indignation and shame! Was this the religion of the true Messiah? Could this be in their eyes the fulfilment of those glorious prophecies that promised security and joy in his happy days; when his officers should be peace and his exactors righteousness?' What, too, have they witnessed in the worship and doctrine of Christian states? The idolatry of the Greek and Latin Churches, under which the Hebrews have almost universally lived, the mummeries of their ritual, and the hypocrisy of their precepts, have shocked and averted the Jewish mind. We oftentimes express our surprise at the stubborn resistance they oppose to the reception of Christianity; but Christianity in their view is synonymous with image-worship, and its doctrines with persecution; they believe that, in embracing the dominant faith, they must violate the two first commandments of the Decalogue, and abandon that witness, which they have nobly maintained for 1800 years, to the unity of the God of Israel.

It well imports us to have a care that we no longer persecute or mislead this once-loved nation; they are a people chastened, but not utterly cast off; in all their affliction He was afflicted.' For the oppression of this people there is no warranty in Scripture; nay, the reverse; their oppressors are menaced with stern judgments; I am jealous for Jerusalem and for Sion with a great jealousy, and I am very sore displeased with the heathen that are at ease; for I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the affliction. This is the language of the prophet Zechariah; and we may trace, in the pages of history, the vestiges of this never-slumbering Providence. No sooner had England given shelter to the Jews, under Cromwell and Charles, than she started forward in a commercial career of unrivalled and uninterrupted prosperity; Holland, embracing the principles of the Reformation, threw off the yoke of Philip, opened her cities to the Hebrew people, and obtained an importance far beyond her natural advantages; while Spain, in her furious and bloody expulsion of the race, sealed her own condemnation. How deep a wound,' says Mr. Milman, was inflicted on the national prosperity by this act of the "most Christian Sovereign," cannot easily. be calculated, but it may be reckoned among the most effective causes of the decline of Spanish greatness.'

We cordially rejoice that we possess the favourable testimony of the Children of Israel to the justice, respect, and kindness they enjoy in this land; § but our efforts should the more be directed to promote their temporal and eternal welfare. They

Isaiah Ixiii. 9.

Hist. Jews, vol. iii. 368.

↑ Zechariah i. 15. Vide also xiv. 12.

Vide Herschel's Sketch, and Rabbi Crool in his Restoration of Israel.'

forget,'

forget,' says the good Archbishop Leighton, 'a main point of the Church's glory, who pray not daily for the conversion of the Jews.'* We must learn to behold this nation with the eyes of reverence and affection; we must honour in them the remnant of a people which produced poets like Isaiah and Joel; kings like i David and Josiah; and ministers like Joseph, Daniel, and Nehemiah; but above all, as that chosen race of men, of whom the Saviour of the world came according to the flesh. Though a people deep in their sentiments of hatred, they are accessible, even when beguiled by neological delusions, to those who address them on their national glory; and many persons living can attest the gratitude of the Hebrews, as of old, to those who seek the welfare of their nation. They are not less concerned than ourselves to observe the present religious aspect of Europe, and the awful advances of Popery. Doubtless the great and good prince alike Christian and Protestant, who now sits on the throne of Prussia, will find that his affection and shelter to the Israelitish people will procure him, in the hour of conflict, no insignificant or insincere allies, knowing as they do, that Protestantism, which delivered its followers from error, has delivered also the Hebrews from insolence and oppression. Nor are our interests in less fearful jeopardy; both as a Church and as a nation, we have much to hope for in the welfare of the people of Israel; and-since pros perity is to be the portion of those who pray for the peace of the Holy City - Ye that make mention of the Lord, keep not silence, and give him no rest till he establish, and till he make Jerusalem a praise in the earth.' ||

ART. VIII.-Memoirs of Charles Mathews, Comedian. By Mrs. Mathews. 2 vols. 8vo. London. 1838.

