(p. 18). "There is a spirit of pure, lofty, and unselfish morality evident throughout all the various scenes of this interesting and unaffected book. It shows us the brightest, strongest elements of God-fearing Puritanism; ..." "Here are the lyric songs from 'the law and prophets,' Abraham's meditation on the Mount Moriah, Cain's lamentations for Abel, David's lament for Saul and Jonathan, and many a noble ode from the Psalms and short epics from Job. . . ." "Here Truth and Justice and the Fear of God are all placed on the high pedestals they so well deserve; and there is withal a kindly insistence everywhere on those great teachings which tend to make life more abounding in hope, more perfect in self-restraint and more lifted-up in spirit."

All these ideas are Hebrew, and characteristically Biblical But the most curious fact, from our point of view, is that this work contains a description of the Ideal State on Mount Zion. Of course, the tendency is thoroughly Christian, but it is that kind of Christianity which is inspired by the Old Testament and by a sentiment of love for the old Jewish nation and the Holy Land. This book is the poetical expression of the Restoration ideas of the seventeenth century. It begins with a description of the springtime in New Jerusalem, "the city with twelve gates" (Ezekiel xlviii. 31), and “a virgin who held in her right hand a golden rod, and in her left the two tables of the Law." The tourist-visitors, "two Englishmen and the third a Sicilian," are told that "it is the anniversary of the founding of the city and the virgin you saw represented Zion, or, as they say, the Daughter of Zion." "They " evidently refers to the Jews.

Strangers are received with remarkable hospitality (as in Herzl's Altneuland).

(p. 86). "But Jacob, for that was the old man's name, urged him all the more, 'Come, come,' said he, 'it is a national duty with us to treat strangers with kindness, not unmindful that we too, long ago, were strangers in Egypt, and since then for a long time strangers and wanderers among all the nations of the earth. But now we call none aliens from Israel. . . .”

(p. 88). "We are now very close on the fiftieth year since our long and widely-scattered nation was restored to its present wonderful prosperity." The old Jew then explains the system of education adopted in the new country, a system of physical development and moral integrity.

Joseph, who is one of the tourists and the hero of the romance, indulges in songs of Zion.

(pp. 175-6). "O sacred top of Solyma,

How lovely is thy place

Where stands the city of our King
Where faithful saints rejoice and sing
O mercy, love and grace!

"For there our greater Temple stands
With greater glory blest

And there redeemed from alien lands,

Brought back at last by God's own hands,
His Israel finds her rest."

Here the translator remarks:

(p. 177) note i: "How many sighs and prayers have gone up from the dispersed children of Zion in Russian Poland, in Galicia, in Roumania and by the old broken wall of Jerusalem in these latter days! What longing for this antepast of Heaven' that Joseph here speaks of! What passionate desire for that time, when the children of Zion should no longer have to sing 'the Lord's song in a strange land'! Is this century to see the Zionists in possession again of their Holy City-their longed-for Salem, the Vision,' the Foundation,' the 'Inheritance' of Peace, as expositors have variously entitled it? Who can say ? From a practical point of view the prospect somehow fails to charm; but when I view it in theory, it seems as if the justice of the world as well as the justice of the Eternal One would be nobly consummated by such a termination to an earthly pilgrimage of nigh two thousand years."

The anonymous author proceeds to describe the old-new home, and the people, new-born in benevolence, piety and purity, with their national distinctiveness, and the two tables of the Law. Thus, with all his honest and deep Christian convictions and belief in the final triumph of his religious ideas, he recognizes the right of the Jewish nation to have their country and to remain faithful to their traditions. This strange romance, after all sorts of philosophical reflections and sketches of various adventures in Sicily and elsewhere, comes back to Zion to sing the songs of the Old Testament in Latin verse in a way which shows that the author had the rhythm and atmosphere of Biblical poetry to perfection, and also that his views were much more in harmony with the notions of that time than with modern conceptions. The whole work is inspired by great enthusiasm for Israel's glory, and abounds with sympathy and admiration for the Jewish nation.

Begley, who was a man of profound knowledge and an authority on matters of composition and style, ascribes this work to Milton. If this view be accepted, then to this poet's glory must 1 e added a further claim to immortality, because he was the first poet who expounded-from a Christian point of view-the idea of Israel's Restoration in the form of a poetical romance. But from our point of view it does not matter whether Milton was the author, or another poet; the fact remains that this remarkable work is English and appeared in England in 1648.

XIV

"PRÆADAMITÆ-MEN BEFORE ADAM," BY ISAAC DE LA PEYRÈRE 1

Another of his famous works, also published anonymously,

was:

Præadamitæ. | Sive | Exercitatio | super Versibus duodecimo, decimotertio, & | decimoquarto, capitis quinti Epistolæ | D. Pauli ad Romanos. Qvibvs Indvcvnt vr|Primi Homines ante Adamum conditi. |

Anno Salvtis, | M.DC.LV. |

(4to. 22 l.+297+8 pp. [Synagogis Ivdæorvm Vniversis.]) [1. S.] In the following year it was translated into English:

Men before Adam. | Or | A Discourse upon the twelfth, | thirteenth, and fourteenth Verses of the Fifth Chapter of the Epistle of the Apostle Paul to the Romans.

By which are prov'd, | That the first Men were crea- | ted before Adam.

London, | Printed in the Year, 1656. |

(8°. 8 l.+61 pp. +9 pp.+35 l.)

The End of the first Part (No more published)

[I. S.]

sig. A.4. "To all the Synagogues to the Jews, dispersed over the

face of the Earth.'

sig. M.8. "Terræ Sanctæ Delineatio " (A map of the Holy Land).'

