhaps have been prevented. His own unfortunate instance would alone have been sufficient, if not wholly to defeat the deep-laid designs of the swindler, at least to put those honest people who had any sense on their guard against falling into his snares. Mr. Miers' experience of South America is chiefly confined to Chile, of which he gives a most gloomy and unfavourable account:-' I should lament,' says he, to hear that any British capitalist, however flattering the offers made to him, should invest his capital in any enterprise upon the soil of Chile.' Indeed! and is this the real state and character of that Chile, in the mines of which so much English money has already been sunk, and to which so much more has been sent in the shape of loans?-of that Chile, respecting which so many pretty tales have been told so pleasantly by our friends, Mrs. Maria Graham and Captain Basil Hall?of that Chile where, Mr. Caldcleugh says, 'streams abounding in gold wander through the most luxuriant corn-fields, and the farmer and the miner hold converse together on their banks' ?—(how rich! how rural! how poetical!) of that Chile, where Mr. Consul Matthew Carter has discovered the surface of a whole mountain to be covered with argentiferous' clots,' of which, we hope, Mr. Commissioner Caldcleugh, of Coquimbo, may gather up a full cargo, as did his predecessor and almost namesake, Cacambo, of those cailloux d'or' which were strewed over the highways and streets of El Dorado?* No How unfortunate that, at the very moment when rivers of gold and mountains of silver are brought in the full blaze of splendour before the eyes, and ready to pour them selves into the lap, of the Chile Mining Association,' with his Excellency Don Mariano Egaña at its head, it should have been frightened into an act of suicide, for having incurred a trifling loss of about 60,000, when the further expenditure of some twoor three times that sum might have put them in full possession of Mr. Caldcleugh's gold, and Mr. Consul Matthew Carter's silver, the discovery whereof is thus officially described by him :-The discovery took place (quoth Mr. Consul) by a poor man who was cutting wood upon the top of a vast mountain. Accident brought his axe in contact with a large stone, mixed with which he perceived clots of silver; this led him to further search, and he found himself surrounded by one immense bed of silver ore; and before he made his good I 2 No one, we believe, is better qualified to form a correct judg ment of most matters concerning Chile, from the experience of many years, than Mr. Miers. He left England, in 1818, on an enterprise of some magnitude, having, together with a friend, embarked a considerable capital in the speculation. The object of the undertaking was to erect a very extensive train of machinery for refining, rolling, and manufacturing copper into sheathing. He calculated, ' upon the given data, that an immense fortune might rapidly be made in the proposed speculation;' especially as the South American deputies in London, and the two Chile ambassadors, held out to him the most flattering prospects. They told him that coal was to be had for almost nothing, labour for less than a fourth of its cost in England, and that the demand for sheet-copper was very great along the coast of the Pacific, and particularly in the sugar-manufactories of Peru; they, moreover, assured him that the government would afford every facility, protection, and assistance, to an enterprise of such vast importance to that infant country. Instead, however, of all this, vexation and disappointment met and harassed him at every step; and after struggling for four or five years against the obstacles thrown in his way, he returned to England, without, we fear, any part of that immense fortune' which he had anticipated. He has had the courage, however, to proceed once more to BuenosAyres, to erect, by contract, in that city, the machinery for a national mint, which, if we may judge from the statements of his own book, and of Captain Head's, is not likely to be overloaded with employment. corps Captain Head, a well-known and very clever officer of the of Engineers, being applied to by one of the Mining Associa tions,' whose object was to work the gold and silver mines of Rio de la Plata,' accepted the management of their speculation: accompanied by two highly-respectable captains of the Cornish mines, a French assayer, a surveyor, and three labouring miners, he proceeded across the great plains of the Pampas to the gold mines of San Luis, and from thence to the silver mines of Uspallata, more than a thousand miles from Buenos-Ayres, leaving two cargoes of English and German miners in that city, until, by inspection, he could determine how to dispose of them to the best advantage. He afterwards proceeded across the Andes to Santiago, and from thence about twelve hundred miles in different directions, to inspect gold and silver mines in Chile, having, as he says, rode against time for upwards of six thousand miles.' good fortune known to the governor, he dug out, with a single pickaxe, equal to a ton of silver. So rich is this mine, that, according to the specimens which have been produced, it will yield as much silver as dross; and it is impossible to calculate what amount of wealth will be drawn from this mountain "!!! From From the result of all these journeys it appears that this Association' had been the dupes of fraudulent agents in America; and that the whole of the transaction was what is vulgarly called a humbug. Perceiving this, the Captain hastened, like an honest man, to recross the Pampas, dismissed a portion of the miners, chiefly Germans, who wished to remain in the country, and returned with the rest to England; thus preventing, as we have been informed, the continuance of annual salaries and wages to the amount of not less than 15,000l.! and putting an end to a concern, out of which the partners have some faint hope of escaping with the moderate loss of about 50,000l.! The reports of two such experienced men as Head and Miers must dissipate the last feeble shadows of that wilful ignorance and delusion which so unaccountably fastened on the public mind, and explode the few light and airy bubbles of El Dorado, which may yet be seen flickering amidst the gloomy atmosphere of the Stock Exchange. Our two authors tell, as to all essentials, the same story; but no two things on earth can be more different than their styles of narration-the one all over vivacity and good-humour, with a buoyancy of spirits rarely to be met with, always taking affairs as he finds them without murmuring; the other, hampered with difficulties and a young wife, and full to overflowing of grievances and lamentations. The gay Captain scampers across the Pampas plains at the rate of a hundred to a hundred and twenty miles a-day-once riding one hundred and fifty-three miles in fourteen. hours and a half; in short, he performs a journey of a thousand miles or more, between Buenos-Ayres and the mines of Uspallata, in eight days, sleeping upon his saddle as a pillow, on the bare ground and in the open air, and living upon beef and brack water; while poor Mr. Miers, encumbered with his 'womankind,' &c., suffers himself to be dragged slowly in an old coach, nine hundred miles to Mendoza, in twenty days. This sober gentleman's journey has produced one hundred and thirty-six close-printed pages; while the other despatches his Rough Notes' just as a rough rider might be expected to do, in less than a third of the number of pages, of scarcely half the dimensions. His are mere sketches, it is true, but the outline is generally so well and clearly defined as to produce all the effect of a finished picture: while Mr. Miers presents us with an immense surface of canvass elaborately worked, but so crowded with minute objects, and these so strangely huddled together, that the eye gets weary long ere the whole can be examined. On the other hand, the book will reward those who do go through it, with a much larger fund of valuable information than could in any fairness be looked for from its posthaste rival, We |