NOTES OF A READER

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THE JEWS.


The undeviating and uniform identity of the features and general
character of countenance, which accompany the Jews, wherever they
settle, is one of the most curious phenomena in nature; climate and all
those physical circumstances belonging to localities, which work such
wonderful changes in the physical character of man, appear to have no
influence upon the tribe of Israel. The circumcised of Monmouth-street
is as like that of Judea-Gape, in Frankfort, as two individuals of the
same nation can be; let them be by birth and residence German, English,
Russian, Portuguese, or Polish, still the one and only set of features
belonging to the race will be seen equally in all.--_Granville's,
Tour_.

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FRENCH MUSIC.

About the year 1760, Piccini, who was the Rossini of his day, was called
to Paris to reform the grand opera. The French, roused by the elegant
tirades of Rousseau, and the piquant witticisms of all the foreigners
who visited Paris, began to conceive it possible that their music was