"I should like," said Ippolito, "to speak with that Jew before I leave you. He may help me to some curious manuscripts."

The Medici were very clever in hunting up curiosities of literature; for their encouragement of the arts sprang less from the love of that renown which rewards liberal patronage, than from real, genuine interest in arts and letters for their own sake. Hence the worship of their very names among poor literati, to whom sympathy and appreciation are dearer than gold, though they like that too. Pity that they loved Plato better than Christ! The spirit of poetical and philosophical emulation which they kindled was accompanied by utter obtuseness to spiritual things. A keen sense of purity of language fostered no love of purity of life; there was, in fact, complete antagonism between the elegant disciples of Lorenzo and the severe followers of Savonarola and Bernardino Ochino; and if the very light that was in them was darkness, how great was that darkness! The Medici retarded rather than advanced the spirituality of their age; and in like manner, though in different proportion, their elegant biographer has thrown a false shadow on good, and a false light on evil. Of course I shall be covered with obloquy for saying this.

Cardinal Ippolito received Bar Hhasdai in a cabinet adjoining the sala di compagnÍa, in which music and society-games were beguiling the tedium of the other guests. The Jew was a grand specimen of the Sephardim—he was a great deal older than he looked, his hair unbleached, and his head unbent by age.

"Your name is that of a great man," said the Cardinal to him.

"My descent is from him likewise," said the physician. "I am son, or, as your people would say, descendant of that Hhasdai ben Isaac who was Hagib to the second Abderrahman, and wrote the famous epistle—of which you doubtless have heard—to Joseph, King of Cozar."

"No, I never heard anything about it," said Ippolito with interest. "Who was the king of Cozar?"

"The Cozarim," replied Bar Hhasdai, "were Jews dwelling on the Caspian Sea. My ancestor had long heard of them without being able to communicate with them, till, from the Spanish embassy at Constantinople, he learned that some of them frequently brought furs for sale to the bazaars there. On this, he addressed an epistle to them, beginning: 'I, Bar Hhasdai ben Isaac, ben Ezra, one of the dispersed of Jerusalem, dwelling in Spain,' and so on—'Be it known to the king that the name of the land we inhabit is, in the holy language, Sepharad, but in that of the Ishmaelites, el Andalus,' &c. Bar Hhasdai despatched this epistle to the East by an envoy, who returned six months afterwards, saying he had hunted high and low for the Cozarim, without being able to find them. Their kingdom undoubtedly existed, but was quite inaccessible. Bar Hhasdai transmitted his letter afterwards, however, through two ambassadors of the Asiatic people called Gablim, who visited Cordova."

"And were these Cozarim the lost tribes?"

"I know not."

"Where are they now?"

"They are not found."

"How came you Jews to settle in Spain?"

"I believe in Abarbanel. He tells us that two families of the house of David settled in Spain during the first captivity. One of them settled at Lucena; the other, the Abarbanels, took root at Seville. Hence all their descendants were of the royal stock—of the tribe of Judah."

"You yourself, then, are of the royal stock?"

"I trace up to David."

Ippolito did not know whether to believe him; but he evidently believed in himself.

"I thought," said De' Medici, "your genealogies were lost?"

"Not when we came to Spain. But it is believed that many Jews were in Spain even prior to the first captivity—Jews who came over with the merchant ships of Hiram in the days of David and Solomon, and who remitted large sums of money towards the erection of the Temple. You may see a tombstone that confirms this, without the walls of Saguntum, to this day. It bears the following inscription in Hebrew—'The sepulchre of Adoniram, the servant of King Solomon, who came hither to collect tribute.' The tomb was opened about fifty years ago, and found to contain an embalmed corpse of unusual stature."

"This is curious," said the Cardinal, reflectively,—"and merely a matter of curiosity."

"It ought not to be so in your eyes—nor in the eyes of any thoughtful Christian," said Bar Hhasdai.

"Why not?"

"Because we Sephardim were not consenting unto the death of him whom you term the Christ."

