MOSES MENDELSSOHN, the prototype of Lessing’s “Nathan the Wise,” was born at Dessau, Germany, September 6th, 1729. His father taught a small school, educating children in the Jewish law to which the family adhered. Moses was of delicate constitution, and he became early in life a victim of the spinal disease which sometimes accompanies, if it does not exaggerate, abnormal intellectual activity. Leaving Dessau at twenty-four to seek his fortune in Berlin, he underwent great hardships while attempting to fit himself for a literary career. Herder, Wieland, Lavater, and Lessing finally found him out and gave him the opportunity he needed. One of his papers won a prize from the Berlin Academy against Kant himself, and he soon came to be known as the “German Socrates.” His plea for toleration and moral liberty show that he was above the level of either the eighteenth or the nineteenth century. He died January 4th, 1786, after a life of usefulness so lofty in its simplicity and unselfishness, that the Judenfresser of Germany has never since been able to recover the ground from which it forced him to retreat.