there is the famous one of Count Wallenstein, the magnificence of which, may be the better guessed from our knowing that a hundred houses were pulled down to make room for it.  Its hall is thought one of the finest in all Europe, its gardens are wonderfully stately, and the stables which he built here for his horses are almost beyond description, marble pillars parted the standing of each horse from another.  The racks were of polished steel, and their mangers of the finest marble, and over the head of each stand was placed the figure of each horse, as large as the life.  This famous man who was the greatest captain of his time, after having built this sumptuous palace, re-established the Emperor’s power, almost utterly broken by the Swedes, growing at last too powerful for a subject, or as the Germans say, endeavouring to make himself master of the Kingdom of Bohemia, he was, if not by the command, at least by the connivance of the Emperor Ferdinand, privately assassinated in the city of Egra, in the year 1634, by certain Irish officers, in whom he reposed the greatest confidence.  Since his time Prague has seen no greater powerful persons among her countrymen; on the contrary, the inhabitants now in general are poor, their habits mean, the Hebrew nation being obliged, both men and women, to wear a particular garb.  Its streets are dirty, and nothing but the Imperial Palace preserves anything of its ancient grandeur; the same fate hath befallen the other Bohemian cities, and thus in a land of Paradise the people live like slaves.

When at the age of thirteen, the unfortunate Abraham was recalled by his father from college, at his return home, every one was surprised at that prodigious knowledge which he had acquired while at Prague.  Those of their nation who resided at Presburg desired Abraham’s father that his son might, according to the custom of the Hebrews, read in the synagogue, which accordingly he did with great and deserved applause.  His relations, and the rich Jews of the town, loaded him the next day with valuable presents, in order to show their veneration for the religion and learning of their ancestors; but these encouragements being heaped on a vain and ambitious temper, were the ruin of a youth hitherto virtuous in his conduct and passionately fond of learning.  For growing on a sudden conceited with his own abilities, puffed up with the vanity of having excelled his equals, he began to addict himself to acquire higher accomplishments, grew fond of music, delighted in dancing-schools, would needs be taught fencing and riding, and from the studies preparative to making a grave rabbi, jumped all of a sudden to the qualities necessary to finish a Jewish fop.