XV

ISAAC VOSSIUS

ISAAC VOSSIUS was born at Leyden in Holland, one of the sons of the renowned scholar Gerard John Vossius by his second wife Elizabeth, daughter of Francis du Jon (Junius) (1545-1602), French theologian and philologist. All the sons were precocious scholars, but Isaac was undoubtedly the most eminent. . . . He was invited by Queen Christina of Sweden, one of the most erudite women of her time, to come and shed the lustre of his learning upon Stockholm. He arrived towards the end of 1649, was appointed a Court Chamberlain,

1 Account of Peyreyra, Author of "Præadamitæ,' Rappel des Juifs," &c. Translated from "Lettres Choisies de M. [Richard] Simon, (1638-1721) ou l'on trouve un grand nombre de Faits et Anecdotes de Literature. Rotterdam 1702."

(Gentleman's Magazine, vol. lxxxii., November, 1812, pp. 432-434; and vol. lxxxiii., June, 1813, pp. 614-616.)

* In another issue in the same year the eight preliminary leaves are from another press. (I. S.]

and taught the Queen Greek. In 1650 he sold her his father's library for twenty thousand florins, with the stipulation that he received five thousand florins yearly with board and residence for its superintendence. In 1652 owing to certain differences he left Sweden. In 1655 Manasseh Ben Israel dedicated to him:--18 Piedra Gloriosa | O| De La | Estatua | De | Nebuchad

nesar.

Con muchas y diversas authoridades | de la S.S. y antiguos sabios. | Compuesto por el Hacham | Menasseh Ben Israel. [Amsterdam An. 5415.

(12mo. 6ll.+259 pp. +3.+4 etchings at pp. 5,87,160, 180.) [1.S.] "All muy noble y doctissimo Señor Isaco Vossio, Gentil hombre de la camara de su Magestad, La Reyna de Svedia.

Muy noble y doctissimo Señor, . . . Intimo amigo y afficionado servidor de V. M.,

Menasseh ben Ysrael. Amsterdam 25. de Abril, An. 5415."

In a list of Manasseh's works at the end of the volume, it is catalogued" Piedra preciosa; o de la Estatua de Nebuchadnesar, donde se sexpone lo mas essencial del libro de Daniel." It was for this small volume that Rembrandt designed and etched four illustrations.1

Vossius was created D.C.L. at Oxford in 1670, and installed to a prebend in the royal chapel at Windsor in 1673, which was presented to him by Charles II (1630-1685), and died at Windsor 21 Feb., 1688. He had accumulated the finest private library in the world, including 762 manuscripts. It was sold at Leyden in 1710 for thirty-six thousand florins. A large number of original letters of Vossius are preserved at the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

XVI
"DOOMES-DAY"

Doomes-Day | Or, | The great Day of the Lord's Iudgement, proved by Scripture; and two other Prophecies, | the one pointing at the yeare 1640. the other at this present yeare 1647. to be even now neer at hand.

With The gathering together of the Jews in great Bodies | under Josias Catzius (in Illyria, Bithinia, and Cappadocia) | for the conquering of the Holy Land. . . .

London, Printed for W. Ley. 1647
I

(4to. 1 1.+6 pp.)

[1. S.]

1 Rembrandt's etchings for the Piedra Gloriosa, by [Dr.] I[srael] A[brahams] [M.A.], with facsimiles, Jewish Chronicle, 13 July, 1906, pp. 39-40: The second series of illustrations for the Piedra Gloriosa of Manasseh Ben Israel, by Israel Solomons, ibid., July 27, p. 31.

(p. 2) ... even those people the Jewes, according to certaine and credible information, are at this time [* Under Josias Catzius, and according to Letters from beyond the Seas, they are numerous, and shew themselves in great bodies in Illyria, Bethinia and Cappadocia.] assembling themselves together into one body from out of all countreys, whereinto they have been driven with a resolution to regaine the holy land once more out of the hand of the Ottaman :

XVII

"RESTAURATION OF ALL ISRAEL AND JUDAH "

A Paper, shewing that the great Conversion and Restauration of all Israel and Judah will be fulfilled at Christs second comming; and that the New Jerusalem, called Jehovah Shamma, described by Ezekiel, chap. 40. to the end of the Book, is most probably then to be set up, and is referred to the same time, &c., May 1. 1674. (4to. 8 l.)

[I. S.]

XVIII

"APOLOGY FOR THE HONORABLE NATION OF THE JEWS-APOLOGIA POR LA NOBLE NACION DE LOS IVDIOS-VERANTWOORDINGE VOOR DE EDELE VOLCKEN DER JOODEN," BY EDWARD NICHOLAS

An | Apology | For The Honorable Nation | Of The | Jews, | And all the Sons of Israel.

Written by Edward Nicholas, Gent.

London, Printed by John Field, 1648.]

(4to. 15 pp.)❜

.

A Spanish translation was also published here:

[I. S.]

Apologia | Por | La noble nacion de los | Ivdios y hijos de |

Israel.

Escrita en Ingles | Por | Eduardo Nicholas. |

E impresa en casa de Juan Field, en Londres,

Año clɔ clc XLIX.

(sm. 8°. 8 U.)

1 Notes and Queries, 10. S. Iv., pp. 10 & 77, JOSIAS CATZIUS.

[I. S.]

2 This tract is alluded to in the concluding paragraph of Manasseh Ben Israel's "Humble Addresses," but the author has not yet been identified. He was at one time thought to be Sir Edward Nicholas (1593-1669), Secretary of State to Charles I and II, and it has even been stated that Edward Nicholas was a pseudonym of Manasseh himself. (See Jewish Chronicle, 9 Feb., 1906. "Edward Nicholas," by Israel Solomons.)

"