the Hebrew language, the only language available for the Jews of the
ghetto; and at the same time it was to promote the purification of
Hebrew, which had degenerated in the Rabbinical schools. Its readers
were to be familiarized with the social and aesthetic demands of modern
life, and induced to rid themselves of ingrained peculiarities. Besides
its success in these directions, it must be set to the credit of _Ha-
Meassef_, that it was the first agency to gather under one banner all
the champions of the _Haskalah_ in the several countries of Europe.
It supplied the link connecting them with one another. [Footnote:
Properly speaking, the term Haskalah includes the notion at once of
humanism and humanitarianism.]

From the literary point of view _Ha-Meassef_ is of subordinate
interest. Its contributors were devoid of taste. They offered their
readers mainly questionable imitations of the works of the German
romantic school. The periodical brought no new talent truly worthy of
the description into notice. Whatever reputation its principal writers
enjoyed had been won before the appearance of _Ha-Meassef_. They
owed their fame primarily to the favor acquired for Hebrew letters
through the efforts of Luzzatto's disciples. [Footnote: Since the
appearance of _La-Yesharim Tehillah_ by Luzzatto, imitations of it
without number have been published, and for the eighteenth century alone
allegorical dramas by the dozen might be enumerated.] Of the poems
published in _Ha-Meassef_ but a few deserve notice, and even they
are nothing more than mediocre imitations of didactic pieces in the
style of the day, or odes celebrating the splendor of contemporary kings
and princes. A poem by Wessely forms a rare exception. It extols the
residents of Basle, who, in 1789, welcomed Jewish refugees from Alsace.
And if we turn from its poetry to its historical contributions, we find
that the biographies, as of Abarbanel and Joseph Delmedigo, are hardly