All this was transacted in the depth of the night.  In the morning the walls of the castle were seen wrapt in flames, and only a few miserable and pusillanimous beings, unworthy of the sword, were viewed on the battlements, pointing to their extinct brethren.  When they opened the gates of the castle, these men verified the prediction of their late Rabbin; for the multitude, bursting through the solitary courts, found themselves defrauded of their hopes, and in a moment avenged themselves on the feeble wretches who knew not how to die with honour.

Such is the narrative of the Jews of York, of whom the historian can only cursorily observe that five hundred destroyed themselves; but it is the philosopher who inquires into the causes and the manner of these glorious suicides.  These are histories which meet only the eye of few, yet they are of infinitely more advantage than those which are read by every one.  We instruct ourselves in meditating on these scenes of heroic exertion; and if by such histories we make but a slow progress in chronology, our heart however expands with sentiment.

I admire not the stoicism of Cato, more than the fortitude of the Rabbin; or rather we should applaud that of the Rabbin much more; for Cato was familiar with the animating visions of Plato, and was the associate of Cicero and of Caesar.  The Rabbin had probably read only the Pentateuch, and mingled with companions of mean occupations, and meaner minds.  Cato was accustomed to the grandeur of the mistress of the universe; and the Rabbin to the littleness of a provincial town.  Men, like pictures, may be placed in an obscure and unfavourable light; but the finest picture, in the unilluminated corner, still retains the design and colouring of the master.  My Rabbin is a companion for Cato.  His history is a tale

    Which Cato’s self had not disdained to hear.—­POPE.

THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE SEAS.

The sovereignty of the seas, which foreigners dispute with us, is as much a conquest as any one obtained on land; it is gained and preserved by our cannon, and the French, who, for ages past, exclaim against what they call our tyranny, are only hindered from becoming themselves universal tyrants over laud and sea, by that sovereignty of the seas without which Great Britain would cease to exist.

In a memoir of the French Institute, I read a bitter philippic against this sovereignty, and a notice then adapted to a writer’s purpose, under Bonaparte, of two great works:  the one by Selden, and the other by Grotius, on this subject.  The following is the historical anecdote, useful to revive:—­

In 1634 a dispute arose between the English and Dutch concerning the herring-fishery upon the British coast.  The French and Dutch had always persevered in declaring that the seas were perfectly free; and grounded their reasons on a work of Grotius.

So early as in 1609 the great Grotius had published his treatise of Mare Liberum in favour of the freedom of the seas.  And it is a curious fact, that in 1618, Selden had composed another treatise in defence of the king’s dominion over the seas; but which, from accidents which are known, was not published till the dispute revived the controversy.  Selden, in 1636, gave the world his Mare Clausum, in answer to the Mare Liberum of Grotius.