made me blush for you, and which I have rejected? Yes, Judith! I desire them not-I wish for nothing but you, and your love! And if it be, indeed, true that you have not forgotten me, and that you love me still, come to me! It is love only I can give you now, for I have no longer a fortune to offer you!-Ah, you hesitate-you answer not I understand your silence! Farewell-for ever!"

He was turning to depart, but Judith held him by the hand. "Speak, then, Judith!

entreat you!"

Speak, I

The poor girl could not. Sobs choked her voice.

Arthur fell at her feet-she had not spoken; but she was in tears-and Arthur felt that she was justified.

"And how am I to believe you ?— what proof can I have ?" "Time."

"What can I do?" "Wait!"

"And what token of your love?"

She dropped the bouquet which she held in her hand; and, while Arthur stooped to pick it up, she darted through the corridor, and disappeared.

He followed her-saw her at a distance among the crowd-lost her again—and had nearly recovered her traces once more, when, on arriving at the lobby, he saw her leap into a magnificent chariot, which went off at full gallop!

"Gentlemen," said the notary, interrupting his narrative, "'tis very late

her hand.

ON the following Wednesday we were all in the orchestra punctual to our appointment, but the notary did not make his appearance. The opera was "Robert," and it recalled to my recollection my first meeting with Arthur. I now understood his melancholy and pre occupation; and fancied that if Meyerbeer himself had been aware of his story, he would have pardoned his inattention even to the inimitable Trio. But was Arthur at that moment in a less miserable condition?was he better qualified to appreciate good music? Was he happy, and had he discovered the beautiful Judith? We were still ignorant of the causes that kept them apart; and the absence of our little historian added to our impatience. He arrived, at last, at the end of the second act, and never was so enthusiastic a reception given to a favourite actor, or a dancer, after three months' absence, as we now gave M. Baraton. "You've come at last, my good friend-here-sit downwe've kept your place. How late you are!"

"I have been present at the signatures of a contract," replied the notary "I say present at the signatures, but not professionally. I have given up the shop; and, thank Heaven! I owe nothing to any one."

"Yes you do you owe us "A dénoûment," said the profes

sor.

"Ah, the history of Judith-well" -M. Baraton took the seat that had been kept for him, and continued his tale:

She had said "Wait!"—and, for some days, Arthur was patient enough -he hoped every hour for a letter or a rendezvous. "I shall see her again !" he exclaimed-" she will come to me again!" But days and weeks passed on, and Judith never came. Six months passed in this way a yearand at last two years rolled by. I felt anxious about Arthur, and sometimes I was even uneasy about his sanity. The scene at the masked ball had affected him strangely. There were moments when he believed that he was labouring under some hallucination. He fancied it was all a dream-an illusion; and he began to have doubts of every thing he heard or saw. It was with difficulty that our utmost care restored him from a dangerous illness, into which hope deferred had thrown him. He never would touch the money advanced by Judith; and his own fortune, I have told you, amounted only to six thousand livres a-year. Of these he spent four thousand in subscribing for

a box at the Opera-the box on the second tier, where he had encountered Judith the night of the masked ball. He went there every evening, as long as he had any hopes of seeing her again; and when he sank into despair, he could not summon courage to enter it. He felt himself, when he sat in it, "seul, toujours seul "-and the feeling of loneliness made him wretched. All he could do was to come occasionally to the orchestra; and, after looking long and earnestly at the box on the opposite side, he would say, "She is not there!" and leave the theatre. This was his course of life, only diversified by an occasional journey into the country, when he fancied he had obtained some trace of the lost one; but he always came back disconsolate to Paris, and resumed his old habits. It was to meet him more frequently that I secured a seat here by the year. Last week he had come-he had seated himself in the orchestra-not at this side, but at the other. On that occasion—hopeless and wretched-he had turned his back to the house, and was sunk in his own miserable reflections. But a sudden sensation among those around him, aroused him from his reverie.

A young lady of the most exquisite beauty, and magnificently dressed, had come into a box, and the whole artillery of opera glasses was turned upon her in a moment. Nothing was heard but exclamations of "What a beautiful creature!-how brilliant!how graceful!

