and of the nature of the change indicated, because a superficial estimate of its most striking phenomena has given currency to an unfounded prejudice, by which the observer is very likely to be misled. We read in many books, some of them very estimable, that the Jews during the exile underwent a complete metamorphosis through the influence of Babylonian and Persian civilization, that they adopted the ideas of the foreigner, even in religious matters, and lost the very language of their fathers in