and Von Raumer. The twenty pages devoted to a mere list of authors consulted by him- authors evidently read, not by their titles merely, but with discriminating criticism - show how complete was his preparation. He went to Palestine, therefore, to test upon the spot the accuracy of previous observers, to supply, if possible, their omissions, to correct their errors, and to verify the geographical allusions of the Scriptures, so far as this can be done by means of affiliated Arabic names, and from local scenery, monuments, and ruins. Upon his first visit to the Holy Land, Dr. Robinson laid down a canon of criticism respecting traditionary localities, which he re-affirms with emphasis in his new volume. This canon is, that "all ecclesiastical tradition respecting the ancient places in and around Jerusalem, and throughout Palestine, is of no value, except so far as it is supported by circumstances known to us from the Scriptures, or from other cotemporary testimony." As a reason for this canon, Dr. Robinson affirms that the traditions concerning the sacred localities in Palestine were, for the most part, brought forward by a credulous and unenlightened zeal, like that of the Empress Helena, who might well be styled the mother of holy places; that the fathers and monks who originated them were, for the most part, strangers in Palestine, ignorant of its topography, and of the language of the common people; that, for many centuries, the only visitors to Palestine were pilgrims, who went thither with an unquestioning belief in the traditions of the Church; and that later travellers in the Holy Land have, for the most part, been under the tutelage and guidance of the monks, whose faith and whose piastres both depend upon maintaining these traditions. "In this way, and from all these causes, there has been grafted upon Jerusalem and the Holy Land a vast mass of tradition, foreign in its source and doubtful in its character, which has flourished luxuriantly and spread itself out widely over the western world. Palestine, the Holy City, and its sacred places, have been again and again portrayed according to the topography of the monks, and according to them alone. Whether travellers were Catholics or Protestants, has made little difference. All have drawn their information from the great storehouse of the convents; and, with few exceptions, all report it apparently with like faith, though with various fidelity. In looking through the long series of descriptions which have been given of Jerusalem by the many travellers since the fourteenth century, it is curious to observe how very slightly the accounts differ in their topographical and traditional details. There are, indeed, occasional discrepancies in minor points, though very few of the travellers have ventured to depart from the general authority of their monastic guides. Or, even if they sometimes venture to call in question the value of this whole mass of tradition, yet they nevertheless repeat, in like manner, the stories of the convents, or, at least, give nothing better in their place."- Researches, Vol. I. p. 253. As specimens of this implicit faith of travellers in the monks, we give the following from Sir John Maundeville, in the fourteenth century, and Chateaubriand, in the nineteenth : "To the west of Jerusalem is a fair church, where the tree of the cross grew. And two miles from thence is a handsome church, where our Lady met with Elizabeth, when they were both with child, and St. John stirred in his mother's womb, and made reverence to his Creator, whom he saw not. Under the altar of that church is the place where St. John was born." - Maundeville, Bohn's ed., p. 175. "Tout au fond de la grotte, du côté de l'orient, est la place où la Vierge enfanta le Rédempteur des hommes. . . . . A sept pas de là, vers le midi, après avoir passé l'entrée d'un des escaliers qui montent à l'église supérieure, vous trouvez la crèche..... A deux pas, vis-à-vis la crèche, est un autel qui occupe la place où Marie était assise lorsqu'elle présenta l'enfant des douleurs aux adorations des mages.. Ces lieux sont pourtant ceux-là mêmes où s'opérèrent tant de merveilles." Chateaubriand, Itineraire, Tom. I. p. 399. .... The credulity of the monks is fully equalled by that of the Jews in their traditions of sacred places. Thus Rabbi Petachia states that in Mount Gaash, in Upper Galilea, “a footprint is perceptible, like that of a human being treading on snow. This is that which the angel imprinted after the death of Joshua, son of Nun, when the land of Israel was shaken." At Hebron he bribed his way into the cave of the patriarchs. "But over the entrance, in the middle, are placed very thick iron bars, the like no man can make, unless through heavenly instrumentality, and a storm-wind blows from between the holes between bar and bar. He could not enter there with lights. Whenever he bent towards the mouth of the cave, a storm-wind went forth, and cast him backwards." In the same vein the Rabbi describes the "Gate of Mercy" at Jerusalem, probably the so-called "Golden Gate," concerning which the tradition is common to Jews, Christians, and Moslems, that the Divine glory shall there appear for the recapture of the city. It seems that in Petachia's time the Crusaders were as watchful of this gate as the Moslems now are. "No Jew, and still less a Gentile, is permitted to go there. One day, the Gentiles wished to remove the rubbish, and open the gate; but the whole land of Israel shook, and there was a tumult in the city until they left off." Having repudiated ecclesiastical tradition as a guide, Drs. Robinson and Smith laid down these two general principles to govern their researches in the Holy Land:-first," to avoid, as far as possible, all contact with the convents, and