It is a singular fact that, at this present moment, that people draws the eyes of all the civilized nations with an intensity never experienced before. The facilities of locomotion have covered Syria and Palestine with visitors of the curious, or the devout; the claims of the rightful proprietors of Canaan engage the attention of the statesman; the tide of worldly interest rolls back upon the shores of Palestine; and upon a question as to the possession of the land of promise, lately depended, perhaps still depends, the peace of Europe, the fate of the habitable world. The dominion of the heathen Roman has long since ceased, the conquest of the Khosroes is forgotten, the Saracens have passed away, the Crusaders and the Califs have alike crumbled into dust; all those are gone, and have left scarcely a vestige behind, whilst the Jews are once more brought prominently into view. They exist still in very great numbers, and in all the separatedness of their original character, in spite of all the persecutions they have gone through. How true did the Jew speak when he said, “persecution cannot dismay us――time itself cannot destroy us.” I repeat again, the interest in the history of such a people must be intense. The portion of Jewish history to which I wish particularly to call your attention in this _first_ series of lectures, is _that_ connected with this country up to the year 1290, when all the Jews were banished by EDWARD the First. The _second_ series, which I may deliver at some future period, will form the history of the Jews from the time of Oliver Cromwell to our own day. Difficult as the historian may find it to fathom the origin of the first inhabitants who peopled this country, certain it is that the most difficult part of the same is that of the Jewish early introduction and establishment in this realm; which is enveloped almost in impenetrable obscurity. The sources from which we can draw any information at all on the subject, are very scanty. English historians afford us no information whatever, and neither have the ante-expulsion Jews bequeathed us any records or chronicles of their antiquities in this country. We are left therefore to conjecture from the glimmering sparks which we now and then catch in the pages of foreign literature; but no one can venture to fix a positive date to the first landing of the dispersed of Judah on the shores of Britain.