THE JEWS' TOWN. VISITS TO VARIOUS POINTS WORTH NOTICING. STATE OF
PUBLIC FEELING.
I have devoted so much more of space than I had intended to the
university, and the associations connected with it, that I must be
content to describe in few words, such other objects as appeared to me
most deserving of notice in Prague. Prominent among these is the Juden
Stadt, or City of the Jews; of which I may state, at the outset, that,
of all the extraordinary scenes in which I have ever been an actor,
there are few which, more than my visit to the Jews' Quarter of Prague,
have left upon my mind so vivid and lasting an impression. Let the
reader imagine to himself, if he can, the effect of a sudden transition
from the pomp and splendour of a great capital into a suburb of mean
and narrow streets, choked up with the litter of old rags, broken
furniture, and cast-off clothes hung out for sale; where are aged women
asleep in their chairs,--young ones nursing infants, or, it may be,
perfecting their own unfinished toilets; men, squalid and filthy, with
long beards, flowing robes, and all the other appurtenances which
usually belong to their race; children in a state of nudity; turbaned
heads, features thoroughly Oriental; tarnished finery, books, music,
and musical instruments, scattered about; everything, in short, whether
animate or inanimate, as entirely in contrast with what you have just
left behind, as you might expect to find it, were you transported
suddenly into some region of the earth, of the very existence of which
you had previously been ignorant. I have passed through the classic
regions of St. Giles, the Seven Dials, and Rag Fair. I have gone, in my
youth, under the escort of a police officer, the round of all the most
degraded corners of London; yet have I never beheld a sight, which, in
all that is calculated to bewilder, if not to outrage, the senses,
could bear one moment's comparison with what the Juden Stadt brought
before me. I confess that the first feeling excited was a vague idea,
that to proceed further might compromise our personal safety. Yet I
defy any one who has penetrated but a few yards down the passage, to
abstain from going on. There is about you, on all sides, an air of
novelty, such as it is impossible to resist; and you march forward,
wondering, as you move, whether you be awake or in a dream.
The establishment of a Jewish colony in Prague is said to be coeval
with the foundation of the city itself. From age to age, moreover, the
sons of Israel have inhabited the same quarter,--namely, a suburb
which, running in part along the margin of the Moldau, is approached
from the Alt Stadt, by the street of which I have just spoken. Here
dwell they, to the number of eight or ten thousand, in a state of
complete isolation from the Christian myriads which surround them,
inhabiting flats, and in many cases, single apartments, by whole
families; and appearing to rejoice in the filth and neglect to which
the Christians have consigned them. The streets in their suburb are all
narrow and mean, and devoid of ornament; the stalls, with the articles
which the chapmen expose upon them, are scattered up and down in utter
confusion; the shops--mere recesses--have Hebrew inscriptions over
them, and the entire population, when I went among them, seemed to be
abroad. One building, and one only, does indeed deserve to be visited:
I allude to the synagogue, the oldest of its class, perhaps, in Europe;
a strange edifice, above the floor of which the soil has gathered to
such a height, that to enter it, you are forced to descend a flight of
steps. I must endeavour to describe it, though conscious that
description must utterly fail to convey a correct idea of the original.
The Old Synagogue, as it is called, a structure of the twelfth century,
is essentially Gothic in the leading points of its architecture, but so
loaded with Byzantine ornaments as to resemble no other edifice of a
similar date which I, at least, have seen in Europe. It is thoroughly
Oriental in its character, fantastic in its proportions, and little
likely to be mistaken, under any circumstances, for a Christian church.
The interior is not less remarkable, whether we look to the productions
of the builder's skill, or to the arrangements which have been made for
the purposes of worship and study. A lofty vault, supported upon three
Gothic pillars, which spring from the middle of the area, and meet in
pointed arches at the roof, it is lighted only by a range of
lancet-shaped windows, which being elevated above the floor to the
height of forty or fifty feet, throw down a few broken rays upon your
head, just sufficient to render the darkness visible, but not to dispel
it. By this uncertain glimmer, you perceive, after a while, that walls,
and pillars, and roof, are black with the dust of ages; and that every
thing around you bears testimony to the gloomy nature of the reverence
which these stubborn Israelites pay to the God who has discarded them.