"What age should you think her, sir?" said one.

"Twenty-one, or twenty-two," said

another.

“Bah! she isn't eighteen.” "Do you know who she is, then?" "No, sir, this is her first appearance at the Opera-for I'm a subscriber-and know every face that has made a sensation here since the year -hem".

And it seemed that nobody knew any thing about her. At last a gentleman of very distinguished appearance bowed to her. Every one worried him with questions who she was. "'Tis Lady Inggerton-the wife of a rich English nobleman." "Indeed!

-so young-and so rich!" And it was whispered about that she had been nobody once-a poor girl that was about to throw herself into the

water in a fit of despair; and that, after being rescued by the old nobleman, she gained his heart so entirely, that he persuaded her to marry him, to enable him to leave her his enormous fortune-which he had actually done.

"The deuce!-if she's a widow she's a glorious catch!"

Her time of mourning is just expired, and, of course, all the young fellows both in England and France are making up to her.

"No doubt," said the young man who had been making these enquiries, pulling up his neckcloth ;" and do you know, my good fellow, I rather think her ladyship is looking in this direction."

"Nonsense!"

"'Tis no nonsense, I assure youI appeal to this gentleman;" and he addressed himself to Arthur, who had heard nothing of the conversation, and had to be informed of the whole matter.

Arthur raised his eyes, and in the box in the second tier, that box that used to be his, he saw——

Ah! people, don't die of surprise and joy, for Arthur is still alive ;-he felt his heart beat quick. 'Twas she! 'twas Judith! but at the same time he continued motionless he did not dare to stir; he was afraid of awakening.

"You know her then, sir?" enquired his neighbour.

Arthur made no reply, for at that instant his eyes met Judith's! He saw hers lighten up with joy-and what was he to think? My heavens! how did his brain keep from turning, when he saw the hand of Judith-that hand so white and beautiful, raised slowly to her ear, (the very signal that in other days he used to give to her,) and play with the emerald drops that he had presented to her? Lucky, as I said before, that people don't die of happiness; but Arthur felt some vague idea that he should go mad. He hid his face in his hands a moment, to convince himself it was not an illu. sion; and when he looked up again, the vision had vanished! Judith had disappeared!

A tremor took possession of his limbs-a hand of iron crushed his heart; but when he remembered what he had seen-what he had heard-and that she had given him a signal known only to themselves, he darted from his place; he left the orchestra, and hur

ried into the street, saying, "If I deceive myself this time—if I am again mistaken-I shall either go mad or blow my brains out!" And having come to this sage resolution he walked steadily to the Rue de Provence, he knocked at the door, (which was instantly opened,) and asked for-Judith ! "Madame is within, sir," said the porteress, very quietly.

Arthur almost fainted, and had to support himself on the banister. He went up to the second floor, crossed the well-known rooms, and opened the door of the boudoir. It was furnished exactly as it was six years before.

The supper he had ordered before his departure was there, all laid on the table. There were seats set for two; and Judith, sitting on a sofa, said to him the moment he entered, "You come late, Arthur," and held out her hand.

Arthur fell at her feet.-
Here the notary stopped short.

"Well!" we all exclaimed, " go on."

"What more have I to tell you?" said M. Baraton, with a knowing smile. "I have just come from dining with them. The ceremony took place to-day."

"They are married, then ?"
"To be sure."

"A widow is a kind of animal," said one of our circle, "who"

"Has very little resemblance to Judith," interposed the notary; " for a very curious part of the story that I have not told you is, that the old peer, her husband, never called her any thing but his daughter."

At that moment the box on the second tier opened -Judith came in wrapped up in her ermined mantle, and leaning on the arm of her loverher husband.

And a round of exclamations might be heard among the audience,— "How lovely she is!" "A lucky dog!"

THE secret history of Judæa, through the two generations preceding the destruction of Jerusalem, might yet be illuminated a little better than it has been by Josephus. It would, however, require a separate paper for itself. At present we shall take but a slight glance or two at that subject, and merely in reference to the Essenes. Nothing shows the crooked conduct of Josephus so much as the utter perplexity, the mere labyrinth of doubts, in which he has involved the capital features of the last Jewish war. Two points only we notice, for their connexion with the Essenes.

