In Holland, which, by the concurrence of many circumstances, and especially through the powerful impulse of Joseph Scaliger, the prince of philologists, had become in a sense the school of Europe, the foundation was laid in the seventeenth century for the wonderful learning contained in voluminous folios. At no time had there been so many philologists with early-matured learning, iron memory, and wonderful devotion to the science of language, as in the first half of the seventeenth century, which seems to have been specially appointed to revive what had so long been neglected. All the literary treasures of antiquity were collected and utilized; statesmen vied with professional scholars. In this gigantic collection there was little critical search for truth; the chief consideration was the number of scientific facts gathered. The ambition of many was spurred on to understand the three favored languages of antiquity--Greek, Latin, and Hebrew--and their literatures. Hebrew, the language of religion, enjoyed special preference, and whoever understood it as well as the other two tongues was sure of distinction. Joseph Scaliger, the oracle of Dutch and Protestant theology, had given to Rabbinical literature, so-called, a place in the republic of letters beside the Hebrew language, and even the Talmud he treated with a certain amount of respect. His Dutch, French, and English disciples followed his example, and devoted themselves with zeal to this branch of knowledge, formerly regarded with contempt or even aversion. John Buxtorf, senior (born 1564, died 1639), of Basle, may be said to have been master of Hebrew and Rabbinical literature, and he rendered them accessible to Christian circles. He carried on a lively correspondence in Hebrew with Jewish scholars in Amsterdam, Germany, and Constantinople. Even ladies devoted themselves to Hebrew language and literature. That prodigy, Anna Maria Schurmann, of Utrecht, who knew almost all European languages and their literature, corresponded in Hebrew with scholars, and also with an English lady, Dorothea Moore, and quoted Rashi and Ibn-Ezra with a scholar's accuracy. The eccentric queen Christina of Sweden, the learned daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, understood Hebrew. Statesmen, such as Hugo Grotius, and the Englishman John Selden, seriously and deeply engaged in its pursuit for their theological or historical studies.