Hebrew  Bibles  were  so  plenty,  that  Christians  might  buy
them  for  a  trifle,  but  they  could  not  read  them  because  no
learned  man  had  come  forward  as  an  instructor,  either  from
aversion  to  the  labour,  or  from  an  impression  that  it  was  a
degradation  to  turn  schoolmaster  and  teach  rudiments.  He
had,  however,  himself  determined  to  brave  the  abuse  which
he  expected,  (and  which  we  know  that  he  received,)  not  only
from  Jews,  but  from  Christians,  urged  by  still  another  reason
— ^namely,  that  the  Jews,  driven  not  only  out  of  Spain,  but
Germany,  and  taking  refuge  in  the  East,  it  seemed  as  if  the
Hebrew  language  was  likely  to  be  entirely  lost  in  Christendom.
3  A


362  NOTE  E,  ON   NO.  172.     JOANNES  REUCHLIN.
He  therefore  put  forth  this  splendid  folio,  not  without  an
assurance  that  posterity  would  appreciate  and  applaud  his
labours.*  -  One  thing  is  rather  amusing,  and  characteristic
both  of  the  man  and  of  the  times.  Having  indulged  in  the
pedantry  of  printing  his  book  backwards,  as  if  it  were  a  real
Hebrew  work,  he  seems  to  have  been  anxiously  afraid  lest
readers  should  begin  at  the  wrong  end.  To  guard  against
this,  the  first  page,  (which  these  uninitiated  readers  might  sup-
pose to  be  the  last)  bears  nothing  on  it  but,  in  the  middle  in
large  capitals —

PRINCIPIVM
L   I   B   R   I

and  at  the  end  of  the  preface  he  gives  a  very  special  caution  on
the  subject  ;t  but  as  this  might  not  immediately  come  before
the  notice  of  those  who  were  actually  beginning  at  the  end,

*  "  Persaepe  mihi  cogitanti  de  coimnuni  sacrarum  literarum  iactura,  Dionysi
frater .  quae  cum  multitudine  sophismatum  annis  superioribus  turn  maxime  nunc
propter  eloquentise  studium  et  poetarvuu  amoemtatem  non  modo  neglignntur.
