“It may be concluded from the foregoing observations, that the translation of the Bible into our language is a most remarkable event in the history of English literature:... Those who have compared most of the European translations with the original have not scrupled to say that the English translation is the most accurate and faithful of the whole.... Besides, our translators have not only made a standard translation, but they have made their translation a standard of our language. The English tongue of their day was not equal to such a work; but God enabled them to stand as upon Mount Sinai; and _crane_ up their country’s language to the dignity of the originals, so that after the lapse of two hundred years, the English Bible is still with a very few exceptions the standard of the purity and excellence of the English tongue.”¹ ¹ An Essay upon The Influence of the Translation of the Bible upon English Literature,... By [William Thomas Petty (1811‒1836) _afterwards_ Fitz-Maurice, Earl of Kerry] Lord Kerry.... Cambridge:... 1830. (8º. 1 _l._ + 82 _pp._) This influence of the _Hebrew_ language can be traced not only in the masterpieces of great poets; it was also of a general and popular character. The study of the _Hebrew_ language among Christians, which had only casually and at intervals occupied the attention of ecclesiastics during the Middle Ages, received an immense impulse from the revived interest in the Bible caused by the Reformation. Scientific progress in _Hebrew_ was perhaps more considerable in other countries where the Reformation was gaining ground, but while in other countries this influence was felt chiefly among scholars, in England the influence has been popular and has been felt in the daily life of the nation. The process of enrichment and ennoblement of the English language has been going on for centuries among all classes of the population, and one of the chief agencies by which it has been effected is certainly the influence, direct and indirect, of the _Hebrew_ Bible. To penetrate into the history, prophecy, and poetry of the _Hebrew_ Bible, to revere them as the effusion of Divine inspiration, to live in them with all the emotions of the heart, and yet not to consider _Israel_, who had originated all this glory and greatness, as the “Chosen People,” was impossible.¹ ¹ Among modern English poets and writers, Robert Browning (1812‒1889) was a great friend of the Jews and a good _Hebraist_, and very often quoted _Hebrew_ sentences. In a letter to a friend Browning wrote: “The _Hebrew_ quotations are put in for a purpose as a direct acknowledgment that certain doctrines may be found in the Old Book, which the concocters of Novel Schemes of Morality put forth as discoveries of their own.”