the ground, he contrived to touch the heel of King Og;
from which it has been concluded that that monarch was from two to three
thousand cubits in height. But (remarks an English writer) a certain
Jewish traveller has shown the fallacy of this mensuration, by meeting
with the end of one of the leg-bones of the said King Og, and travelling
four hours before he came to the other end. Supposing this Rabbi to have
been a fair walker, the bone was sixteen miles long!

[80] Is it possible that this "story" of the unicorn was
borrowed and garbled from the ancient Hindu legend of
the Deluge? "When the flood rose Manu embarked in the
ship, and the fish swam towards him, and he fastened the
ship's cable to its horn." But in the Hindu legend the
fish (that is, Brahma in the form of a great fish) tows
the vessel, while in the Talmudic legend the ark of Noah
takes the unicorn in tow.

[81] In a manuscript preserved in the Lambeth Palace Library,
of the time of Edward IV, the height of Moses is said to
have been "xiij. fote and viij. ynches and half"; and
the reader may possibly find some amusement in the
"longitude of men folowyng," from the same veracious
work: "Cryste, vj. fote and iij. ynches. Our Lady, vj.
fote and viij. ynches. Crystoferus, xvij. fote and viij.
ynches. King Alysaunder, iiij. fote and v. ynches.
Colbronde, xvij. fote and ij. ynches and half. Syr Ey.,
x. fote iij. ynches and half. Seynt Thomas of
Caunterbery, vij. fote, save a ynche. Long Mores, a man
of Yrelonde borne, and servaunt to Kyng Edward the
iiijth., vj. fote and x. ynches and half."--_Reliquae
Antiquae_, vol i, p. 200.

IV

MORAL AND ENTERTAINING TALES.

If most of the rabbinical legends cited in the preceding sections have
served simply to amuse the general reader--though to those of a
philosophical turn they must have been suggestive of the depths of
imbecility to which the human mind may descend--the stories, apologues,
and parables contained in the Talmud, of which specimens are now to be
presented, are calculated to furnish wholesome moral instruction as well
as entertainment to readers of all ranks and ages. In the art of
conveying impressive moral lessons, by means of ingenious fictions, the
Hebrew sages have never been excelled, and perhaps they are rivalled
only by