First, What was the cause, the outstanding pretext, on either side, for the Jewish insurrectionary war? We know well what were the real impulses to that war; but what was the capital and overt act on either side which forced the Jewish irritation into a hopeless contest? What was the ostensible ground alleged for the war? Josephus durst not have told, had

NO. CCXCV. VOL. XLVII.

he known. He must have given a Roman, an ex parte statement, at any rate; and let that consideration never be lost sight of in taking his evidence. He might blame a particular Roman, such as Gessius Florus, because he found that Romans themselves condemned him. He might vaunt his veracity and his app in a little corner of the general story; but durst he speak plainly on the broad field of Judæan politics? Not for his life. Or, had the Roman magnanimity taken off his shackles, what became of his court favour and preferment, in case he spoke freely of Roman policy as a system?

Hence it is that Josephus shuffles so miserably when attempting to assign the cause or causes of the war. Four different causes he assigns in different places, not one of which is other than itself an effect from higher causes, and a mere symptom of the convulsions working below. For instance, the obstinate withdrawal of the daily

2 s

sacrifice offered for Cæsar, which is one of the causes alleged, could not have occurred until the real and deepseated causes of that war had operated on the general temper for some time. It was a public insult to Rome: would have occasioned a demand for explanation: would have been revoked: the immediate author punished: and all would have subsided into a personal affair, had it not been supported by extensive combinations below the surface, which could no longer be suppressed. Into them we are not going to enter. We wish only to fix attention upon the ignorance of Josephus, whether unaffected in this instance, or assumed for the sake of disguising truths unacceptable to Roman ears.

The question of itself has much to do with the origin of the Essenes.

Secondly, Who were those Sicarii of whom Josephus talks so much during the latter years of Jerusalem? Can any man believe so monstrous a fable as this, viz. that not one, but thousands of men were confederated for purposes of murder; 2dly, of murder not interested in its own success -murder not directed against any known determinate objects, but murder indiscriminate, secret, objectless, what a lawyer might call homicidium vagum; 3dly, that this confederacy should subsist for years, should levy war, should entrench itselfin fortresses; 4thly, (which is more incomprehen sible than all the rest,) should talk and harangue in the spirit of sublime martyrdom to some holy interest ; 5thly, should breathe the same spirit into women and little children; and finally, that all, with one accord, rather than submit to foreign conquest, should choose to die in one hour, from the oldest to the youngest? Such a tale in its outset, in the preliminary confederation, is a tale of ogres and ogresses, not of human creatures trained under a divine law to a profound sense of accountability. Such a tale, in its latter sections, is a tale of martyrs more than human. Such a tale, as a whole, is self-contradictory. A vile purpose makes vile all those that pur

sue it.

Even the East Indian Thugs are not congregated by families. It is much if ten thousand families furnish one Thug. And as to the results of such a league, is it possible that a zealous purpose of murder of murder

for the sake of murder, should end in nobility of spirit so eminent, that nothing in Christian martyrdoms goes beyond the extremity of self-sacrifice which even their enemies have granted to the Sicarii ? "Whose courage," (we are quoting from the bitterest of enemies,) "whose courage, or shall we call it madness, every body was amazed at; for, when all sorts of torments that could be imagined were applied to their bodies, not one of them would comply so far as to confess, or seem to confess, that Cæsar was their lord-as if they received those torments, and the very fury of the furnace which burned them to ashes, with bodies that were insensible and with souls that exceedingly rejoiced. But what most of all astonished the beholders was the courage of the chil dren; for not one of all these children was so far subdued by the torments it endured, as to confess Cæsar for its lord. Such a marvellous thing for endurance is the tender and delicate body of man, when supported by an unconquerable soul!"

