Mendelssohn's co-workers and successors formed the
school of _Biurists_, that is, expounders. In his commentary on the
Pentateuch he was helped by Solomon Dubno, Herz Homberg, and Hartwig
Wessely. Solomon Dubno, the tutor of Mendelssohn's children, was a
learned Pole, devoted heart and soul to the work on the Pentateuch. His
literary vanity having been wounded, he secretly left Mendelssohn's
house, and could not be induced to renew his interest in the
undertaking. Herz Homberg, an Austrian, took his place as tutor. When
the children were grown, he went to Vienna, and there was made imperial
councillor, charged with the superintendence of the Jewish schools of
Galicia. It is a mistake to suppose that he used efforts to further the
study of the Talmud among Jews. From letters recently published, written
by and about him, it becomes evident that he was a common informer.
Mendelssohn, of course, was not aware of his true character. The noblest
of all was Naphtali Hartwig Wessely, a poet, a pure man, a sincere lover
of mankind.

The other prominent members of Mendelssohn's circle were: Isaac Euchel,
the "restorer of Hebrew prose," as he has been called, whose chief
purpose was the reform of the Jewish order of service and Jewish
pedagogic methods; Solomon Maimon, a wild fellow, who in his
autobiography tells his own misdeeds, by many of which Mendelssohn was
caused annoyance; Lazarus ben David, a modern Diogenes, the apostle of
Kantism; and, above all, David Friedlaender, an enthusiastic herald of
the new era, a zealous champion of modern culture, a pure, serious
character with high ethical ideals, whose aims, inspired though they
were by most exalted intentions, far overstepped the bounds set to him
as a Jew and the disciple of Mendelssohn. Kant's philosophy found many
ardent adherents among the Jews at that time. Beside the old there was
growing up a new generation which, having no obstructions placed in its
path after Mendelssohn's death, aggressively asserted its principles.

The first Jew after Mendelssohn to occupy a position of prominence in
the social world of Berlin was his pupil Marcus Herz, with the title
professor and aulic councillor, "praised as a physician, esteemed as a
philosopher, and extolled as a prodigy in the natural sciences. His
lectures on physics, delivered in his own house, were attended by
members of the highest aristocracy, even by royal personages."

In circles like his, the equalization of th