10 AUGUST 1889, Page 25

their history from A.D. 7 to our own times—is a

terrible and shameful story of untold sufferings, sufferings which still continue in Russia and Eastern Europe. Mr. Adams's plan is to give chapters recording in tarn the condition of the Jews in different countries and succeeding centuries. Thus, we learn that until the fall of the Carlovingian dynasty, the Jews were fairly well treated, all things considered, but for seven centuries afterwards led the life of out- casts, the victims of the vilest calumnies and the most horrible massacres. Spain, Portugal, and France distinguished themselves in persecution particularly, owing to the Papacy and the Inquisi- tion. In England, they seem, though banished for nearly four hundred years, to have suffered from scarcely any violence. Curiously enough, in Italy they suffered much less than we might reasonably have supposed,—though, indeed, as late as the present century, the Mortara case cast a blot on Pio Nono's pontificate. Mr. Adams knows how to write well and easily; indeed, this History might be read by any one, it is so clearly and vigorously expressed. The division of the contemporary progress of the nation into chapters is plain, and enables the reader to follow the writer without difficulty.