_The wonderful tale of Alroy_ (1833)¹ is an Oriental romance founded on a _Hebrew_ tradition concerning the Princes of the Captivity ――rulers whom the Jews continued to elect from among the descendants of the House of _David_ (2854‒2924 _a.m._) even after their dispersion. Alroy is one of them,² who after a long interregnum possesses himself, by supernatural assistance, of a part of the sceptre of _Solomon_ (_ob._ 2964), and establishes the _Hebrew_ monarchy on the ruins of the new Caliphate of Bagdad. His life is short, and his reign much shorter. The tale is full of enthusiasm for the hopes of _Israel_. One little passage may be cited: “All was silent: alone the _Hebrew_ prince stood, amid the regal creation of the Macedonian captains. Empires and dynasties flourish and pass away; the proud metropolis becomes a solitude, the conquering kingdom even a desert: but _Israel_ still remains, still a descendant of the most ancient kings.” ¹‏ חטר מגזע ישי או אל־ראי מאת ... בנימין בנימין דיזראעלי ... ונעתק לשפת עברית צחה ע״י .אברהם אבא ראקאווסקי ... ווראשא ... שנת תרמ״ג לפ״ק ... 1883 ² David Alroy, or Alrui (El David: Menahem _ben_ Suleiman ibn Alruhi), born at Amadia in Kurdistan. He appeared as a pseudo-messiah about the year 1160. A biographer of Disraeli remarks on this passage: “This (with its after-irony of ‘Alroy’s seizure by the Kourdish bandits’) may be compared with the satire in which Disraeli encountered Mr. [Charles Newdigate] Newdegate’s [M.P.] (1816‒1887) appeals to ‘prophecy’:... They have survived the Pharaohs, they have survived the Cæsars, they have survived the Antonines and Seleucidæ, and I think they will survive the arguments of the right honourable member....” Mr. Morley tells that (1838‒1918)¹ Mr. Gladstone said that Disraeli asserted that only those nations that behaved well to the Jews prospered....² ¹ Afterwards Viscount (1908‒) Morley of Blackburn. ² Disraeli: A Study in Personality and Ideas, by Walter Sichel ... London, 1904, _p._ 223. Disraeli loved the East, and particularly Palestine. Its picturesqueness, both in scenery and in history, fascinated him. “Say what they like,” says Herbert in _Venetia_, “there is a spell in the shores of the Mediterranean Sea which no others can rival. Never was such a union of natural loveliness and magical associations! On these shores have risen all that interests us in the past――Egypt and Palestine, Greece, Rome and Carthage, Moorish Spain and feudal Italy. These shores have yielded us our religion, our arts, our literature and our laws. If all that we have gained from the shores of the Mediterranean was erased from the memory of man, we should be savages.”¹ ¹ _Ibid._ Note 1.