Beneath the arch of the pillars there is a raised platform, where desks
and stools are placed for the accommodation of the rabbins, and the
pupils who come hither to study the Law. At the extremity of the vault
stands the altar, the silver candlestick, with its many branches,
surmounting it, while from the roof hang seven silver lamps, to "give
light," according to the Divine injunction, "over against the
candlestick." I exceedingly regretted to find that the day on which I
inspected this pile was not a holy season in the Juden Stadt. Some
doctors and students there were, on the platform, whose attention
seemed engrossed by the occupation in which they were engaged; and
their picturesque dresses, flowing beards, and stubborn and haughty
expressions of countenance, accorded well with the localities by which
they were surrounded. But the business of prayer was not in progress,
and the sacred Book of the Law lay hidden.
From the Synagogue we passed into the old cemetery, which lies
contiguous to it, and looked round upon a picture of desolation more
stern than the dream of the poet has perhaps ever conjured up.
Extensive as the plot of ground is, there is not, throughout its
compass, one foot of level soil. Graves, trodden partially down,
pointed grave-stones that are sloping and falling in every
direction,--these, with a wilderness of alder trees, which, whether
planted by the hand of man, or sown by the winds of heaven, overshadow
the crumbling tombs, constitute altogether a fitting monument to the
desolate condition and broken fortunes of the Hebrew race. Yet may you
easily enough distinguish, from the devices that are engraved on each
of them, the rank and condition of many of those who sleep beneath
these grave-stones. The lion of Judah, the upraised hands of the house
of Aaron, the Nazarite's bunch of grapes, are all here; while the
graves of the rabbins are, as elsewhere, adorned, each with a sort of
cenotaph. The Jews have, for some time, ceased to bury in this mass of
human dust. It was filled, and filled, till it could contain the bones
of no more; and now their dead are carried to a new cemetery, removed a
short distance beyond the city walls.
According to their own traditions, the quarter of Prague which the Jews
now occupy was possessed by their ancestors long before the destruction
of Jerusalem. We may credit this statement or not, just as we please;
but it seems admitted, on all hands, that if they dwelt not where we
now find them, previous to the foundation of the city, they were among
the earliest of the colonists who repaired to it. Many and severe
changes of fortune they have indeed undergone. Plundered, oppressed,
more than once expelled by violence, they have yet returned, again and
again, to the home of their adoption, and they are now treated, if not
respectfully, at least mildly, and on the whole, justly, by their
Christian rulers. I must add, moreover, to this account of their
suburb, that the more wealthy members of their community do not now
make their dwellings there. These generally inhabit houses in the
better part of the city, and having the command of a large proportion
of the floating capital of the country, they receive such marks of
deference as the rich, under the most unfavourable circumstances,
contrive to exact from the poor.
Among other objects in the Alt Stadt, which make powerful demands on
the traveller's notice, the Rath-haus, or ancient Town-hall, and the
Thein Kirche, stand conspicuously forward. The former is a quaint,
irregular Gothic pile, in a very dilapidated state, of which the
Council-chamber is fine, in its degree, and the little chapel curious.
It was here, that in 1420, the leaders of the Taborites assembled,
their followers being gathered together in the Grosse Ring, or square
beneath, and at the tolling of a bell, the whole sallied forth to
commit those excesses which, both in Bohemia and elsewhere, have cast
such discredit on the dawn of the Reformation. It was in a dungeon
beneath the Rath-haus that the Emperor Wenzel IV. suffered, in the year
1403, a fifteen weeks' imprisonment; and it was in the square, on which
the windows of the hall look out, that the jousts and tournaments of
the knightly age were carried forward. Of the latter again, which
fronts the Rath-haus, and so occupies a conspicuous position in the
same square, why should I say more than has been said already? Here, in
1458, the states assembled to elect to the vacant throne the virtuous
George of Podiebrad; here Huss preached, and John of Rokysan taught;
and Tycho Brahe found here the last resting-place which is allotted to
mortality. There is a rude monument to him,--a figure in armour, carved
in relief, against one of the pillars near the altar; and over it is
engraved the astronomer's motto, _Esse quam haberi_. It is remarkable
enough that as in this church the communion was first administered in
both elements to the people, so is there still to be found here the
single memorial that remains of the privileges which were once so
dearly prized, and so hardly won. The service of the Roman Catholic
church is performed here in the Bohemian language; and the congregations
which attend to take part in it are enormous.
From the Alt Stadt you pass to the Neu Stadt by a street called Graben,
across the site of which was, in ancient days, a ditch, but of which,
as well as of the rampart that surmounted it, not a trace now remains.
