Now, I must meet this again by another question. To what early British historians does Mr. Caley refer?――for that is the name of the writer of the article on this subject in the “English Archæologia.”――England had no literature for a very long period. Gildas, commonly called the Wise, is the most ancient British historian now extant. Any one who has ever taken the trouble to read through his “De Calamitate, Excidio, et Conquestu Britanniæ” (this is the only work of his printed, and probably existing), will despair of finding in it any thing of importance. Next to him comes the venerable Bede, who was, indeed, the brightest ornament of the eighth century, but he confined himself to ecclesiastical history. Bede, however, does incidentally mention the Jews, as I shall presently show, which proves that they must have been here anterior to his time. I wish, however, first to call your attention to a striking feature in the history of the Jews in this country. The Jews are never mentioned in the early history of England, except to record some flagrant persecution, or horrible massacre; to reckon up the amount of sums extorted from them by kings in distress, or to detail some story about the crucifixion of infants, got up by their enemies for the sake of making the objects of their injustice odious as well as unfortunate. And when these subjects did not occur to the monkish historians of the time――that is to say, when the Jews were unmolested, peaceably employing themselves in traffic, and gradually acquiring wealth which was not demanded from them too largely or too rudely, in return for their safety and opportunities of commerce――it would be conceived that they were unworthy of mention on any other account. Historians always find the most prosperous to be the most barren periods of history; as the richest and most fertile country affords but an uninteresting landscape to the poet or the artist, when compared with the wild rocks, rugged precipices, and unproductive solitudes of mountain scenery. So we may fairly conclude that, until the reign of Stephen, they were enjoying, without molestation, the benefits of their traffic, and increasing in riches and wealth, whilst the peace of their Gentile brethren was all that time rent asunder by different invasions and seditions.