The campaign for the removal of Jewish disabilities, begun by the two friends, was continued by others. In 1781 Christian William Dohm, a distinguished German author and disciple of Mendelssohn’s, advocated the cause in an eloquent treatise in which he not only reviewed the pathetic history of the Jews in Europe, and defended them against the venerable slanders of seventeen hundred years, but also discussed practical measures for the amelioration of their lot. The plea was read by thousands, and, though refuted by many, it was approved by more. Its earliest tangible effect, however, was produced, not in Berlin, but in Vienna. The new spirit had penetrated into the remotest corners of the German world. Austria, long a by-word among the Jews as a house of bondage, established an era of toleration under the philosophical monarch Joseph II., who, soon after the appearance of Dohm’s work, abolished many of the imposts paid by the children of Israel, granted them permission to pursue all arts and sciences, trades and handicrafts, admitted them to the universities and academies, founded and endowed Jewish schools, and, in pursuance of his futile plan to secure internal harmony by the Germanisation of the various races of his Empire, he made the study of German compulsory on all Jewish adults. ♦1782♦ The reign of toleration, it is true, ended with the good monarch’s life; but nevertheless it forms a landmark on the road to civilisation. Meanwhile, in Germany also, the new gospel was fighting its way laboriously to the front. The death of Frederick the Great removed a great obstacle from the path of the advocates of the Jewish cause. Under his successor, Frederick William II., a commission was appointed to investigate the complaints of the Prussian Jews and to suggest remedies; and the Jews were asked to choose “honest men” from amongst themselves, with whom the matter might be discussed. ♦1787♦ The Jewish deputies laid before the commission all their grievances; and the poll-tax, levied upon every Jew who crossed or re-crossed the frontiers of a city or province, was abolished in Prussia. But the Jews justly pronounced this concession as falling far below their hopes and their needs. German public opinion was still averse to Jewish emancipation, and its prejudices were shared even by such men as Goethe and Fichte, both of whom, though representing opposite political ideals and though despising Christianity, yet agreed in the orthodox estimate of the Jew--and that in spite of the admiration which the former entertained for “the divine lessons” of _Nathan der Weise_. Thus, though the good seed had been sown in German soil, it was not in Germany that the flower saw the light of the sun.