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    danger the health , or in any way annoy the inhabitants , were established in the country , nor could they approach within , a hundred and fifty cubits of the wall . Bakers ' or dyers ' shops , stables , &c , -were not tolerated under the dwelling of another person . The houses of course varied in extent and splendour from the humble structure of the poor to the patrician palaces of the rich . They were built either of bricks , or half-bricks , dressed or undressed stones , and sometimes of white marble , with mortar , gypsum , or asphalte for cement . In the interior the walls were covered with a kind of whitewash painted occasionally -with various colours . The wood-work was constructed of the sycamore , olive , almond , and even cedar tree , inlaid

    with gold or ivory . Gratings or lattices supplied the . place of glass . In the wealthier houses , however , the window-frames "were carved , as well as were the tables , chairs , couches , lamps , and candlesticks . Fish from Spain , apples from Crete , cheese from Bithynia , lentils , beans , and gourds , from Egypt and Greece , plates from Babylon , wine from Italy , beer from Media , burdened the ornamented tables of the luxurious , whilst to Sidon , Egypt , India , Laodicea , Cilicia , and Arabia , they were indebted for their choice household vessels , baskets , dresses , sandals , sliawls , and veils . For these articles of commerce were given in exchange wheat , oil , honey , figs , and balsam , the products of the hills and valleys of the country .

    lhe domestic regulations "were characteristic . It was the duty of parents , however opulent , to have their children instructed in some light and healthy occupation . The-women were taught to spin , to weave , and to work curiously with the needle . They were also famed for their skill in cookery . The toilet , however , was a rathei formidable undertaking , no less than eighteen articles being required to complete an elegant one . The most familiar were trousers and the skirt , kept close to the body by a girdle , over which an upper garment was worn , sometimes white , sometimes purple , but generally embroidered . The head-dress consisted of a pointed cap or kind of turban . The garments of the -women were remarkable for the fineness of their texture . The veils were of two kinds , the Arabian and the Eygptian . The latter covered the breast , neck , chin , and face , leaving only the eyes free , the former depended from the head , but lef t the Syearer at fuU liberty to adapt it as she thought fit , either to conceal her features or enable her to see . Gloves were used , but only for protection . Sometimes

    costl y slippers , embroidered and studded with gems , were used instead of the simple Laodicean sandal . These slippers contained delicate perfumes which , emitted the most delicious odours on the pressure of the foot . The personal ornaments principally consisted of gold head-dresses , nose-rings , finger-rings , necklaces , bracelets , and ankle-rings . The men sometimes wore bracelets made of gold , iron , or precious stones strung together . The minutest features of Jewish social life—the various domestic arrangements , the education of the children , the rites of marriage , the laws of property , the state of commerce , the condition of agriculture , the religious and charitable institutions , taxation 1 , proselytes , baths and mineral springs , the estimate of the virtues , the duties of wedlock , &c . —have all been faithfully

    portrayed by Dr . Edersheim , who enters deeply into the character of the literature of the Jews , and shows the close connexion that existed between the manners , and customs of the people and their legends and writings . From the Hebraic treatment of divorce , insolvency , and slavery , -we think manjr wholesome lessons might be taken : Without recommending the doctrine of the Hillelites , -who affirm that a divorce is warranted if a wife spoils her husband ' s dinner , we may allow that much was said by them about th « rights of women that we of the nineteenth century might avail ourselves of . In dealing with debtors , the mildness of the Hebrew law is almost unparalleled , in ancient or modern times ; whilst slavery , though it existed as an indigenous institution , was subject to many softening modifications .