THE stage, it is obvious, has lost, in these latter days, no small

part of the interest which it formerly possessed as a source of amusement and a subject of taste. The lateness of the hours now kept in families of almost all classes-the multiplication of light books that furnish entertainment at the fireside-the extended education which brings this kind of amusement within the reach of daily increasing numbers-and the political turn of modern times, which the O. P. riots first brought to bear

*Sermon on Isaiah, lx. 1.

We have now before us the Jewish Almanac for the present year, in which the era of the expulsion from this kingdom is very significantly marked. For he loveth our nation, and hath built us a Synagogue.' Luke vii. 2-5. Psalm exxii, 6. Numbers xxiv. 9. Isaiah Ixii. 7.

upon

upon the theatres,-have probably been the principal causes of this decline. The exclusiveness of the private boxes, too, has done much to desolate the rest of the house, where ordinary people will no longer vouchsafe to be seen, now that Lords and Ladies have left off play-going in public. So aristocratical a personage is plain John Bull.

But the work before us has an interest, apart from a mere taste for the drama. It exhibits a valuable picture of a highly gifted and kind-hearted man, struggling with the difficulties of a narrow fortune, the discouragements of a weak constitution, and the temptations of a very dangerous profession,-and rising maturely to prosperity and reputation, without a spot upon the honesty or the honour of his straitened youth. He has left a manuscript containing his own history up to the commencement of his public career; and the memoirs of his after life are furnished by his widow, from his letters to herself and others, from fragments in his hand-writing, and from her own vivid recollections. She has brought the narrative, however, in the two volumes now published, only to the year 1818.

Charles Mathews appears, from the authentic record inscribed by his father on the fly-leaf of a huge family Bible, to have been born on the 28th of June, 1776, at a quarter before three in the morning; the seventh son of a seventh son. His forefathers were Glamorganshire people, whose name was Matthew; but the grandfather changed it to Mathews, for an estate of about 2001. a-year, which was wrested from his issue by a Chancery suit. The father was a bookseller, carrying on his business in the Strand, on the spot which was then No. 18, but which has now been pulled down, to open a view of Hungerford Market. Although a sectarian of the most 'serious' order, and even minister of Lady Huntingdon's chapel at Whetstone, near Barnet, where he had a country house, he remained, according to the testimony of his son, 'a liberal Christian amongst wretched fanatics, -moderate in a crowd of raving enthusiasts, the mildest of preachers, the kindest of advisers; himself an example to the wholesale dealers in brimstone'-who abused his easiness and charity by spunging upon him at all points. His virtues, however, appear to have been appreciated by better persons. Miss Hannah More visited his shop, and on one occasion she brought thither Mr. Garrick, to whom she introduced her respectable publisher. Little Charles, then under three years of age, was present; and Garrick, taking him in his arms, burst into a fit of laughter, and said, 'Why his face laughs all over,—but certainly on the wrong side of his mouth!'

The schooling of the child began at St. Martin's Free School. Shaw,

VOL. LXIII. NO. CXXV.

Shaw, the under-master, was a thin, shambling, squinting Scotchman, whom the boys were fond of mystifying. Charles used to carry a bit of broken glass to catch the rays of the sun and reflect them in Shaw's face. But he did it, as the school phrase is, once too often; for, being caught in the fact, he was horsed and flogged-the head master roaring out this facetious moral, That will teach you, Sir, I hope, not to cast reflections on the heads of the school!'

