Aping his bigot sire, who whiled away,
Sacred to sloth, each seventh revolving day.

the stranger is invariably connected by Moses, with the two most interesting objects of human kindness, the fatherless and the widow. "“But," continues Mr. Gibbon, "the wise, the humane Maimonides openly teaches," &c. Of what consequence is it to Moses what a Spanish Jew of the twelfth century teaches! If Mr. Gibbon's object had been truth, he would have consulted Moses himself, for the sense of his "volume," which, however secret and mysterious it might be to Juvenal, was plain and open to him but misrepresentation was his aim, as it materially furthered his darling design of attacking Christianity through the sides of Judaism.

The word "present" is almost of too contemptible a nature for a caviller of the lowest kind. Mr. Gibbon certainly did not believe that the "volume" we now have, was different from that which existed in Juvenal's time; but he chose to sacrifice his reason to his prejudice. Surely, of all bigots, scepticks and atheists are the most blind and intolerant !

With respect to our author, who was confessedly as ignorant of the laws as of the practises of the Jews, all that he says amounts to nothing more than the old charges against them, which had been refuted a thousand and a thousand times. Even while he was writing, Josephus had noticed and repelled them. Myvely de και τας οδες τοις αγνουσι, και μη γελωτα θηρωμένες αυτοις εμποδίζειν, x. T. a. Antiq. Lib. IV. c. viii. § 31. And again, more strongly : της εκ παρέργο προσιόντας αναμιγνυσθαι ταις συνηθείαις εκ εθελησε τ' αλλα δε προείρηκεν, ὧν ἐστιν ἡ μεταδόσις αναγκαία" πάσι παρέχειν τους δεομένοις πυρ, ύδωρ, τροφήν, οδες φράσειν, κ. τ. α. Contra App. 11. 28. Moses certainly discouraged all unnecessary familiarities with such as were not sincerely attached to us: (he is writing to Jews:) But he mentioned at the same time many things in which we must participate with others: he commanded us, for example, to supply those that asked us with fire, water, food, to show the way, &c. &c.

A word may yet be added. The Pagans talked of Moses, but knew him only through the corrupt sects into which, in its latter age, Judaism was divided. From this circumstance alone, came all that abuse of the Hebrew system, with which the Greek and Roman writers abound, and which has been either ignorantly or wilfully continued to our time, by Voltaire, Gibbon, and others. About the age of Juvenal indeed, the Jews had somewhat receded from their ancient integrity, in favour of the Fagans: the interested prudence of the Pharisees had tried to smooth the way

for

But youth, so prone to follow other ills,
Are driven to AVARICE against their wills;
For this grave vice, assuming Virtue's guise,
Seems Virtue's self, to superficial eyes.

The miser hence, a frugal man they name,
And hence, they follow, with their whole acclaim,
The griping wretch, who strictlier guards his store,
Than if the Hesperian dragon kept the door.
Add that the vulgar, still a slave to gold,
The worthy, in the wealthy man behold;
And, reasoning from the fortune he has made,
Hail him, A perfect master of his trade!

an intercommunity of sacrifice in the temple; and Philo and
Josephus had manifested a certain laxity in their writings, which
might have tended to soften the asperity of the heathen world
towards them. But neither the genuine humanity which charac-
terises the law of Moses, nor the corrupt accommodations of the
later Jews, were at all regarded. The Roman government, it is
true, had on various occasions shown some degree of respect to
the worship and manners of the Jews; but the whole race was
incessantly followed by the unmitigated odium of the Roman
people. And what gave an apparent authority to their hatred,
was the
ungracious and forbidding spirit of some of those sects,
whose singularity had pointed them out to the particular notice
of the age. From these Juvenal draws his false, and exaggerated
picture: he talks of Moses, not with any real knowledge, but
with those impressions which had been made on him, in common
with the rest of mankind, by the gloomy bigotry and fanatick
austerity of the Essenians, Therapeutians, Zealots, &c.

It is to be lamented that the unsociable and wayward dispositions of those wrong-headed sectaries, prevented them from communicating to the people around them, a portion of their history, polity, laws, &c. especially, as they could not be unacquainted with the absurd fables propagated concerning them. Tacitus derives the Jews from Crete, because he finds a mount Ida there, whence he thinks that they were originally called Idæos, which their barbarous pronunciation, it seems, changed into Judæos! Such is the deplorable ignorance of the most judicious of the Roman historians! The Greeks are equally uninformed.

