indefatigable worker, his mind was always actively alert. Versed alike
in philology, archaeology, poetry, and philosophy, he was productive in
each of these departments, without ever laying himself open to the
charge of mediocrity. He was the creator of the Science of Judaism in
the Italian language, but above all he was a Hebrew writer.

He published excellent editions of the Hebrew masters of the Middle
Ages, for the first time bringing to the doors of readers, scholarly
readers as well as others, the works of such poets as Jehudah Halevi
(Prague, 1840). The notes in these editions of his are ingenious and
scientific. His own verses and poems are wholly devoid of inspiration
and fancy, but in form and style they are irreproachable. [Footnote:
_Kinnor Na'im_ ("The Sweet Lyre"), Vienna, 1835, and others.] His
prose is vigorous and precise, at the same time preserving some of the
Oriental charm native to the Hebrew.

His chief distinction is that he was a romantic Jew. His patriotic heart
was chilled by the attacks upon the Jewish religion and upon Jewish
nationalism by the German and Galician humanists. He was hostile to
rationalism, and opposed it all his life. In his sight, science, the
importance of which he in no degree denied, was yet not equal in value
to religious feeling. This alone, he held, is able to establish morality
in a position of supremacy.

S. Bernfeld, in his sketch of Rapoport, considers it a surprising
anachronism that this romanticist, this Jewish Chateaubriand, should
have appeared on the scene at the very moment of the triumph of
rationalism in Hebrew letters everywhere. [Footnote: Warsaw and Berlin,
1899] Luzzatto was the first among Hebrew humanists to claim the right
of existence not only for Jewish nationality, but also for the Jewish