It is a clean, airy, well-built portion of Prague, and embraces the old
town within a sort of semicircle, of which the extremities reach, on
either side, to the Moldau. Here the Military Hospital,--once a college
of the Jesuits,--will naturally attract attention, both on account of
the elegance of its structure, and the uses to which it is turned. It
has a noble façade, which measures upwards of six hundred feet in
length, a chapel, a hall, and accommodation for four hundred invalids,
whose wants, though attended to, are certainly not prevented with the
care which distinguishes a similar institution among ourselves. The old
soldiers made, it is true, no complaints. They seemed, on the contrary,
perfectly satisfied with their condition,--all, at least, except
one,--who, strange to say, had served in the 97th British regiment for
seventeen years, ere he entered the service of Austria; and even he
said very little. He was a German, had been discharged in consequence
of a wound, after fighting in Egypt and the Peninsula, had then entered
the Austrian army, and was now enjoying his otium in Prague. I learned
from him that the rate of allowance to each man, was a suit of clothes
once in four years, one pair of shoes and one pair of soles per annum,
a quarter of a pound of meat with twice as much black bread daily, and
no wine. Had he gone upon what we should call the out-pension, his
subsistence would have amounted to three-pence,--of our money,--per
day.
There are several churches and convents in the same quarter of Prague;
but none which much repay the trouble of inspecting them. That of St.
Emaus is, perhaps, the most interesting, both because it is the oldest,
being of the date 1348, and because here some traces of frescoes, which
escaped the Hussite violences, may be found. But except for these, and
a few of the trophies that were taken at the battle of the White
Mountain, it will not strike the visitor as, in any respect,
remarkable. It is not here, indeed, nor in the Alt Stadt neither, that
the curious in such matters will seek for gratification. He who loves
to muse amid the cloisters of a monastery, or delights to recreate
himself amid the "Temple's holy gloom," will find the freest scope for
the indulgence of his humours, on the opposite side of the Moldau; and
as our tastes reverted to that channel, after sufficient time had been
devoted to other matters, it may not be amiss if I state some of the
occurences that befell during our second visit to the Hradschin and the
Strahow.
Not far from the cathedral, and, as a necessary consequence, adjoining
to the palace, are two objects which put in strong claims to notice.
One is a Loreto chapel, built on the model of that which has so often
changed its resting-place; the other is the convent of St. Lawrence,
within which the chapel is erected. The latter,--an exact copy of that
in the valley of the Misio,--is small, and dark in the interior, the
shrine being lighted up only by the lamps which burn continually before
the image of the Virgin. It is, however, rich in costly vestments and
plate, and richer still in the reverence which the pious pay to it. The
convent, again, is large, with fine cloisters, and some tolerable
frescoes along the sides of them, and the monks, to do them justice,
are exceedingly civil. My young companion expressed a wish to visit
their cells, and it was instantly complied with: we were directed to
pass round to another door, and there the porter took charge of us.
Our guide,--a squalid creature, with shaven crown, bare legs, sandaled
feet, and a grizzly beard,--led us by a long passage first into the
refectory. It was a hall of no great dimensions, meanly furnished with
deal benches and tables, and surrounded on the walls, with some rude
representations of the most loathsome and horrid martyrdoms. The tables
were spread with wooden trenchers, each of which had a morsel of
rye-bread beside it, and beneath each bench were rows of
spit-boxes,--one being set apart for the use of each of the brothers.
What the viands might be which were to fill the trenchers, I do not
know; but the smell was not inviting, so we quitted the hall, and
following our guide up stairs, were introduced into a cell. Its
appearance entirely overthrew the theories which my young companion had
nourished. A small, but neatly-furnished apartment, with a clean bed, a
chest of drawers, and a quantity of flowers on the window-sill, by no
means came up to the ideas which he had entertained of monastic
asceticism; and when, over and above all this, he found more than a
breviary and a crucifix within reach, namely, a sort of pocket-library
and a lute, his astonishment found vent in words.
"Are monks allowed to indulge their taste for music?" asked he.
"Oh yes," was the reply; "Brother Franz is a great musician. It is he
that always leads in the chanted grace before and after meals."
Brother Franz, however, was not present to answer for himself; so we
continued our progress.
We desired to see the chapel; and as we approached it by a back stair,
the notes of the organ that swelled along the passage, gave indication
that some service was going on. We entered a gallery, whence, from
behind the shelter of a screen, we could look down upon the chapel, and
those that filled it. The congregation was both numerous and devout,
and in the body of the pile, all were engaged in singing a requiem for
a departed soul. On a bier in the middle aisle, stood a coffin, having
a skull and cross-bones laid upon the pall, and over it hung a priest,
whose gestures sufficiently indicated, that for the tenant of that
narrow chamber he was supplicating. "This is some recent death?"
demanded I; "some person of note is gone to his account, and you are
praying that his sins may be pardoned?"