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    TWO NOVELS . ZurieVs Grandchild : a Novel . By R . V . M . Sparling . 3 vols . ( Newby . )—There are unmistakable evidences of talent in this ill-managed story . The interest is real , strong , and sustained ; some of the characters are excellent as suggestions ; the dialogue is often close and rapid , and more natural than is usual in fiction ; there is no attempt to force on the catastrophe bytheatrical surprises , nor is the writin g of that blush-rose tint so common in three-volume novels . But Mr . Sparling has most of his art to learn . He is incompetent to guide his narrative ; he crowds the scene with supernumeraries ; he prefaces his chapters with long utterances of mediocrity , enough to tempt critics and readers to injustice . Whatever may be our solicitude for the grand-daughter of Zuricl , we have none for Mr . Sparling ' s philosophy , that being helplessly splenetic , watery , and weak . If the book finds

    favour , it will be as a tale of life , and had half the incidents been omitted , half the personal sketches expunged , and the whole brought within moderate limits , ZurieVs OrandcMld would " have had a chance of being popular . We may assume , perhaps , that ' molitncholy interest' is a thing acceptable at watering-places , for none other need be looked for in the history of the lord of Stor Court and his successors . There are three elaborate death-bed Bcenes ; there ia a father ' s curse ; there is a forgery ; there is a description of Dora , the heroine , offering to perjure herself ( and it is fair to add that this scene is one of the most dramatic and the best-toned in the novel ) ; indeed , when Lesparde a , nd his bride take possession of the Jew ' s vast palace , with all its splendours , they very much resemble the survivors of a massacre .

    age or character of the author . He may be an unbloomed youth , intoxicated with Vathek and the Epicurean , but insensible to the necessities of grammar , or he may be a foreigner , exercising himself in the English tongue : but this is not probable . The manner of the book betrays im maturity , credulity , ignorance of life and language . The hero , Claud Wilford " is the son of a ruined knight , and is led through a series of social enchant ^ ments . At sea he meets a perfect Lara , in Spain a pale , melancholy gorgeously-beautiful Diavolo , whom he accompanies to Paris . There the Diavolo , an Englishman metamorphosed into something between Cagliostro and the Wandering Jew , dresses his youngfriend in hussar uniform and plays him as a puppet in the midst of pearl fountains , folia < re of sold l ™»

    curving rooms , pyramids of lustre , and such visions of girls in gauze as delight the young-eyed generation at Christmas . There are also strange impostures practised , Trevanion , a British scoundrel , disguised as Monsieur Melpomene , being deceived by his arch-enemy , Lord Dungarion , first in the shape of Count Huron—the Diavolo we have mentioned—and then in the operatic shape of Athabasca , a dark Nubian . It may be conceived , then that scenes like these , and others belonging to the Otranto class , make up an ambitious story . But everyone who writes a Vctthek is not a Beckford . The story opens on the Kentish coast , where Claud is bowing sweetl y to fair acquaintances , but ' more majestically'to older friends : — - *

    Walking' arm in arm might be seen , some fair creature , with the idol of her heart -whose advancement towards the hymeneal tie was fast approaching , as their freedom ^ in being unattended by a lacquey , gave strong proofs . That is the style in which the epic is composed . The author , however , does not ' get away ' from the Kentish coast , but makes several false starts before he really begins his story . It is not in tlie human heart to recommend dull people at the sea-side to try Claud Wilford . As a joke it might be offensive , as anything else it would be too absurd .

    andasortof miserable ) sensation accompanies the certainty of their happiness . T *" arises , partly , from the recollection that the curse which fell on the first daughter of that house is not removed , she and her mother lying in cliamal graves after lives of broken-hearted pnin . Thus , there is a good aeal of ; quiet woe , oven after the customary peal of marriage bells , that ortnga the Cwtain down . Still the novel has its particular merits . Though u , i « atlm ? , ! 8 upon costuming the aristocracy for his own purposes , ae apes not beshimmer his pages with attempts to imitate the empty smjillt ^ an a mac aronw loquaci ty of those suppositious heroes and heroines of g rL 5 fe B 1 ? *? r Bim P ' » fashionable novels . H %£££ ffSf '' * ? B * - « - ( Simpkin , Marshall , and Co . )—Having read thw novel , wo cm * form no very positive conception as to the

