Moses Wall

• Main Author: Setright, E. Helen
• Published: University of Leicester 2003
• Subjects: 820.9
• Online Access: http://ethos.bl.uk/OrderDetails.do?uin=uk.bl.ethos.697252

My purpose has been to discover and present all that is known of Moses Wall (1606?-1664+). In approximately 62,000 words this study addresses the three main aspects of his work. 1 HOUSE OF LORDS DEPOSITIONS. These documents were officially destroyed but secretly copied. I found and examined them in the House of Lords archive. I present detailed considerations of the material and the implications of Moses Wall's close involvement with Sir Harry Vane, as messenger and as spy for the Independents. 2 TRANSLATION OF SPES ISRAELIS. As a scholar and millennial idealist Moses Wall was the anonymous translator for the first English edition of Spes Israelis by the Dutch Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel. Responding to MP Edward Spencer's reply, the second edition contained a cogent and well-argued Discourse by Wall, establishing a rational and religious case for readmitting the Jews as citizens of England. I establish the context and consequences of this work. 3 CORRESPONDENCE with SAMUEL HARTLIB and JOHN MILTON. Fourteen letters written by Moses Wall between 1652 and 1660 are available from the Hartlib archive. They offer political, personal and practical information, with rare insights into daily survival under the Commonwealth. In my work these letters are edited and examined as a body for the first time. Together with supporting detail from other sources I show how these offer a living record of the man Moses Wall and his achievement. I offer the possibility that these letters conveyed more than their immediate meaning. One single letter from Moses Wall to John Milton survives, well known and discussed by Milton scholars. In the context of other material here presented, this is perceived as a source of inspiration and influence from 1659 to1980.