"No, sir," answered the monk, "the individual whose demise we this day
commemorate, gave up the ghost an hundred years ago; but we are still
bound to say masses for her soul. She has bequeathed property to secure
this for ever."
"And is her body in that coffin?" demanded I.
"Not at all," was the answer; "these are but representations of what
you take them for. That is not a coffin, neither are these a skull and
cross-bones."
I could not help smiling, when this avowal was made with such perfect
simplicity; and I went away surprised, that any such awkward endeavour
to work upon the sympathies of the people, should be considered
judicious.
Among other days of the week, we spent a Sunday in Prague; and a regard
to truth compels me to state that the contrast which was presented by
the mode of observing the Lord's Day there, to what we had witnessed in
Protestant Saxony and Protestant Prussia, redounded very little to the
honour of the latter countries. I need not observe that nowhere, on the
continent of Europe, are the evenings of the Lord's Day devoted to
other purposes than those of amusement. Whatever may be the national
faith, whether Romish or Reformed, this is universally the case; but
while in Saxony and Prussia the laws appear to sanction the total
desecration of that day, even to the prosecution of men's ordinary
employments, in Prague, and I am bound to add generally in popish
Bohemia, no such desecration takes place. After a given hour, all
classes put on their merriest bearing, it is true, and the clergy,--in
Prague, a curious combination of stiffness and dandyism,--may be met
every where; but till that time arrives, the offices of religion appear
to engross all thoughts, for the shops are closed, and the streets
deserted, except by persons passing to and from their several places of
worship. How much more decent, to use no stronger expression, is this,
than the sort of scenes which I had occasion to describe in a previous
chapter,--how much better calculated to keep alive among the people
some sense of religion, some respect at least for its external
observances,--not entirely, it is to be hoped, unconnected with a
regard for higher things than externals.
Why should I continue these details any further? We visited the
theatre, with the music and acting in which we were greatly delighted;
we dined on one of the islands in the Moldau, in the open air, in the
midst of a crowd, beneath the canopy of heaven, and with a well-managed
band to serenade us all the while; we spent an evening greatly to our
own satisfaction, under the shade of the trees in the Thiergarten. We
climbed the Strahow, inspected the monastery that crowns its summit,
admired the fine library, and gazed with reverence on the autograph of
Tycho Brahe; we wandered round the ramparts; we surveyed the field of
the battle of Prague; we examined more minutely the ground on which
Ziska had fought and conquered; we left nothing unexplored, in short,
which we found that it was possible to bring within the scope of
general observation; nor permitted any matter, concerning which
curiosity had been excited, to pass without investigation. The result
was a tolerably accurate acquaintance with every remarkable object in
the place, not excepting Count Nositz's small but excellent
gallery,--one of the most creditable collections of modern growth which
I have seen. Neither did we fail to form acquaintance with the people,
as well of the humbler as of the more exalted stations; of which the
result, in every instance, was, that the favourable impression which
had been made upon me, while wandering among the mountains, suffered no
diminution. I found them to be,--in the city, not less than among the
villages,--a kind-hearted, industrious, and most patient race. I saw,
indeed, that they were not without their grounds of discontent, and
that they felt their grievances keenly. The higher orders complained
because the ancient capital of their native land had sunk into a mere
provincial town. They pointed to palaces deserted and falling to decay,
and said, with natural bitterness, that it ill became Bohemians of the
best blood to prefer the pleasures of Vienna to the duty which they
owed to their father-land. They spoke, too, indignantly of the
centralizing system, of the ban that had gone forth against their
beloved language, of the extinction of their privileges, and the
efforts that are making, to blot out the very remembrance of their
nationality. "But it will not succeed," was the usual termination of
such harangues. "We have no idea of shaking off the yoke. We know that
in the present state of Europe, Bohemia could not exist one year as an
independent monarchy; but we shall never be content till the laws are
everywhere administered in a language which is intelligible to the
people, and we and they be permitted to exercise some control over our
own affairs." In like manner, the humbler classes,--the shop-keeper,
the mechanic, and the artisan,--spoke not unintelligibly of their
altered condition, since the native nobility were their best customers,
and taxation scarcely reached them. "But we are no longer a people now.
The stranger rules us, the shackles are on our wrists;--what can we
do?" Then would follow a shrug of the shoulders, a wink of the eye, and
a hasty return to the sort of manner which a careless observer might
easily mistake for the external proof of content, but which is, in
fact, a disguise put on to hide feelings directly the reverse.