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    SOCIAL AND PROFESSIONAL LIFE . Glances aiiil Glimpses ; ot \ Fifty Years Social ^ including Twenty Years Professional Life . By Harriot K . Hunt , M . D . TrUbner . Harriot , daughter of Joab and Kezia Hunt , is a lady superior to prej iidice . Tending , at an early age , to physiological studies , she first "became a private practitioner , then took a medical degree , and , lastly , has issued the record of her thoughts and researches . This is the daring act for which she will be questioned by all except those singularly infatuated persons who think that , because some social la-ws are absurd , all social laws ought to be violated . Take Miss Harriot ' s personal experience . She asks , Why should not women le treated , surgically and otherwise , by-women ? " Is that a reason for advocating the treatment of men also by female physicians ?—or is it an excuse for publishing a volume such as this , so full of ostentatious

    rhapsody and sick-led metaphors ? The worst of these-high-spirited ladies is , that they take the bit in their mouths , and galloping beyond all limitation , assume that they only have a proper appreciation of the womanly nature . To them it seems demonstrable that a young girl who is not educated in all anatomical mysteries , as well as in that mystery of forgetful courage ivhich enahles Harriot Hunt to write and speak in public , is a poor thing oppressed by society , and quite as pitiable as a Greek or Mandingo slave , in their eyes , to * be the equals of men means to do that which ordinary men shrink from doing , and to break the trammels of convention means to shut your eyes and rush against the world , saying all you please . Moreover , in the case ' of the daughter of Kezia , a remarkable degree of insensibility is displayed in combination with the ma-wJrishness of the

    boarding-school and that sort of lurid twaddle which , not in America only , goes for eloquence . But Harriot is not wholly a poetess , or wholly a philosopher . Terrestrial suggestions interrupt her allopathic ecstasies . She is jealous of the quackswho ' consolidate sarsapsmlla into marble palaces , ' and ' expand pills into princely mansions . ' In general , however , ler tone is vinous and calorical . ' Her 'hygienic thought' bursts into the wildest of the wild flowers of language , coloured , like the bottles in chemists ' ^ windows , by tlie tints of the medical idea within . Keep the ' cranial apartments' your children in order , says Miss Hunt . If you force them to be ' constantly digesting acquisition , dyspeptic brains 'will be the result . ' ' Look at the weary libraries that are walking our streets . ' But , on the other hand , avoid tying down the girls to lace-thread , or wool : —

    I know a case of a scientific lacly whoso mother was so shocked at her engaging in her brothers' sports and frolics , tliat whenever she discovered that she had been guilty of tho crime , she put on her a pair of pantaloons and locked her in a dark closet . Characteristically , Harriot Hunt believes , and declares , that she is a special instrument in the hands of Providence . This is parenthetical , for she dashes again into narrative and affirmation—the affirmation being of this stamp : ' Bathing is not responsible for the harm it has done when used by persons of no judgment . ' ' The myriad mysteries of sin are laid bare to the medical practitioner . ' ' Utterance is the lav of life—to violate that law brings on mental dyspepsia . ' ' Progression is the cholera of the pocket . ' But the most curious illustration oflier mental habits occurs in a notice of the birth of her sister ' s child . There is tho usual superfluity of 'fullness of time , ' ' anguish , ' ' weary hours , ' reverent silence , ' ' angelic , ' ' vision of love , ' ' is there any rapture so great ? ' but the clinical lady pauses to weigh

    the infant , and it is four pounds eleven ounces ! Six months pass . The ' infantile beauty' becomes ' magical . ' Harriot is ' in the presence of angels , the baby is ' an over-new delight , ' a well-spring of pleasure , ' a ' link between the spiritual and material , ' and weighs ' only ten pounds !' The lady is as diffuse on all matters . Far from being ' glimpses' merely , her chapters are broad disclosures of absurdity , nt which our ' glance 1 is a stare ; but it would bo nn extravagance to wonder too intensely at the eccentricities of Harriot Kezia Hunt , for , having looked into the beg inning of her book , the reader is fully forewarned . To be just , it is necessary to add , tliat in the midst of these tumid and repulsive exaggerations there are some -very sensible remarks on the treatment of children and young girls , but then these are only plain sayings , proper to write and read , and what would become of the vestal doctor ' s ? mission' did she confine herself to utilitarian common sense ?

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    884 THE liiADEB , [ No . 338 , Saturday ,

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 13, 1856, page 884, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2158/page/20/