the authority of the monks; to examine everywhere for ourselves, with the Scriptures in our hands, and to apply for information solely to the native Arab population"; and, secondly, "to leave, as much as possible, the beaten track, and direct our journeys and researches to those portions of the country which had been least visited." The determination to avoid contact with the convents and the monks may seem to argue a weakness, or a superciliousness, which are alike foreign to the ordinary tone of our author's mind. We confess, indeed, to having formed the same determination after a little experience of Oriental travel, but upon grounds less elaborate and scientific than those which Dr. Robinson sets forth. We avoided the convents because we found their larders scanty, their cooking execrable, their beds untidy, and their vermin abundant and voracious; and, withal, because the holy brethren, while thus superior to the demands of the flesh, made ghostly exactions upon our purses "for the love of God," equal to the tariff of first-class * Travels of Petachia. Translated from the Hebrew by Dr. A. Benisch. London: Trübner & Co. 1856.- Petachia visited the Holy Land toward the close of the twelfth century. hotels. Sir John Maundeville testifies of the convent at Mount Sinai, that "in that abbey no flies, toads, or lizards, or such foul, venomous beasts, nor lice, nor fleas, ever enter, by the miracle of God and of our Lady; for there were wont to be so many such kind of pests, that the monks were resolved to leave the place, and were gone thence to the mountain above, to eschew that place. But Our Lady came to them, and bade them return; and since that time such vermin have never entered in the place amongst them, nor never shall enter hereafter."* But, whatever may have been Maundeville's experience in 1322, we do testify that in 1853 Our Lady's charm had lost its potency; and we do not hesitate upon this point to adopt Dr. Robinson's canon, that "ecclesiastical tradition is of no value, when not supported by circumstances known to us.” Thus much for the convents. As to the monks, they generally appeared amiable, indolent, and ignorant, with here and there an exception of vivacious intelligence or of earnest devotion. Such independent observers as those concerned in the Biblical Researches of 1838 had nothing to apprehend from monkish authority over their private judgments. We never could quite forgive Dr. Robinson for his cavalier treatment of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre during his first visit to Jerusalem. We believe that on that occasion he entered the church but once, when he "looked in for a few moments, with a friend," upon the Latin mass at nine o'clock on the morning of Easter Sunday. The traditionists have made much of this contemptuous neglect of the reputed site of the Sepulchre, as an evidence that Dr. Robinson rejected the traditions concerning that site upon arbitrary and a priori grounds, without a fair investigation. During his second visit, Dr. Robinson retrieved that omission, and made a most careful inspection of the so-called tomb of Joseph and Nicodemus, on the western side of the rotunda. The result of that visit was to turn the strong-hold of the traditionists against themselves, and to demonstrate upon archæological grounds, as the author had before demonstrated upon both topographical and historical grounds, that the genuineness of the present site of the Holy Sepulchre is sustained Bohn's edition, p. 158. by no valid argument or authority. We shall speak again of this result, in considering the topography of Jerusalem. Recurring to the canon laid down by Drs. Robinson and Smith to guide their researches, we find that, in determining any locality, it gives to the Scriptures the first place of authority; next to these, it places "other contemporary testimony"; and next to this, the evidence from names and associations surviving in the language of the native Arab population. This last may in some sense be styled tradition. But there is an obvious distinction between such native indigenous traditions and associations, and traditions whose origin and intent are ecclesiastical. The tenacity of the common speech of the common people in respect to names and local associations is strikingly exemplified in the Saxon element of the English tongue. In speech the Saxon conquered the Norman; so that to this day, in the dialect of the English island, as Mr. Emerson phrases it, "the male principle is the Saxon; the female, the Latin. The children and laborers use the Saxon unmixed. The Latin unmixed is abandoned to the colleges and Parliament." Not Stonehenge itself is more fixed and commanding upon the wide expanse of Salisbury Plain, than are the sturdy pillars of Saxon uplifted on the face of English literature. At every summer solstice, the sun still greets them in their ancient place. What is true of the vernacular speech of progressive, changeful England, is even more true of the common language of the impassive, stereotyped Orient. There every mound and stone and pillar is a Stonehenge, which changes neither form nor place through ages of decay. The names of Nimrood and of Neby Yûnas still survive upon the banks of the Tigris. Libnân and Yâfa still designate the Lebanon and Japho of the Hebrew Scriptures. The common Arab population, aside from ordinary routes of travel, untainted with ecclesiastical traditions and superstitions, unbiassed by any motive to err or to deceive, are unquestionably a better authority for the names of places in Palestine, than are the monks of Nazareth or Bethlehem. A complete mastery of the Arabic tongue, combined with a thorough knowledge of Arabic character, enabled Dr. Eli Smith to pursue this linguistic branch of the |