down the passage, to
abstain from going on. There is about you, on all sides, an air of
novelty, such as it is impossible to resist; and you march forward,
wondering, as you move, whether you be awake or in a dream.

The establishment of a Jewish colony in Prague is said to be coeval
with the foundation of the city itself. From age to age, moreover, the
sons of Israel have inhabited the same quarter,--namely, a suburb
which, running in part along the margin of the Moldau, is approached
from the Alt Stadt, by the street of which I have just spoken. Here
dwell they, to the number of eight or ten thousand, in a state of
complete isolation from the Christian myriads which surround them,
inhabiting flats, and in many cases, single apartments, by whole
families; and appearing to rejoice in the filth and neglect to which
the Christians have consigned them. The streets in their suburb are all
narrow and mean, and devoid of ornament; the stalls, with the articles
which the chapmen expose upon them, are scattered up and down in utter
confusion; the shops--mere recesses--have Hebrew inscriptions over
them, and the entire population, when I went among them, seemed to be
abroad. One building, and one only, does indeed deserve to be visited:
I allude to the synagogue, the oldest of its class, perhaps, in Europe;
a strange edifice, above the floor of which the soil has gathered to
such a height, that to enter it, you are forced to descend a flight of
steps. I must endeavour to describe it, though conscious that
description must utterly fail to convey a correct idea of the original.

The Old Synagogue, as it is called, a structure of the twelfth century,
is essentially Gothic in the leading points of its architecture, but so
loaded with Byzantine ornaments as to resemble no other edifice of a
similar date which I, at least, have seen in Europe. It is thoroughly
Oriental in its character, fantastic in its proportions, and little
likely to be mistaken, under any circumstances, for a Christian church.
The interior is not less remarkable, whether we look to the productions
of the builder's skill, or to the arrangements which have been made for
the purposes of worship and study. A lofty vault, supported upon three
Gothic pillars, which spring from the middle of the area, and meet in
pointed arches at the roof, it is lighted only by a range of
lancet-shaped windows, which being elevated above the floor to the
height of forty or fifty feet,