Among the prominent Jewish scholars of the nineteenth century Zunz will always occupy a high place. Like Moses Mendelssohn in his time, Zunz, in a later generation, carried on his spiritual work among his people with unceasing energy and ability, though in a somewhat different direction. While the former rendered a lasting service to the Jews by arousing in their minds a love for secular studies, Zunz conferred a no less important benefit upon them by bringing to light a large mass of literary matter, which was the result of his lifelong critical researches into Jewish history and literature. In these two departments Zunz was, in fact, a pioneer, and the works he published in connexion with them have proved themselves to be of considerable assistance to the student. The present essay is mainly intended to give the reader some notion of the contents of Zunz's most important writings, but it will also contain a brief sketch of his life. Leopold Zunz^[140-2] was born at Detmold, in Germany, on August 10, 1794 (15th of _Ab_, 5554). His early life was passed at Hamburg, where his father had opened a Hebrew school. There young Zunz received his first training, but after the death of his father he was sent by his mother to Samson's Free School at Wolfenbüttel, where his intelligence attracted the attention of one of his teachers, Samuel Meyer Ehrenberg by name, who bestowed special care upon him. Here it may be mentioned, in passing, that Jost, the historian, was his schoolfellow, and that a close friendship sprang up between them, which lasted both their lives^[141-1]. In 1809, when only fifteen years old, Zunz was already found capable of assisting in tuition at his own school, but while teaching others he made use of all the available time at his disposal to increase his own knowledge. He attended for some years the Gymnasium at Wolfenbüttel, and in 1815 he matriculated at the Berlin University, being the first Jew admitted as a student to a Prussian university. The principal studies he pursued there, were history, philology, and mathematics. He frequented especially the lectures of De Wette, F. A. Wolf, and Boeckh. He also employed part of his time in reading books of modern literature, and in 1817 he published a few pieces of light prose and verse in some Berlin periodicals. From a pecuniary point of view Zunz derived very little advantage from these literary contributions, but they were nevertheless useful to him, inasmuch as they made his name known in some of the Berlin literary circles, and thus paved the way for his subsequent appointment to the post of editor-in-chief of the _Sperner'sche Zeitung_ that appeared daily in Berlin as a political paper.