It is called the Jewish Nose in conformity with long-established nomenclature, and is, perhaps more frequent among the Jews than among most other nations resident in Europe. It is, however a fallacy to suppose that the peculiar physiognomy called Jewish is confined to the Jews, or even exclusively characteristic of them. It is in fact a form of profile common to all the inhabitants of Syria; and Sir G. Wilkinson has proved in his erudite work on Ancient Egypt, that the nations represented in the Egyptian sculptures with this cast of countenance are not always intended for Jews, as was at one time supposed, but for Syrians. Moreover, this form of countenance is to this day, the usual one among the Arabs of that part of the world. This Nose should therefore more properly be called the Syrian Nose.
This fact enables us to extend our illustrations, by adducing divers national proofs of the correctness of the indications ascribed to this Nose.
We have said that it is a good, useful, practical Nose, i. e. a good money-getting Nose, a good commercial Nose, and perhaps the latter term would be an apt secondary designation for it. Hence, those nations which have been most largely gifted with it, have been always celebrated for their commercial success.
The Phœnicians were Syrians, and the portraits which we have of these people on the Egyptian sculptures, as read by Sir G. Wilkinson, all exhibit this form of Nose. It is unnecessary to enlarge on the very early commercial activity of this nation, on its extensive traffic, its flourishing colonies, and its mighty fleets. While the rest of the world was in barbarism, or kept their low civilization carefully locked up within their own dominions, the Phœnicians were spreading arts and letters among the barbarous nations of Europe, and carrying civilization forward on its destined course towards the West. And the incentive to this and the means whereby it was effected were the same as those which now animate modern Tyre to promote the same Westward tendency of civilization. What Phœnicia, a little western corner of Asia, did for Europe, England, a little western corner of Europe, has done and is doing for lands still further West—America and Austral-Asia; destined to be in their turns the seats of a still progressive civilization, until every part of the earth shall have been in succession blessed with a civilization, if not always equal in degree, always adequate to its age, requirements, and capacity.
Then when the whole circle shall have been accomplished—and of which more than two-thirds have been already passed over—when civilization in Austral-Asia shall touch the confines of its original starting point, the Eastern shores of India, the consummation of all things shall be at hand; the purpose for which the earth was created, and for which millions of years have been slowly, surely, and silently beautifying, storing, and adapting it, until it is like “the Garden of the Lord,” shall have been fulfilled; and the whole of this beautiful system shall vanish away like a breath, yet leave no vacuity, no defect, in the vast and mighty universe, whose limits utterly transcend our notions of time and space.
Two-thirds of this circle have been already passed over; the remaining third is rapidly running out: we already stand half-way between the beginning and the end of this third part; nay, we are nearer the end than the beginning, we see more clearly and apprehend more closely the day when Austral-Asia shall be the seat of civilization and Christianity, than we do the day when those blessings seventeen hundred years ago, first landed on our shores; we feel more affinity for, and more sympathy with, the latter age than with the former, and we may be assured that we do this because we are much nearer in Time to the one than to the other.
This is an awful contemplation; we cannot but feel that there is an extra responsibility cast upon us upon whom literally “the ends of the world are come,” and that it concerns us more than all who have gone before to be up and be doing; to take heed that while civilization is progressing geographically, it is also progressing in power and character; for upon the extent and nature of the Knowledge which we transmit, depend in a great degree the extent and nature of the Knowledge which shall ever reign on the earth.
Theologically considered, the subject is infinitely more awful and important; and the mind cannot contemplate without fear and trembling, what may be the consequences if we, instead of a pure and perfect, transmit to the few generations yet to subsist on the earth, an impure and imperfect, Christianity.
But to return to our more immediate subject. The Jews have always been celebrated for shrewdness in commercial affairs. Though the peculiarities of their religion prevented them from taking a leading part in the general commercial business of the ancient world, yet among themselves trade always flourished; and in the present age of the world, the Jews were in all countries the first revivers of commerce after the stagnation occasioned by the irruptions of the northern hordes, and in many nations are still almost the only traders.
It does not always follow, however, that the love and capacity for getting money is accompanied by a sordid disinclination to part with it. Numerous instances occur of persons who shrewdly bargain for pence, but liberally give away pounds. As we may seem to have inferred that the former is a Jewish habit, it is right, and we are happy to be able to say, that some instances of princely liberality among modern Jews, afford lessons which Christians would do well to take.