The present volume contains a collection of essays, the majority of which
were read as papers before various literary societies, such as the
International Congress of Orientalists, the Biblical Archaeological
Society, and the Jews' College Literary Association. Several of them have
already appeared in various periodicals, such as the _Imperial Asiatic
Review_, the _Jewish Quarterly Review_, and the _Jewish Chronicle_, and
are now reproduced, with some slight modification, by the courtesy of the
editors. Translations of some of the essays have also been published in
Hebrew, French, and German periodicals.
The essays, it may be remarked, deal somewhat extensively with the humour
and satire that is not infrequently to be found in the works both of
ancient and modern Hebrew writers; and, as this subject has hitherto
attracted but little attention, I am not without hope that these pages may
be of interest to the general reader.