ance,

thology had been printed, but it was now thought advisable to throw off three hundred more; which was accordingly done: and in the meantime Wilson assiduously employed himself in preparing the second volume for the press, although he neither had yet benefited to the extent of a single dollar by the publication of his work, nor was likely to do so. The second volume appeared in January 1810; and immediately after its appear the author set out on another tour in quest of support and patronage. This time he penetrated into the western part of the States, or valley of the Ohio and Mississippi. At Pittsburg, he succeeded beyond his expectations in getting subscribers; and after ascertaining that the roads were such as to render a land journey impossible, he bought a small boat, which he named the Ornithologist, intending to proceed in it down the Ohio to Cincinnati, a distance of more than five hundred miles. Some advised him not to undertake the journey alone; but he had made up his mind, and only waited, exploring the woods in the interval, till the ice had left the stream. At length the time arrived for his departure on this inland voyage. His provision consisted of some biscuit and cheese, and a bottle of cordial, given him by a gentleman in Pittsburg: one end of the boat was occupied by his trunk, greatcoat, and gun; and he had a small tin vessel, with which to bale his boat, and to drink the water of the Ohio. Thus equipped, he launched into the stream. The weather was calm, and the river like a mirror, except where fragments of ice were floating down. His heart expanded with delight at the novelty and wildness of the scene. The song of the red-bird in the deep forests on the shore, the smoke of the various sugar-camps rising gently along the mountains, and the little log-huts which here and there opened from the woods, gave an appearance of life to a landscape which would otherwise have been lonely and still. He could not consent to the slow motion of the river, which flowed two miles and a half an hour; he therefore stripped himself for the oar, and added three miles and a half to his speed. Our traveller's lodgings by night were less tolerable than his voyage, as he went down the desolate stream. The first night was passed in a logcabin, fifty-two miles below Pittsburg, where he slept on a heap

of straw.

Having reached Cincinnati, he there got a few subscribers for his work, and then proceeded to Louisville, where he sold his boat. He next walked a distance of seventy-two miles to Lexington, whence he travelled to Nashville, exploring on his journey some of the remarkable caverns of Kentucky. He had thoughts of extending his tour to St Louis; but after consider ing that it would detain him a month, and add four hundred miles to his journey, without perhaps adding a single subscriber to his list, he gave up the plan, and prepared for a passage through the wilderness towards New Orleans. He was strongly

urged not to undertake it, and a thousand alarming representations of hardship and danger were set before him; but, as usual, he gave fears to the winds, and quietly made preparations for the way. He set out on the 4th of May, on horseback, with a pistol in each pocket, and a fowling-piece belted across his shoulder. During this adventurous journey he suffered severely from the heat of the sun, and all the changes of the weather. His exposure by night and day brought on an illness, which he with difficulty surmounted. He had occasion to travel among the Indians, who, it seems, treated him with great kindness; and though dreadfully worn out with fatigue, he enjoyed the journey very much. He reached New Orleans on the 6th of June, and shortly after embarked in a vessel for New York, and from thence he proceeded to Philadelphia, where he arrived on the 2d of August 1810.

Wilson now applied himself with unwearied industry to the preparation of the third volume of his Ornithology. At this time, he says that the number of birds which he had found, and which had not been noticed by any other naturalist, amounted to forty. Between this period and 1812 he made several other journeys throughout the country, partly with the view of promoting the sale of his publication, and partly to procure materials for his study, an object which he never lost sight of seldom travelling, whatever might be the immediate or ostensible cause of his changing place, without his fowling-piece.

In the year above named, he received a gratifying proof of the estimation in which his merits were beginning to be held. This was his being chosen a member of the Society of Artists of the United States; and in the spring of the following year, he was admitted to the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. But this extraordinary man was not destined to see either the completion of his meritorious labours, or to enjoy the triumph of achieving all that he designed. The excessive labour and fatigue of both body and mind to which he had for many years subjected himself, gradually undermined his constitution, and prepared it to yield to the first act of indiscretion to which it should be exposed; and this, unfortunately, now very soon

occurred.

While sitting one day with a friend, he caught a glimpse from the window of a rare bird, for which he had long been vainly looking out. The instant he saw it, he seized his gun, rushed out of the house in pursuit of it, and after an arduous chase, during which he swam across a river, succeeded in killing it; but he succeeded at the expense of his life. He caught a violent cold; this was followed by dysentery, which carried him off after an illness of ten days. He died on the morning of the 23d August 1813, in the forty-seventh year of his age, and was buried in the cemetery of the Swedish church in Southwark, Philadelphia. A plain marble monument, with

an inscription, intimating his age, the place and date of his birth, and of his death, marks the place of his sepulture.

