Another century elapsed before the muse of the Hebrew drama escaped from leading strings. Moses Chayyim Luzzatto (1707-1747) of Padua was a poet of true dramatic gifts, and had he lived at another time he might have attained to absolute greatness of performance. Unluckily, the sentimental, impressionable youth became hopelessly enmeshed in the snares of mysticism. In his seventeenth year he composed a biblical drama, "Samson and the Philistines," the preserved fragments of which are faultless in metre. His next effort was an allegorical drama, _Migdal Oz_ ("Tower of Victory"), the style and moral of which show unmistakable signs of Italian inspiration, derived particularly from Guarini and his _Pastor Fido_, models not wholly commendable at a time when Maffei's _Merope_ was exerting wholesome influence upon the Italian drama in the direction of simplicity and dignity. Nothing, however, could wean Luzzatto from adherence to Spanish-Italian romanticism. His happiest creation is the dramatic parable, _Layesharim Tehillah_ ("Praise unto the Righteous!"). The poetry of the Bible here celebrates its resurrection. The rhythm and exuberance of the Psalms are reproduced in the tone and color of its language. "All the fragrant flowers of biblical poetry are massed in a single bed. Yet the language is more than a mosaic of biblical phrases. It is an enamel of the most superb and the rarest of elegant expressions in the Bible. The peculiarities of the historical writings are carefully avoided, while all modifications of style peculiar to poetry are gathered together to constitute what may fairly be called a vocabulary of poetic diction."[59] The allegory _Layesharim Tehillah_ is full of charming traits, but lacks warmth, naturalness, and human interest, the indispensable elements of dramatic action. The first act treats of the iniquity of men who prize deceit beyond virtue, and closes with the retirement of the pious sage to solitude. The second act describes the hopes of the righteous man and his fate, and the third sounds the praise of truth and justice. The thread of the story is slight, and the characters are pale phantoms, instead of warm-blooded men. Yet the work must be pronounced a gem of neo-Hebraic poetry, an earnest of the great creations its author might have produced, if in early youth he had not been caught in the swirling waters, and dragged down into the abysmal depths of Kabbalistic mysticism. Despite his vagaries his poems were full of suggestiveness and stimulation to many of his race, who were inspired to work along the lines laid down by him. He may be considered to have inaugurated another epoch of classical Hebrew literature, interpenetrated with the modern spirit, which the Jewish dramas of his day are vigorously successful in clothing in a Hebrew garb.