No, no, reader, there is villany at work in this whole story about the Sicarii. We are duped, we are cheated, we are mocked. Felony, conscious murder, never in this world led to such results as these. Conscience it was, that must have acted here. No power short of that, ever sustained frail women and children in such fiery trials. A conscience it may have been erring in its principles; but those principles must have been divine. Resting on any confidence less than that, the resolution of women and children so tried must have given way. Here too, evidently, we have the genuine temper of the Maccabees, struggling and suf fering in the same spirit and with the same ultimate hopes.

After what has been exposed with regard to Josephus, we presume that his testimony against the Sicarii will go for little. That man may readily be supposed to have borne false witness against his brethren who is proved to have borne false witness against God. Him, therefore, or any thing that he can say, we set aside. But as all is still dark about the Sicarii, we shall endeavour to trace their real position in the Jewish war. For merely to prove that they have been calumniated does not remove the

tial believer, the wavering believer, equally with the true, the spiritual, the entire, and the steadfast believer. What sort of believers were those who would have taken Christ and forcibly made him a king? Erroneous believers, it must be admitted; but still in some points, partially and obscurely, they must have been powerfully impressed by the truth which they had heard from Christ. Many of these might fall away when that personal impression was withdrawn ; but many must have survived all hinderances and obstacles. Semi- Christians there must always have been in great numbers. Those who were such in a merely religious view we believe to have been called Nazarenes; those in whom the political aspects, at first universally ascribed to Christianity, happened to predominate, were known by the more general name of Galileans. This name expressed in its foremost element opposition to the Romans; in its secondary element, Christianity. And its rise may be traced thus:

cloud that rests upon their history. That, indeed, cannot be removed at this day in a manner satisfactory ; but we see enough to indicate the purity of their intentions. And, with respect to their enemy Josephus, let us remember one fact, which merely the want of a personal interest in the question has permitted to lie so long in the shade, viz. that three distinct causes made it really impossible for that man to speak the truth. First, His own partisanship: having adopted one faction, he was bound to regard all others as wrong and hostile: Secondly, his captivity and interest :— in what regarded the merits of the cause, a Roman prisoner durst not have spoken the truth. These causes of distortion or falsehood in giving that history would apply even to honest men, unless with their honesty they combined a spirit of martyrdom. But there was a third cause peculiar to the position of Josephus, viz. conscious guilt and shame. He could not admit others to have been right but in words that would have confounded himself. If they were not mad, he was a poltroon: if they had done their duty as patriots, then was he a traitor; if they were not frantic, then was Josephus an apostate. This was a logic which required no subtle dialectician to point and enforce: simply the narrative, if kept steady to the fact and faithful, must silently suggest that conclusion to every body. And for that reason, had there been no other, it was not steady; for that reason it was not faithful. Now, let us turn to the Sicarii. Who were they?

Thirdly, It is a step towards the answer if we ask previously, Who were the Galileans? Many people read Josephus under the impression that, of course, this term designates merely the inhabitants of the two Galilees. We, by diligent collation of passages, have convinced ourselves that it does not-it means a particular faction in Jewish politics. And, which is a fact already noticed by Eusebius, it often includes many of the new Christian sect. But this requires an explanation.

Strange it seems to us that men should overlook so obvious a truth as that in every age Christianity must have counted amongst its nominal adherents the erring believer, the par

Whoever would thoroughly investi

gate the very complex condition of Palestine in our Saviour's days, must go back to Herod the Great. This man, by his peculiar policy and his power, stood between the Jews and the Romans as a sort of Janus or indifferent mediator. Any measure which Roman ignorance would have inflicted, unmodified, on the rawest condition of Jewish bigotry, he contrived to have tempered and qualified. For his own interest, and not with any more generous purpose, he screened from the Romans various ebullitions of Jewish refractoriness, and from the Jews he screened all accurate knowledge of the probable Roman intentions. But after his death, and precisely during the course of our Saviour's life, these intentions transpired: reciprocal knowledge and menaces were exchanged; and the elements of insurrection began to mould themselves silently, but not steadily; for the agitation was great and increasing as the crisis seemed to approach. Herod the Great, as a vigorous prince, and very rich, might possibly have maintained the equilibrium, had he lived. But this is doubtful. In his old age various events had combined to shake his autho

rity, viz. the tragedies in his own family, and especially the death of