visited Rome for the first time during the pontificate of Sixtus IV. This famous scholar is said to have exclaimed in rapture, on hearing Reuchlin translate Thucydides, "Now has our banished Greece found a refuge beyond the Alps!"

But Hebrew was Reuchlin's special study, and that on which his fame as a scholar must chiefly rest. He was in fact the author, with the exception of a small attempt extending to a few pages by Conrad Pellican, of the first Hebrew grammar and dictionary. This really great work, the materials for which he had collected with indefatigable industry and at no little expense, and which he says he was impelled to write lest otherwise the knowledge of Hebrew should be lost in consequence of the persecution of the Jews, appeared in the year 1506. It is dedicated to his brother Dionysius, a priest, whom he exhorts to learn Hebrew as well as Greek, "the more especially as the Jews of our time, moved by envy or ignorance, are unwilling that any Christian should be instructed in their language;" and he ends it with the justifiable boast, from Horace " Exegi monumentum ære perennius." But besides this, Reuchlin was the author of two other very learned works, of a less solid, but in many respects more interesting character, which may now be noticed at some greater length, not only as illustrating the peculiar genius of the man, but as specimens from a somewhat unfrequented field of literature. One of these was on the Cabbalistic art; the other was entitled, "De Verbo Mirifico," or "The Wonderful Name;" and these works were no doubt considered by their author of far greater consequence than the grammar, being in fact the actual treasures to which the other was but the key. Thus it will be seen that Hebrew had for Reuchlin all the attractiveness of a mysterious art. Indeed, he himself claims for his "Rudiments," that they "would open the way to the prosecution of the profoundest sciences," and this opinion he supports by the authority of his friend Pico di Mirandola, an enthusiast for Cabbalistic studies, and from whom he had himself first caught the infection. "Whoever," he says, "understands thoroughly the principles of the Hebrew tongue, and adheres to them in his scientific investigations, has a rule for the perfect discovery of everything which it is possible for man to know."

It is not very difficult to understand the nature of the

interest which attracted at least two of the best minds of the fifteenth century to Cabbalistic investigations, and which would probably have attracted many more, had not the science been so difficult of attainment. The Hebrew language was confessedly a sacred language. It was the language which God himself had spoken, and which He had taught to the first man. Was it not likely that it concealed much more than fell upon the outward ear? Again, the Hebrew Bible was confessedly a sacred book. Every word and every letter were in their place by the direct appointment of Heaven. That was a circumstance which both Jews and Christians might join in believing, and which few had learned to doubt. Was it probable, then, that such interference had taken place merely to record the events of a history, however wonderful, or to institute laws and manners for a people, however favoured? Or was it not more probable that underneath the obvious meaning of Scripture, and implied in the arrangement of words and letters, there were many secrets which only the initiated might read? This is indeed the principle of all allegorical and mystical interpretations; and such is the idea on which the Cabbala was founded. The theory was, that upon Mount Sinai the Law had been delivered in two forms-the one, the written Law, which is the same as that now contained in the Pentateuch; the other, the unwritten Law, of which the former was but the shadow, and which was transmitted from mouth to mouth among the most holy men of the Jews to the time of Ezra, by whom it was at length committed to writing, lest it should be lost for ever amid the constant vicissitudes to which the nation was exposed. Thus under the more obvious meaning of the Hebrew text the most recondite truths might be concealed; nay, even the form of a letter might involve some august and awful mystery. Such, in the fewest words, was the art which Reuchlin undertook to recommend to his countrymen.

The work on the Cabbalistic art, which did not appear for several years after the Hebrew grammar, is in the form of a dialogue between Philolaus, a young Pythagorean, Marranus, a Mohammedan, and a Hebrew named Simon, who is the chief speaker, and unfolds the mysteries of his faith to his companions. It would be unprofitable to attempt anything like a full analysis of a work of this kind, but it

may be stated that it treats, among other subjects, of the revelations made to Adam, Shem, Abraham and the other patriarchs, each of whom had his own angelic instructor; of the first and second Adam; of the restoration of the angels; of the Messiah; of hurtful demons and the means of driving them away; of the resurrection and regeneration of the dead. Information upon all these subjects was deducible from Scripture by a threefold method of interpretation, which no doubt might be made by the exercise of a little ingenuity to prove almost anything that the most unrestrained imagination could suggest: namely, first by putting one word in place of another; secondly, by putting a word in place of a letter; and, thirdly, by substituting one letter for another letter. The lost books of Scripture seem to have been all regarded as Cabbalistic, but there was besides a mass of literature upon this subject still extant with which Reuchlin had evidently made himself acquainted. The titles of some of these books are sufficiently characteristic. Such are, "De Splendore," by Simeon, son of Johai; "Portæ Justitiæ," by Rabbi Joseph, son of Carnitolis; "De Credulitatibus," by Rabbi Saadia; "Liber explanationum Alphabeti ;" and it may perhaps be thought no bad commentary on the nature of the speculations contained in these works, that one of them-and of all others "De Splendore"-is said to have been written in a vast and gloomy cave, in which the author lay concealed from the sight of the world for four-and-twenty years. The following sentences from the close of this work will illustrate the earnest and elevated spirit in which Reuchlin pursued his investigations, while they also shew that the Cabbala did not confine itself to mere dreams, but sometimes sought to grapple with the deepest problems of philosophy. Reuchlin has quoted from the Mystic Theology of Dionysius the Areopagite (of the genuineness of whose works he was a warm defender), the statement that God is neither Number nor Order nor One nor Unity, and proceeds to ask, "What then is He? The answer of Simonides to Hiero," he continues, "was, that the more he reflected upon the subject, the less was he able to understand it. I have had a similar experience; for when, passing the bounds of creation, I ascend above all being, I find only an infinite sea of nothingness and a fountain of all existence springing perennially from the abyss of dark