"Ha!—But you would have done so, most probably, if you had been on the spot."

"That is a gratuitous supposition. On the contrary, we wrote an epistle to Caiaphas the High Priest, pleading for the life of Jesus, whose good report had been brought us."

"Can this be so?"

"Prince Cardinal! when I and my brethren were banished from Spain forty years ago, we appealed to an ancient monument in the open square of Toledo, bearing the inscription of some very early bishop, to the effect that we Sephardim had not quitted Spain during the whole time of the second Temple; and, therefore, could not have shared in the guilt of crucifying Jesus!"

"Singular!"

"When Taric the Moor took Toledo, in the year 710 of your era, he found, at Segoncia, among other treasures, the actual table of shew-bread which had belonged to Solomon's Temple! and which our nation had secretly brought to Spain. It was composed of one huge emerald, surrounded by three rows of the choicest pearls, and it stood upon three hundred and sixty feet of pure gold."

"Are you fabling?" exclaimed the Cardinal, whom this tradition interested more than all the rest.

"Nay," said Bar Hhasdai, "the fable is not mine, at any rate. That such a relic was really found there, is proved by their changing the name of the place from Segoncia to Medinat al Meida, the place of the table."

"Why, man, such a relic as that would redeem your whole race! Hist, the Duchess is singing——"

A lute, rarely touched, preluded a sweet, plaintive air, sung by a balmy voice in the saloon. The Cardinal listened with pleasure and a little provocation; for the Duchess had twice refused to sing to him, and it was very bad of her to do so at the request of some one else. The little snatch of song ended abruptly in the minor.

"Could not you enter into that?" said Ippolito, noticing a strange mixture of sadness and sarcasm on the physician's face. He replied with a distich—

"Do you mean that that is a Hebrew melody?"

"O, yes!"

"Jew! why will you not convert, and be healed?"

"It cannot be. I have seen whole families of slain Jews with gaping gashes in their bodies, heaped at their own thresholds—and those gashes were made by the swords of Christians!"

"But that was in Spain."

"Bear with me, Cardinal, while I repeat a parable to you. Pedro the Great of Arragon inquired of a learned Jew which was the best religion. He replied: 'Ours is best for us, and yours for you,' The king was not satisfied with this answer, and the Jew, after three days, returned to him seemingly in great perturbation, and said: 'A neighbour of mine journeyed to a far country lately, and gave each of his two sons a rich jewel to console them for his absence. The young men came to me to inquire which jewel was the most valuable. I assured them I was unable to decide, and said their father must be the best judge, on which they overwhelmed me with reproaches.' 'That was ill done of them,' said the king. 'O, king!' rejoined the Jew, 'beware how thou condemnest thyself. A jewel has been given unto the Hebrew and likewise to the Christian, and thou hast demanded that I should decide which is the most precious. I refer thee to our great Father, the Giver of all good gifts, who alone can exactly determine their comparative and absolute values.'"

This apologue pleased the Cardinal, though, in fact, it was very superficial. He inquired whether Bar Hhasdai could help him to any rare manuscripts.

"The few which I possess," said the physician, after a pause, "are not such as would be of any value in your eyes: being either on our own law, or on the science of medicine—"

"Nay, but," said the Cardinal, "the latter are such as I should greatly prize."

"They are altogether obsolete and unworthy of your notice," said Bar Hhasdai, "but I have a little treatise on Chess, which really is a curiosity in its way; and also a treatise on Aristotle's Ethics, by Rabbi Joseph ben Caspi, of Barcelona, which is at your service."

"Let me have them both," said the Cardinal, "and in return I beg you to accept this ruby of small value."

"This is a rare gem!" said the physician, with delight, "and cut with Hebrew characters. May I really have it?"

"Certainly. And pray tell me before you go, do you think the Moorish girl will recover?"

"I have some hope of it."

"Could not you, as you have a key to her confidence, which we have not, ascertain whether she is really faithful to the Duchess?"

"There can be no question of her fidelity. She has spoken of her mistress with gratitude."

"That is well. Farewell, then."