Among those who especially profited by these works were two clever young Jewish students, called Isaac Euchel and Mendel Bresselau. They had both enjoyed a Talmudical and academical training, and were tutors in the house of the wealthy and cultured Friedländers, residing in Königsberg, in Prussia, which city in those days stood in close literary relationship to the Prussian capital. These young men, in 1782, resolved, in the interests of Hebrew literature; to invite all the representative and cultured Jews in the world to help to found and to support a Hebrew periodical, the title of which was to be _The Gatherer_ (‪המאסף‬). This invitation was readily accepted by many educated Jews living in Germany, Austria, Holland, France, Italy, Russia and Poland. Thus encouraged they set to work, and soon issued the first number of _The Gatherer_, which was the progenitor of modern Hebrew journalism. This number contained a variety of articles written almost exclusively in Hebrew, the most notable of which were two biographical sketches, one dealing with Don Isaac Abrabanel (1437–1509), and the other with Joseph del Medigo (1591–1655). There were also a few charming Hebrew poems, including some anonymously contributed by Moses Mendelssohn, and the well-known Hebrew wine-song by Solomon Ibn Gabirol. Wessely contributed an article on Biblical exegesis, a subject which had been sadly neglected by the Jews of that period. _The Gatherer_ thus started under happy auspices. It had been a bond of union between Judaism and modern culture, so much so that some Christians of note saw in it a powerful medium for educating the general mass of the Jewish people. _The Gatherer_ continued to be issued for fourteen years (from 1783–97), during which time it numbered among its contributors, in addition to those already mentioned, several other masters of Hebrew style, among whom may specially be mentioned Isaac Satanow, Ben-Zeeb, Joel Löwe, Aaron Halle, Moses Ensheim, and David Franco Mendes, the author of the Hebrew historical drama _Gemul Athalia_ (“The Punishment of Athalia”). After its demise, nearly a quarter of a century elapsed before another Hebrew periodical of the same stamp made its appearance. This was called _Bikkurey Ha-Ittim_ (“The Firstling of the Times”), and was started in Vienna (in 1820) by an able Hebraist, named Shalom Ha-Cohen. It had some of the most eminent Hebrew scholars of the day among its regular contributors, including Rapoport, Luzzatto, and Erter, the former of whom published therein five biographies of prominent leaders of Judaism of the Middle Ages, which gave an important impulse to the study of Neo-Hebraic literature. Erter, the greatest of Hebrew humorists of modern times, contributed some of his delightful sketches of Jewish life in the Ghetto.