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17 and the other his aunt; may be readily conceived; especially when we call to mind certain facts in the history of Spain and Portugal, which occurred towards the end of the XV. century.

Under the persecutions of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Jews had been expelled from Spain, and the unfortunate exiles had settled in Portugal. When their daughter, Isabelle of Castille, was to be espoused to Emanuel of Portugal, that Princess demanded, as one of her conditions, that the Jews should be further expelled from Portugal. This demand does not appear to have been fully complied with, but a compromise to have been substituted for it. The king, carried away by his passion, issued an ordinance, that all Jewish children should be baptized; and history records that many Jews cut their children's throats rather than submit to this tyranny. This marriage took place on August 11th, 1497. She died August 24th, 1498. On August 30th, 1500, King Emanuel married her sister, the Princess Marie de Castille: and it was to legalize this marriage with his deceased wife's sister that he obtained the Dispensation of Pope Alexander VI.

Direct evidence of the following not having been as yet obtained, the suggestion alone can be advanced, that the unfortunate Jews in Portugal, by way of a concession to this new Queen of Portugal, to avoid further persecution, consented to corrupt their books. Your Lordships, however, may be thankful to remember, that there are the Orthodox Jews, and the Karaites, who have not been led so to corrupt their books, and are not defiled with any of these abominations; of which full evidence has been already given in respect of the universal prohibition of these incestuous marriages among all the sects of the Jews which were in existence, under whatever name, at the time that Our Lord appeared upon earth.

For the second passage for which Dr. McCaul appeals to Antiquity forsooth, saying "Antiquity is also my favourite argument;" I yet find not the smallest evidence to shew that it was known at the date of the Commentaries of Maimonides: and yet he asserts that "knowing that before the Advent of the Saviour, and in the days of the Apostles, marriage with a deceased wife's sister was by Jews and Gentiles, considered lawful, a prohibition of the marriage, either by Peter the Apostle of the Circumcision, or Paul the preacher to the Gentiles, or indeed by any of the Apostles, would have been tantamount to a repeal of the permission contained in Leviticus xviii. 18."