The present volume contains a collection of essays, the majority of which were read as papers before various literary societies, such as the International Congress of Orientalists, the Biblical Archaeological Society, and the Jews' College Literary Association. Several of them have already appeared in various periodicals, such as the Imperial Asiatic Review, the Jewish Quarterly Review, and the Jewish Chronicle, and are now reproduced, with some slight modification, by the courtesy of the editors. Translations of some of the essays have also been published in Hebrew, French, and German periodicals.

The essays, it may be remarked, deal somewhat extensively with the humour and satire that is not infrequently to be found in the works both of ancient and modern Hebrew writers; and, as this subject has hitherto attracted but little attention, I am not without hope that these pages may be of interest to the general reader.

J. C.

London, June, 1905.