while the bitterest feelings of distress, irresistibly seizing upon the soul, rule in his elegiac poetry. This remarkable man was not permitted to die a natural death. At the At the age of fifty, in compliance with the practice of the times, and prompted by an ardent desire to visit the country of his ancestors, he undertook a journey to the promised land. To a poetic mind, such an enterprize possessed high attraction, as a view of the condition of a country, the early history of which had exercised so important an influence on posterity, was well adapted to excite the imagination to strains of pensive melancholy. And in fact, the scenes there presented to the eye, the depopulation of a region once so densely inhabited, the wildness and desolation of a land formerly teeming with luxuriance, the barbarous character and wretched state of the inhabitants, made a strong impression on the mind of the poet. Standing beneath the walls of Jerusalem, his soul was so deeply afflicted with the lamentable condition of his people, that he rent his garments like a mourner, put off his shoes and went on barefoot, singing an elegy, which he had himself composed, on the fall of Jerusalem. A mounted Arab who was near him, but unobserved, made the devotion of the sorrowing Jew a subject of ridicule, and roused to madness by the unhappy man's indifference and supposed obstinacy, he leaped upon him, and trampled him to death under his horse's hoofs.

This unfortunate Rabbi is generally regarded as the author of the Book Cosri,* pronounced by the high authority of De Sacy and Labouderie,† to be one of the most valuable and beautiful productions of the Jewish school: The object of this work was to defend the Hebrew religion against the objections of Christians, Mohammedans, philosophical infidels, and Karaite Jews. In order to make it the more attractive, the author connects his subject with the conversion of Bulan, a king of the Chasars; or, according to the representations of some writers, introduces a dialogue between a king by the name of Chosar, and a certain Rabbi, Isaac Sanguer, or Sangari, on the prominent points of religion. In order that the reader may have a clear idea of the origin and design of this Jewish book, it is necessary to lay before him some notices of this people, premising however, that no small portion of fable has been incorporated with the history. The following account is drawn almost entirely from the history of Jost.

* The authorship of this work is much disputed by writers on Jewish literature, some attributing it even to the king himself, whose attachment to Judaism it is designed to confirm. Bartolocci says, that Hallevi was unhesitatingly regarded as the author of the Book Cosri, by the most ancient Jews, but that later investigations have involved this matter in considerable doubt. The more general opinion, however is, that the work is rightly ascribed to him. See Wolf, Vol. iv. p. 1022.

+ See Biographie Universelle, Tome xxii. p. 101, 102.

The Chosars or Chasars are represented as a branch of the more ancient Turkomans,* or according to some old accounts, of common origin with them. This, however, must be left as a matter impossible to be settled. In very early times they inhabited a district of country lying on the west side of the Caspian, and extending as far as the Black Sea. They were incorporated by Attila with the nation of the Huns. Afterwards they became subject to the Bulgarians, but obtained their freedom, and made themselves so powerful as to strike terror into the Persians on the one side and the Greek Empire on the other. The Persian monarch was obliged to secure his country from their invasions by a prodigious wall, the ruins of which excite the travellers' astonishment even at the present day, and the autocrat of the Greeks found it expedient to court their friendship and avail himself of their hardy courage. Frequent alliances were formed with the Chakans or rulers, and their followers were often found among the body guard of the imperial court.

The proximity of this region of country to two seas, giving it at the same time the command of two noble rivers, the Volga and the Don, was a natural encouragement to enterprise and navigation. Trade flourished, and while the merchant fleets

They are mentioned as "a Turkish or Tartar colony," and as "Eastern Turks," in the ancient Universal History, Book iv. chap. ix. and xxx. Vol. xvii. p. 21, and xx. p. 50. 8vo. Lond. 1748. 인*

of Persia and Greece enriched their owners with the productions of the people, the Chasar cities became places of business and wealth, and the splendor of the nation is said to have vied with that of the Califate itself. Victorious in the South and North, the Chasars obtained gold and silver from the more cultivated people, and from the rougher, natural productions, in the way of tribute. Encouraged by a general toleration of religion, Jews, Christians and Musselmans settled in the country, intercourse was unrestrained, and consequently business and intellectual culture gradually spread, and the nation increased in power and in wealth. It is not to be supposed that the new settlers were disregarded by the rulers; on the contrary, they seem to have attracted considerable notice, and their religion became of course the subject of attention. There is reason to believe that the Chakans often availed themselves of the services of these foreigners, in their intercourse at the courts of the emperors and chalifs as well as with inferior chiefs; and the inclination to make proselytes to their respective religions, for which both Christians and Mohammedans were distinguished, must have been felt also in no slight degree, by the sincere Hebrew. Every favorable opportunity would have been seized, in order to awaken attention and conciliate regard to the system of the despised and persecuted Jew.

The supposition therefore is not so extravagant

as some historians have imagined, that, in a very ancient period, the throne of the Chasars may have been occupied by one of this nation. Certain writers, who, it must be confessed, however, do not disdain to alleviate occasionally the dryness of historical facts by drawing on their imagination for the fabulous and extraordinary, have related, that about the year 740, Bulan, or Bula, a wise Chakan or king of the Chasars, having become a convert to Judaism, imposed the profession of this faith as a necessary condition of obtaining the supreme authority. A succession of Jewish Kings is said to have governed the nation more than two centuries and a half, without imposing any restraint on the free exercise of religion.

However slight an impression, says Jost, this Chasar Jewish monarchy may have made on the Eastern Jews, sunk in effeminacy, it was not regarded without interest by the learned Jews of Spain, who began to be distinguished as favorites of the court of Cordova. Hasdai Ben Isaac is said to have addressed a complimentary letter to one of the kings, named Joseph, with an introduction in poetry, according to the taste of the age and people, and in due time to have received from the monarch a gracious answer, in which he informs his western correspondent, that he was the twelfth descendant in a regular line of succession from Bulan. But the authenticity of this correspondence in all probability rests on no better founda