ferent beliefs and a higher philosophy of life and conduct.

In these, most conspicuous are the poems of nonJewish poets, who have eagerly employed their gifts to crush down prejudice and oppression. Byron and Lessing were the first in this army of equally distinguished sons of the Muse: Longfellow, Browning, Joaquin Miller, Wordsworth, Townsend and many others. The most eloquent diatribes on the Dreyfus Case were written by Swinburne, and the Russian pogroms called forth a great number of stirring poems by Christian writers.

A new era was ushered in when the flamboyant genius of Byron burst upon the world, under the impulse of a strong devotion to the cause of liberty, ardent love for the ancient glory of Greece and a growing sympathy with all oppressed and weak nationalities. Byron conceived a generous emotion for the downtrodden Hebrew race. The grandeur of their ancient tradition and the dark tragedy of their history in the Middle Ages, their outlawry from the world, powerfully appealed to him, and he gave expression to his sympathies in a series of strikingly beautiful poems. His "Hebrew Melodies" stand out as the most efflorescent of his minor poems. They are instinct with a wonderful understanding of the Hebrew spirit. No one else has interpreted the soul of the ancient Hebrew so truly as when he pictured him overwhelmed in the final catastrophe that overtook him when the Temple-the symbol of his nationality and the visible embodiment of his eternal faith-went up in flames to the sky at the hands of the Romans. To the patriotic Hebrew, that was an evidence that all for him was lost, that God had withdrawn his protection and favor from his people, and that henceforth the hand of Destiny would lay heavily upon them.

The Jews of modern times have never done justice to the great service rendered them by Byron, and it

would only be fitting that a monument be raised in England to that great poet, commemorating his glorious aid in vindicating for the Jews their rightful place among the nations of the world. So, too, Lessing, in his drama "Nathan the Wise," and through his friendship with Moses Mendelssohn, brought about a powerful reaction in favor of the Jew. To these two gifted men, must be attributed the impetus that was given to both Jewish and non-Jewish poets to find in the Jew a fit subject for poetical illustration. Most of the distinguished poets of the past and present generation have added to the rich store of poetic lore some sterling work of Jewish interest. These comprise our greatest poets, among them Wordsworth, Browning, Scott, Longfellow, Tennyson, Swinburne, George Eliot, Thomas Bailey Aldrich and others too numerous to mention, but who should be remembered with honor and gratitude.

The Jews themselves, to whom poetry had almost become a forgotten art, awakened again to the fact that the strains of the harp of Judah still lingered in their souls. Some sang in Hebrew, like Luzzatto, Wessely, Salom Cohen, David Franco and a host of minor poets. All were outranked by Heinrich Heine, whom it would be superfluous to describe as one of the immortals in the Valhalla of Song. His "Jehuda ben Halevi" and "Prinzessin Sabbat" are but a few examples of his quaint, delicate and inimitable art. They are limned in eternal colors, like one of the great dramas of Shakespeare or Euripides, and, like ancient Grecian sculpture, they are things of beauty and a joy forever.

Without taking the form of an historical survey, these poems easily portray, if not exactly in chronological order, at least in panoramic sequence, the most striking events in Jewish history. They set forth the character of the nation's achievements, its heroes, its. prophets, kings and statesmen and, above all, the eternal ideals of the race, the unquenchable fire of its

faith, which has burned on, not fitfully, but steadily and grandly through all the dark and moving centuries.

Although here and there a false quantity may be detected and imperfect technique may be apparent, yet the poems on the whole are surprisingly good. It would be unfair to compare them, in idiomatic diction and graceful execution, with poetry which flourished in a national atmosphere--the outcome of conditions altogether favorable for the production of genuine lyrics. Many of them, however, are possessed of the highest poetic qualities and are instinct with rare spiritual fervor. Jessie E. Sampter's poem on "Anemones" is a fine example of a true lyric, which can vie with the best; and scattered through these pages are many which will delight the reader with their exquisite and perfect phrasing. A number of these modern writers, too, are either alien born or the offspring of foreign parents. They acquired a wonderful mastery of the niceties and intricacies of what is comparatively a new language. Poetry of a decidedly high order may be ascribed to many of the selections included from the pen of George A. Kohut, Joseph Leiser, Alter Abelson, Harry Weiss, Miriam del Banco, Penina Moïse, Rebecca Altman and numerous others. Of those who have not written in the vernacular, but either in Hebrew or Yiddish, translations of which will be found in this volume, may be mentioned Byalik, Frug, Morris Rosenfeld, "Jehoash" and Raskin.

Many of the poems are notable for the beautiful thoughts and sentiments they enshrine; fragrant and delicate flowers of the spirit, enriching the intellectual heritage of humanity.

If this Anthology serves no other purpose than to impress the reader, both Jew and Gentile, with the consciousness of the age-long idealism of the race, from whose loins sprang that sweet singer of Israel whose Psalmody is still the greatest spiritual inheritance

of humanity, it will not have been compiled in vain. May it be the will of Providence that our brethren of the faith of Israel, who have so miraculously survived persecution and martyrdom through the centuries, be at last admitted into the fellowship of nations, with their national glory restored and rehabilitated, and Palestine, the land of their fathers, once again established as the cultural centre whence all moral and spiritual forces are to emanate which will enrich and ennoble the world.

JOSEPH FRIEDLANDER

(Edited by G. A. Kohut)

(June 25, 1917.)