only the uncouthness of fantastic sensationalism, whose tinsel would not stand the test of time. Moreover, the two religious parties looked askance and with dissatisfaction at a book written to serve the truth only and not available for any sort of propaganda. Loud and public quarrel between them had ceased in the face of the world-stirring events of 1848 and their consequences, but they were as sharply divided as ever. The adherents of the reform party reproached the author with having glorified the Talmud and its teachers, and with having omitted to touch in “a single word”[41] upon the sorest spot, “the petrifaction and ossification of Judaism” brought about by the code and its exponents. The rigidly orthodox, on the other hand, were incensed at the criticism, unwarranted in their eyes, to which he subjected the bearers of tradition and at his effort to prove the body of traditional doctrine the product of historical processes.[42] But no voice dissented from the opinion, that in Graetz Jewish science had gained an eminent promoter with astonishing scholarship at his disposal. His qualifications and achievements were too extraordinary to be belittled on account of the unavoidable errors that had slipped into his history. It could not be denied, that research had received a decided impetus, and that the sum of historical knowledge had been considerably increased by Graetz’s results, which he had obtained by his mastery over the two Talmuds and the Midrash literature; by his close acquaintance with patristic works; by his effective way of bringing these two widely separated literary spheres close to each other, permitting the one to shed light on the other, and thus clearing up critical points; by his happy gift first of discerning, in spite of the rectification they frequently stood in need of, that certain data scattered over various by-paths of literature were complementary, and then of combining them with each other; and by his acuteness in detecting with unerring glance, animating with spirit, and applying to good purpose, long disused geographical names and obsolete terms lying forgotten in some dark corner and buried under debris.[43] In view of the fact that it required rare courage to venture upon the elaboration of one of the obscurest and most difficult portions of Jewish history, thoroughly neglected at that time in the way of special research and monographs, even his opponents could “not help confessing that on the whole he had fulfilled his task satisfactorily.”[44] There was evidence, to be sure, of still higher courage in Graetz’s announcement, made without fear or diffidence, on the title-page and in the preface of his book, designated as the fourth volume, that he intended to publish a complete history of the Jews, written in the same spirit of critical research and in the same style. The promise gave occasion for ironical insinuations. How could a single individual hope to accomplish