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NOTES AND QUERIES. [9* s. v. FEB. 17, 1900.

the volume is up to the high level of its prede- cessors.

Jacob at Bethel : an Essay on Comparative Religion.

By A. Smythe Palmer, D. D. (Nutt. )

THE second volume of the series of " Studies in

Biblical Subjects" is by the same author as the

first, to which it is in some respects complementary.

Dr. Smythe Palmer is one of our most accomplished

Assyriologists, and an authority on folk-etymology.

His studies on Babylonic influence upon the Hebrew

Scriptures are of extreme value, throwing light

as they do on the manner in which, out of the

superstitions of pagan creeds, the Hebrews shaped

and formulated a creed by which the world has

subsequently been influenced. In his present work

Dr. Smythe Palmer gives the interpretation of the

vision of Jacob at Bethel, where upon the golden

ladder, at the top of which was Jahveh, or God, he

saw the " bright - harnessed angels" ascend and

descend. Each feature in this vision is illustrative

of some form of Babylonian creed, and so is linked

with the origin of primitive culture. A ladder,

the base of which is on earth while the summit is

in the skies, is scarcely more easily realized than

the beanstalk which connected with fairyland the

domain of nursery fiction. The word translated

" ladder " is in the Hebrew sulldm, which,

as Dr. Smythe Palmer shows, probably meant

a terraced mound answering to the Babylonian

Ziggurat, a symbol of the worship and local presence

of the heavenly power. These Ziggurats, a famous

historical instance of which is the Tower of Babel,

consisted of seven diminishing stages, and were

surmounted by the shrine of a deity to which the

edifice was erected. The origin of the construction

is to be found in the primitive worship of the

Akkadians. Once the explanation is received, the

rest is simple. The Deity was seen by Jacob on

the spot where he was to be expected, in the shrine

or sanctuary he was intended to inhabit. Other

features in the vision fit no less easily into primitive

belief, and the whole is thus linked with the latest

discoveries of Biblical science. Quite impossible

is it for us to point out the means by which Dr.

Smythe Palmer arrives at his results or justifies

his conclusions. Adequately to do this requires a

knowledge on Oriental subjects to which we put in

no claim. It would, moreover, be to interfere with

the delight of the student, to whom the volume

must necessarily commend itself. Dr. Smythe

Palmer's authority will not be questioned, and. the

work, like his previous book, is a model of sound

theory and well-applied erudition. It is a little

confusing to us to learn that Jacob at the time was

not a youth, but a man of over seventy, or, as some

will have it, ninety years.

Useful Arts and Handicrafts. By Charles Godfrey

Leland. Parts l.-IX. (Dawbarn & Ward.) WE have received various numbers of a series, edited by Mr. Leland, intended to teach students .and amateurs the minor arts, and instruct them how to make homes artistic and tasteful. One hundred numbers, intended to be bound into volumes, are to be issued. Among the subjects already treated are 4 Designing and Drawing, ' Wood-Carving,' ' Picture Frames,' 4 Dyes,' ' Stains, ' Inks,' &c., * Decorated Wood- Work,' ' Pyrography, . &c. The illustrations are numerous and excellent and a capital idea seems in the way of being satis .factorily carried out.

THE leading contributions in the latest number of Folk-Lore are Mr. Jevons's article on the place of otemism in the evolution of religion, and Lieut. - }ol. R. C. Temple's account of the folk-lore in the egends of the Punjab. Another interesting paper, which is placed under the heading 'Miscellanea,' onsists of a collection of popular superstitions made in Dorset in 1897. The English counties are ividently still mines of wealth for those who devote hemselves to anthropology and the allied sciences, hough it is to be feared that in a few short years he information which might yet be stored, were here only sufficient collectors to preserve it, will >e almost entirely lost. It is only the elderly people vho still cling to ancient conceptions and time- lallowed traditions. The young are often too deeply tinctured with modernism to pay serious attention to the out-of-date theories of their pre- decessors. The unquestioning faith which gives vitality to a belief is already waning, and all the 'oik-lore which is riot actually doomed to extinction s at least becoming rapidly modified to suit the requirements of the present time.

THE recent numbers of the Intermediate keep up ) the standard of the past, and offer to their readers a varied supply of notes and observations, feudal castles, the titles of French feudal princes, chimneys in churches, the origin of the phrase ' Datum inter leones," and the ornamental plaques on the harness of mules, are among the subjects dealt with. The pedigree of the head of the Trans- vaal army is also discussed, for French genealogists are naturally far from ill pleased to think that Ureneral Joubert and his subordinates owe a share of their fighting blood to Gallic ancestry.

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