posterity. But the return to the manner of the Bible had its
disadvantages. It went to extremes, and led to the creation of a
pompous, affected style, the _Melizah_, which has left indelible
traces in neo-Hebrew literature. In the effort to guard the Biblical
style against the Rabbinisms which had impaired the elegance of the
Hebrew language, the purists had gone beyond the bounds of moderation.
To express the most prosaic thought, the simplest ideas, they drew upon
the metaphors and the elevated diction of the Bible. This rage for
academic correctness is responsible for the reputation, not merited by
Hebrew literature, that it lacks originality, that it is no more than a
_jeu d'esprit_, a jumble of quibbling conceits.

Italian men of letters also took part in the literary movement of the
end of the eighteenth century. Two of them are worthy of mention by
name. The first is the poet Ephraim Luzzatto (1727-1792), whose love
sonnets, written in a sprightly style, sound a lyric note. The other is
Samuel Romanelli, the author of a melodrama, much admired by his
contemporaries, and of a "Journey to Arabia."

In France, also, especially in Alsace, there were collaborators of the
German Meassefim, the best known among them Ensheim. Besides, France
harbored the only poet of the period who can lay claim to originality,
but he was not of the school of the Meassefim. Elie Half an Halevy
(1760-1822), of Paris, the grandfather of Ludovic Halevy, by far
surpasses the other poets of his day in poetic temperament and fertility
of imagination. Unluckily, we do not possess all the poems written by
Halevy, who, moreover, was not a very prolific author. In what has come
down to us his talent is abundantly proved by the charm of his
individual style and the wealth of his images. The reader feels that the
breath of the Revolution has blown through his pages. His "Hymn to