=3. Abraham Ibn Ezra[36] (1092‒1167).=――Ibn Ezra, who was born at Toledo in 1092, was a star that shone in many different ways. He was a man of vigorous intellect, and as active in body as in mind. For those quiet days he was a famous traveller, and we find him enjoying a visit to London when he was in his sixty-seventh year (1159). He was just sixteen years old when the fanatic outburst against the Jews in his native town was put down by King Alfonso of Castile,[37] and possibly it was the sense of impending troubles in Spain which first set him thinking of seeking his fortunes abroad. His ‘fortunes’ he never seems to have found, but failures in that direction did not trouble him much. He would laugh at his own disappointments, and say, ‘If I were to take to shroud-making, I do believe men would leave off dying, or if I adopted candle-making as a trade, I am certain the sun would take to shining by night as well as by day till I gave it up.’ Ibn Ezra’s travels were rather the result of a restless and inquiring spirit than of a settled and sustained object. He would learn for a while, and then teach for a while, and do both equally thoroughly, and to the delight of either masters or pupils. And then he would travel again, and prove the most charming and entertaining of companions to any one whom he might chance to meet. He stayed once for a long time in Italy, and his influence amongst scholars there caused quite a revival to take place in grammatical and analytical study. He was an excellent critic, and his philosophic and scientific commentaries on the Pentateuch, and on some other parts of the Bible, are very valuable. Astronomy, also, was a favourite pursuit of his, and he was a first-rate mathematician. Ibn Ezra must have been, as the phrase goes, a very able man. Yet all qualities have their corresponding defects, and the charm of many-sidedness, when undirected by any high aim, has a tendency to run into indistinctness of outline. Ibn Ezra, it must be confessed, was all his life just a little of a rolling stone, and mere restlessness appears to have had a good deal to do with his frequent change of place and pursuit. His intellect seems to have been more active than his emotions, and it looks almost as if he had more mind than heart. And so the light this star gave forth, though brilliant, was of a somewhat wavery and uncertain sort.