And true, indeed, it is-such masters raise
Immense estates; no matter by what ways,
But raise they do, with brows in sweat still died,
With forge still glowing, and with sledge still plied.
The father, by the love of wealth possest,
Convinced the covetous alone are blest,

And that, nor past nor present times e'er knew
A poor man happy, bids his son pursue
Their steps, and keep that thriving sect in view.
Vice boasts its elements, like other arts;
These he inculcates first: anon, imparts
The petty tricks of saving; last inspires,
Of endless wealth, the insatiable desires.
Hungry himself, his hungry slaves he cheats,
With scanty measures, and unfaithful weights;
And sees them lessen, with increasing dread,
The musty fragments of his vinew'd bread.
In dogdays, when the sun, with fervent power,
Corrupts the freshest meat from hour to hour,
He saves the last night's hash, sets by a dish
Of sodden beans, and scraps of summer fish,
And half a stinking shad, and a few strings
Of a chopp'd leek, counted like sacred things,

VER. 175. With scanty measures, &c.] The Romans weighed, or rather measured out the food of their slaves. The ordinary allowance, Holyday says, was about a quart of bread-corn for a day according to Donatus, it was, at least, double that quantity. The distribution was usually made on the Calends, i. e. the first day of every month.

VER. 180. sets by a dish &c.] In the conclusion of this admirable picture of sordid avarice, Juvenal had Theophrastus in his mind: τα δε καταλειπόμενα απο της τραπεζης ήμισυ των ραφανίδων απογράφεσθαι, ἵνα οἱ διακονώντες παιδες μη λάβωσιν. Περι βδέλα

And seal'd with caution, though the sight and smell
Would a starved beggar from the board repel.
But why this dire avidity of gain,

This mass collected with such toil and pain?
Since 'tis the veriest madness to live poor,
And die with bags and coffers running o'er.
Besides, while thus the streams of affluence roll,
They nurse the eternal dropsy of the soul,
For thirst of wealth still grows with wealth increast,
And they desire it less, who have it least.-
Now swell his wants: one manor is too small,
Another must be bought, house, lands, and all;
Still"cribb'd, confined," he spurns the narrow
bounds,

And turns an eye on every neighbour's grounds:
There all allures; his crops appear a foil,
To the full produce of their happier soil.
"And this I'll buy," he cries, "without delay,
"And that hoar hill, with fattening olives gay."-
Then, if the owner to no price will yield,
Resolved to keep the hereditary field,

Whole droves of oxen, starved to this intent,
At night, among his springing corn are sent,

VER. 190. Besides, while thus the streams &c.] So Ovid, very beautifully:

"Creverunt et opes, et opum furiosa cupido,

"Et cum possideant plurima, plura volunt ;
"Quærere ut absumant, absumpta requirere certant,
66 Atque ipsæ vitiis sunt alimenta vices.
"Sic quibus intumuit suffusa venter ab unda
"Quo sunt plus potæ, plus sitiuntur aquæ."

Fast. lib. 1. 211.

To revel there, till not a blade be seen,
And all appear like a close-shaven green.
Monstrous! yet I should vainly strive to tell,
What numbers tricks like these have forced to sell.
But what says Fame the while? her hundred

tongues,

Have scarcely spared the author of such wrongs :"And what of that ?" he cries. "I value more, "The addition of a bean-husk to my store, "Than all the country's praise; if curs'd by fate, "With the scant produce of a small estate." 'Tis well! no more shall age or grief annoy, But nights of peace succeed to days of joy, If as much ground pertain to you alone, As, under Tatius, Rome could call her own!

Since then, the veteran, whose brave breast was

gored

By the fierce Pyrrhick or Molossian sword,
Hardly received for all his service past,
And all his wounds, two acres at the last,
The meed of toil and blood! yet never thought
His country thankless, or his pains ill bought.
For then this trifling glebe, improved with care,
Largely supplied with vegetable fare,

The good old man, the wife in childbed laid,
And four hale boys that round the cottage play'd,
Three free-born, one a slave: while, on the

board,

Huge porringers, with wholesome pottage stored, Smoked for their elder brothers, who were now,

Hungry and tired, expected from the plough.