mson," the "Strong Tower," and "Glory to the Virtuous," show
classical refinement and freshness of touch, which have made them the
models of all subsequent efforts of Hebrew dramatists.

Manasseh ben Israel did not allow himself to become absorbed in the
wider interests opened out to him by his intimacy with the greatest
Christian scholars of his day. He prepared a Spanish translation of the
Pentateuch for the Amsterdam Jews, who were slow to adopt Dutch as their
speech, a fact not wonderful when it is remembered that literary Dutch
was only then forming. Manasseh also wrote at this period a Hebrew
treatise on immortality. His worldly prosperity was small, and he even
thought of emigrating to Brazil. But the friends of the scholar found a
post for him in a new college for the study of Hebrew, a college to
which it is probable that Spinoza betook himself. In the meantime the
reports of Montesinos as to the presence of the Lost Ten Tribes in
America turned the current of Manasseh's life. In 1650 he wrote his
famous essay, the "Hope of Israel," which he dedicated to the English
Parliament. He argued that, as a preliminary to the restoration of
Israel, or the millennium, for which the English Puritans were eagerly
looking, the dispersion of Israel must be complete. The hopes of the
millennium were doomed to disappointment unless the Jews were readmitted
to England, "the isle of the Northern Sea." His dedication met with a
friendly reception, Manasseh set out for England in 1655, and obtained
from Cromwell a qualified consent to the resettlement of the Jews in the
land from which they had been expelled in 1290.

The pamphlets which Manasseh published in England deserve a high place
in literature and in the history of modern thought. They are
immeasurably superior to his other works, which are eloquent but
diffuse, learned but involved. But in his _Vindiciae Judeorum_ (1656)
his style and thought are clear, original, elevated. There are here no
mystic irrelevancies. His remarks are to the point, sweetly reasonable,
forcible, moderate. He grapples with the medieval prejudices against the
Jews in a manner which places his works among the best political
pamphlets ever written. Morally, too, his manner is noteworthy. He
pleads for Judaism in a spirit equally removed from arrogance and
self-abasement. He is dignified in his persuasiveness. He appeals to a
sense of justice rather than mercy, yet he writes as one who knows that
jus