." This
piece of autobiography in the preface to a Talmudic treatise by Reuben
of Zamoscz might have been written by many others, too. But there were
also the goodly number led thither by thirst for knowledge, whose
remarkable abilities attracted the admiration of Jew and Gentile alike.
Wessely the poet and Linda the mathematician more than once expressed
surprise at the amount of learning many of the poor immigrants were
found to possess.[22]

Among these immigrants were two who may justly be regarded as the
conducting medium through which the Haskalah currents were transmitted
from Germany to Russo-Poland: Solomon Dubno, the indefatigable laborer
in the province of Jewish science, and Solomon Maimon, the brilliant but
unfortunate philosopher, both of them teachers in the house of
Mendelssohn.

Solomon Dubno (1738-1813) was all his life a bee in search of flowers,
to turn their sweetness into honey. Having exhausted the knowledge of
his Volhynian instructors, he went to Galicia, where he became
proficient in Hebrew grammar and Biblical exegesis. Thence, attracted by
its rich collection of books, he left for Amsterdam, where he spent five
years in study and research. Finally he settled in Berlin, and earned a
livelihood by teaching among others the children of Mendelssohn. The
gentle disposition and profound learning of the Polish emigrant made a
favorable impression on the Berlin sage, who invited him to participate
in his translation of the Bible, which revolutionized the Judaism of the
nineteenth century more than the Septuagint that of the first century.
The result was the _Biur_ (commentary), which he, together with his
countryman, Aaron Yaroslav, also a teacher, wrote on several books of
the Bible. Comparatively few of Dubno's works have been published, but
judging from such as are known we may safely pronounce him a master of
the Massorah and a scholar of unusual attainments. Of his poems
Delitzsch says that they are "in the truest sense Hebrew in expression,
Biblical in imagery and subject-matter, medieval in rhyme and rhythm,
and in general genuinely Jewish in manner of treatment,"--laudation
which this exacting critic bestowed on no other Hebrew poet of his time.
It was mainly through the endeavors of Dubno that Mendelssohn's
Pentateuch, later regarded with suspicion, was everywhere bought and
studied eagerly.[23]

One better known to the outside world than Dubno, and who has engraved
his name forever on t