Wilson had completed the seventh volume of his Ornithology before he died, and was engaged, when seized with his last illness, in collecting materials for the eighth. At this he laboured with an assiduity and unintermitting industry which called forth the remonstrances of his friends. His reply, while it seems to indicate a presentiment of his premature fate, is at the same time characteristic of his extraordinary enthusiasm and diligence. "Life is short," he would say on these occasions, "and nothing can be done without exertion." Nor is a wish, which he repeatedly expressed to a friend some time before his death, less characteristic of his amiable nature and deep admiration of the works of his Creator. This wish was, that he might be buried where the birds might sing over his grave.

His person is described as having been tall and handsome, rather slender than robust; his countenance expressive and thoughtful, and his eye intelligent. Unfortunately for himself, the speculation in which he engaged with so much ardour yielded him no remuneration; for he had committed the serious error of issuing his work on too expensive a scale. From the publication he derived no profits whatever; and the heavy expenses he had to incur in his journeys, as well as his ordinary outlays, were only paid by the wages he received in the capacity of colourer of his own plates. Of the many active men whose biographies are before the public, there is not, perhaps, one whose life presents such a heroic resolution in the pursuit of science as Wilson. Although this most indefatigable genius did not live to enjoy the reward of his diligence, he certainly anticipated what has come to pass-that his work would always be regarded as a subject of pride by his adopted country, as it certainly is by the country which gave him birth, and would secure a high degree of honour for him whose name it bears.

HE Hebrew nation, as is well known, has been for ages scattered over the face of the earth, and now exists in different portions in every civilised country; retaining, however, in all situations, the religion, manners, and recollections of its ancestry-almost everywhere less or more oppressed, yet everywhere possessing the same unconquerable buoyancy of spirit and the same indomitable industry. It would be a very long and dismal story to tell of the settlement and sufferings of the Jews in the various countries of Europe, and we propose, therefore, to confine ourselves to a brief narration principally concerning their resi dence and treatment in Great Britain.

Whence or by what route the exiles of Judea found their way to this island, cannot now be satisfactorily traced; but, scattered as they were over the extensive domains of their Roman conquerors, it is not unlikely that they originally crossed the Channel whilst England also was under imperial sway, their numbers increasing as centuries rolled on, and as the gradual desertion of the island by the Romans gave them a more peaceful and secure retreat than was enjoyed by their brethren scattered nearer the seat of empire.

During the struggles between the Britons and Saxons, and afterwards between Saxons and Saxons, till the Heptarchy was finally established, the Hebrew strangers remained unnoticed; but when Christianity was introduced, and monks and priests obtained supreme ecclesiastical authority, decrees were issued as early as 740 by Egbert, archbishop of York, and again in 833

by the monks of Croyland, prohibiting Christians from appearing at Jewish feasts. From these decrees we infer that the Jews must have become both numerous and influential, and their feasts and ceremonies attractive to the people, who in the very early stages of Catholicism might have found a puzzling similarity in the outward ceremonies of the two religions-gorgeousness and splendour being at that time characteristic of the rites of both. The distinctions of actual creed were too subtle and too carefully made the study of churchmen alone to be understood or cared for by the multitude, and the priests must have feared some danger to their new and simple-minded converts from a too close intimacy with the Hebrews, or these prohibitions need not have been made.

No further allusion being made to the Jews during the Saxon monarchy, the decrees of the priests were probably obeyed, and no excuse given for persecution. When Canute of Denmark conquered England, however, the Jews shared the servitude of their Saxon brethren; and in 1020, without any assigned cause but the will of the sovereign, were banished from the kingdom. They crossed the Channel, and took refuge in the dominions of William, Duke of Normandy, where they were so kindly received that, on his conquest of England and assumption of her crown, they returned, increased in numbers, to their old homes, and purchased from William the right of settlement in the island.

The sons of the Conqueror pursued their father's kindly policy towards them. Under William Rufus they established themselves in London and Oxford, erecting in the latter town three halls or colleges-Lombard Hall, Moses Hall, and Jacob Hallwhere they instructed young men of either persuasion in the Hebrew language and the sciences. Until this reign the only burial-ground allowed them in all England was St Giles, Cripplegate, where Jewen Street now stands; but under Rufus they obtained a place of interment also at Oxford, now the site of part of Magdalen College. Indeed Rufus, from what is narrated to us by the chroniclers, would appear to have respected the feelings of the Jews more than those of the Christian portion of his subjects. "He appointed," says Milman, "a public debate in London between the two parties, and swore, by the face of St Luke,' that if the rabbins defeated the bishops, he would turn Jew himself. He received at Rouen the complaint of certain Jews, that their children had been seduced to the profession of Christianity. Their petition was supported by a liberal offer of money. One Stephen offered sixty marks for his son's restoration to Judaism, but the son had the courage to resist the imperious monarch. Rufus gave still deeper offence by farming to the Jews the vacant bishoprics."

During this breathing-time from persecution their opulence naturally increased, and with it their unpopularity. The civil