Of one particular Jewish friend we know. Coleridge had a deep affection for Hyman Hurwitz, whom he terms “pious, learned, strong-minded, single-hearted.” Afterwards Professor of Hebrew at University College, London, Hurwitz was, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, the head of the “Highgate Academy.” He died in 1844, surviving Coleridge by ten years; the latter died at Highgate in 1834. Thus the poet and the Hebraist were neighbors as well as friends. Coleridge translated into poor English verse Hurwitz’s feeble Hebrew elegy on the death of Princess Charlotte. He also contracted to prepare for the publisher, Murray, a volume of “Rabbinical Tales”; in this work Hurwitz was to collaborate with him. The fee was settled; it was to be two hundred guineas; but the arrangement came to nothing. Coleridge was rich in plans which he failed to accomplish. As an instance, let me cite what he says about an epic on the “Destruction of Jerusalem.” “That,” he declares, “is the only subject now remaining for an epic poem.” Mark what follows: “I schemed it at twenty-five, but, alas! _venturum expectat_.” Perhaps another remark of his explains why he never attempted the task. The subject of the destruction of Jerusalem, with great capabilities, has one great defect. “No genius or skill could possibly preserve the interest for the hero being merged in the interest for the event”--a profound sentiment. Perhaps in no direction was Coleridge more in advance of his age than in his treatment of the ethics of the Pharisees. The Pharisees were, he contends truly, not a sect; they were, he puts it less aptly, the _Evangelicals_ of their day. By that he means those who made religion the main concern of life; therein he is right, but the term is somewhat unhappily chosen. Yet not from one point of view. I have already cited Coleridge’s opinion as to the Jewish sources of the “Lord’s Prayer.” He takes up a similar position with regard to the ethics of the Gospels in general. Here is a very remarkable concession: “The Being and Providence of the Living God, holy, gracious, merciful, the creator and preserver of all things, and a father of the righteous; the Moral Law in its utmost height, breadth, and purity; a state of retribution after death, the Resurrection of the Dead, and a Day of Judgment--all these were known and received by the Jewish people, as established articles of national faith, at or before the proclaiming of Christ by the Baptist.” This is taken, not from the collection of “Table Talk” so named, but from the “Aids to Reflection” (Aphorism vii). Coleridge justifies his claim in behalf of the Jews by citing Leviticus 19. 2 and Micah 6. 8, finding the acme of morality in the command to be holy and in the prophet’s answer to the question, “What doth the Lord require of thee?” Just so did Huxley choose Micah’s saying: “To do justly, to love mercy, and walk humbly with thy God,” as the last word of religion. To give the words of Huxley which cannot