ness. O the height! O the depth! O the weakness of humanity! But it should be enough for us to know of Him what He has been pleased to reveal to us of Himself."*

The other treatise, "De Verbo Mirifico," might be supposed to be a sequel to that just noticed, as discussing a single branch of the same subject, but in reality it was published many years before. This work opens with a protracted conversation between Sidonius, a student of the heathen systems of philosophy, Baruch, a Hebrew, and Capnio, a Christian, on the possibility of divine revelation. Sidonius maintains, on the principles of Epicurus and Lucretius, that man can have no true knowledge of divine things, there being no proportion between the finite and the infinite; to which Baruch replies by referring to several instances of inspiration among the heathen, and then to the history of his own nation, as being more authentic. Presently Capnio, who of course speaks for the author, joins the convervation, observing that all the senses have their proper objects; but, as Epicurus himself asserts, the eye and the other organs of sense have no cognizance of the essential nature of things; and hence the need of a special faculty for this purpose. This, then, is the province of reason. Truth is the food of reason, just as colour is the food of the eye, or sound of the ear. So far is he from admitting that we have no knowledge save of material things, that he maintains that of these things we have no knowledge at all. The nature of substances is entirely different, being incorrupt and immutable, and there are divine things which are perceived not by sensible apprehension, but by the force of the intellect. Thus it will be seen how thoroughly Platonic and transcendental was the philosophy of Reuchlin. He would not, however, acknowledge any debt to Plato, but rather imagined, as many had imagined before him, that Plato owed much to the Scriptures. In the second book, Capnio, who has undertaken to instruct his two companions

"Respondit Hieroni Simonides, Quanto magis cogito, tanto minus intelligo. Et mihi accidit simile; cum exactis omnibus creatis ascendem supra omne ens non invenio aliud quam infinitum pelagus nihilitudinis, et fontem omnis entitatis ex abysso tenebrarum manantem perenniter. O altitudo, O profunditas, O nostra infirmitas! At satis videri debet id nos de illo nosse quod ipse nobis de se revelavit," &c.

"Et, O Deus bone, quanta invenio illum istinc (e Scripturis) piscatum, magna ex parte verbum e verbo !"

in some of the deeper mysteries of the Cabbala, proceeds to explain how man may pass upwards into God and God dwell in man. This property is a profound secret, but it seems to consist in a knowledge of the Divine names. The name by which God revealed himself to Moses was Ehieh ; but a still higher name, as some considered it, because it expresses the identity of the Divine essence, was Hu-the name by which God calls himself when He appears to Isaiah, saying, I am the Lord, Hu is my name. And a third name, also of deep import, is Esth, signifying fire, the three together denoting an ineffable Trinity subsisting in the Godhead, and corresponding with the trinity of substance, virtue and operation, which is contained in all visible things. But a name far more sacred than any of these is the unutterable Tetragrammaton-IHUH. "Four-lettered name, nowhere discovered by man, imparted by God alone! Name sacred and adorable! The one name by which God alone may be blessed according to the religion of our fathers! Most mighty name, which the angels worship, the devils fear, and all nature honours; which often found by the earnest seeker, but hidden from the knowledge of priests, is said to confer miraculous powers upon man!" Each letter in this mysterious name is shewn to have a special signification according to its place in the Hebrew alphabet, and its general character and value. Thus the first letter, the Iod, being represented by a point, and having the numerical value of ten, the final numeral, means the beginning and the end, and therefore denotes God in his absolute unity. The Vau, being the copulative conjunction, and having the power of changing tenses, denotes all things in which matter and form are conjoined; that is, the visible universe. And so with the two remaining letters. That the Idea of quaternity exists in God, might be inferred from its presence in nature, where there are four seasons, four elements, four points of the compass. Man, too, consists of four parts, as Ovid says:

Bis duo sunt hominis, manes, caro, spiritus, umbra.

But the Tetragrammaton is not yet the wonderful name in honour of which the work was written. A third book

It is not easy to translate "ab assiduis cultoribus imbibitum, et sacerdotiis mentibus inescatum." Is there a sarcastic reference in this unusual phraseology to the communion in one kind?