throw down a few broken rays upon your
head, just sufficient to render the darkness visible, but not to dispel
it. By this uncertain glimmer, you perceive, after a while, that walls,
and pillars, and roof, are black with the dust of ages; and that every
thing around you bears testimony to the gloomy nature of the reverence
which these stubborn Israelites pay to the God who has discarded them.
Beneath the arch of the pillars there is a raised platform, where desks
and stools are placed for the accommodation of the rabbins, and the
pupils who come hither to study the Law. At the extremity of the vault
stands the altar, the silver candlestick, with its many branches,
surmounting it, while from the roof hang seven silver lamps, to "give
light," according to the Divine injunction, "over against the
candlestick." I exceedingly regretted to find that the day on which I
inspected this pile was not a holy season in the Juden Stadt. Some
doctors and students there were, on the platform, whose attention
seemed engrossed by the occupation in which they were engaged; and
their picturesque dresses, flowing beards, and stubborn and haughty
expressions of countenance, accorded well with the localities by which
they were surrounded. But the business of prayer was not in progress,
and the sacred Book of the Law lay hidden.

From the Synagogue we passed into the old cemetery, which lies
contiguous to it, and looked round upon a picture of desolation more
stern than the dream of the poet has perhaps ever conjured up.
Extensive as the plot of ground is, there is not, throughout its
compass, one foot of level soil. Graves, trodden partially down,
pointed grave-stones that are sloping and falling in every
direction,--these, with a wilderness of alder trees, which, whether
planted by the hand of man, or sown by the winds of heaven, overshadow
the crumbling tombs, constitute altogether a fitting monument to the
desolate condition and broken fortunes of the Hebrew race. Yet may you
easily enough distinguish, from the devices that are engraved on each
of them, the rank and condition of many of those who sleep beneath
these grave-stones. The lion of Judah, the upraised hands of the house
of Aaron, the Nazarite's bunch of grapes, are all here; while the
graves of the rabbins are, as elsewhere, adorned, each with a sort of
cenotaph. The Jews have, for some time, ceased to bury in this mass of
human dust. It was filled, and filled, till it could cont