There was a short muscular fellow, who daily walked the Strand, crying eels with a guttural voice-threepence a-pound, e-e-e-e-e-e-els-e-elongating the word, as Mathews tells us, from Craven to Hungerford Street, till people used to say, What a long eel! Charles, having mimicked him to the great satisfaction of many auditors, including even his own serious papa, was ambitious enough to court the approval of the original himself, whom accordingly he one day awaited and saluted with the imitation. But the itinerant had no taste for mimicry, and, placing his basket deliberately on the ground, he hunted the boy into the father's shop, and felled him with a gigantic blow. Next time,' said the monster, as you twists your little wry mouth about, and cuts your mugs at a respectable tradesman, I'll skin you like an e-e--and snatching up his basket, finished the monosyllable about nine doors off. Charles felt the effects of this punishment for months. But not the less did he practise his art in echoing the voices of the Methodist preachers; and, elated by the laughter of his mother, who was no sectarian, and of other friends, he was shortly tempted to make a more serious effort-the getting up of Pope's Vital spark of heav'nly flame,' as a vocal and instrumental performance at his father's chapel, by way of opposition to the organ of the established church; and the great success of this piece at the chapel seems to have fixed his passion for public applause. the Steeple-ites (for so the congregation of the establishment were nicknamed by the Methodists) resolved on revenge, and laid a plan for showing up the young Dissenter. One Lawson, a shopkeeper of Whetstone, proposed to treat him to Enfield Races, and drive him thither and back. His mother's slow consent was gained; and I do remember,' says he, that

But

these "terrible, terrible, high-bred cattle," being the first racing-blood I had ever seen, had such an inspiring effect, that I was then and there inoculated with a mania that has prevailed until this hour. Yes! lame and worn as I am, I admit no difficulty, I allow of no impediment, I am indifferent as to distance, but to the races I must go, whether Doncaster or Epsom, Leger or Derby. I have left Glasgow with the penalty attached of two nights' travelling, in order to be at Newmarket on Easter Monday, and have witnessed twenty-five contests for Derby and

Oaks

Oaks since 1803. I have frequently ridden on horseback from London to the neighbourhood of Epsom at night after my performance to sup with friends, rather than encounter the dust of the roads on the " great day," as it is called. This will show that my enthusiasm is not abated. The races were over, and my anxiety for return was immediate. I apprehended darkness, robbery, upsettings-my mother's alarm if I should not be at home by the promised hour. I urged all this to my companions, but in vain. They had not studied to amuse me only, but themselves also. It was agreed they must dine there, and go home afterwards. A booth was chosen, and dinner was succeeded by punch. It was no difficult task to intoxicate a boy of my age. I was hardly aware of the probable consequences of the tempting but treacherous beverage. They had resolved upon making me dead drunk, and I hiccuped out "No more! no more!" till I was nearly no more myself. All I remember from the time the bacchanalians ordered in a fresh bowl was their noisy chorus of "Drunk, drunk, drunk." My lifeless body was taken out of the gig and carried in triumph on their shoulders through the village, some of them singing, in ridicule of the music in which I had so distinguished myself, Vital spark,' &c. In this way I was chaired round the place like a successful member-like him receiving additional shouts when we passed the houses of obnoxious politicians,-till, wearied with their midnight orgies, and their carrying me like Guy Fawkes about the streets, they shot me out of my triumphal car at my father's cottage door.'-vol. i. pp. 29, 30, 31.

He was now about ten years old, and his father removed him from St. Martin's to Merchant Tailors' School; where he pursued his studies during five days and a half of each week, passing his time with his family in the country from Saturday afternoon to Monday, for the nine months which his father spent yearly at Whetstone.

This escape from all descriptions of fagging and from confinement→→→→ this freedom of body and soul from the fetters of scholastic discipline→ the contrast between the narrow dirty lane where the school was situated and the pure air I breathed in my beloved little village, was such a joyous emancipation, that the impression has dwelt in my memory to the present hour; and I feel the same impulse to escape from London with all its attractions, and revel in country pleasures, that I did when I was a schoolboy. During my first engagement in Drury-lane Theatre I lived at Colney Hatch, and in all weathers returned home after the play about eight miles, and over Finchley Common, in an open carriage: this was from pure love of the country. Four years I lived at Fulham, and paid the same midnight visits, frequently on horseback, to my house; and fourteen years at Kentish Town (commonly called Highgate by my visitors, and not unfrequently Hampstead).-vol. i. p. 36.

Charles, and William who was by seven years his senior, were, of seven sons, the only survivors. Of seven daughters but one was reared. William was sent to Cambridge, and thus, says Charles,

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