sieged it till an ass's head was sold for fourscore pieces of silver."

To which Newton subjoins a reference to 2 Kings vi. 25, where the passage is.

Both immediately proceed

NEWTON-P. 93.

"And when Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem, the famine prevailed in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land."-2 Kings xxv. 3. And in the last siege of Jerusalem by the Romans, there was a most terrible famine in the city; and Josephus hath given so melancholy an account of it, that we cannot read it without shuddering. He saith, particularly, that women snatched the food out of the very mouths of their husbands, and sons of their fathers, and (what is most miserable) mothers of their infants."-Jos. 1. 5, c. 10, § 3.

66

In every house, if there appeared any semblance of food, a battle ensued, and the dearest friends and relatives fought with one another, and snatching away the miserable provisions of life.' -Jos. 1. vi. c. 3, § 3.

was sold for eighty pieces of silver.'

To which Keith subjoins a reference to 2 Kings vi. 4; where there is nothing about it.

KEITH-P. 53.

'When Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem, the famine prevailed in the city, and there was no bread for the people of the land. And Josephus relates the direful calamities of the Jews in their last siege, before they ceased to have a city. The famine was too powerful for all other passions, for what was otherwise reverenced was in this case despised.

Children snatched the food out of the very mouths of their fathers and even mothers, overcoming the kindred feelings of nature, &c.

(Keith here makes no marks of quotation, but goes on without break.)

-In every house, where there was the least shadow of food, a combat arose, and the nearest relatives struggled with one another for the miserable means of subsistence.'-Jos. 1. vi. c. 3, § 4.

The words of the texts of Scripture cited on both sides are of course the same, but the exact number and order of the textsthe nature and order of the topics-the introduction of the siege of Samaria which was necessary to the subsequent argument of Newton, but not to that of Keith-could all these coincidences have been fortuitous? But there is an additional though trivial circumstance which puts the matter beyond all doubt. Dr. Keith might, no doubt, have consulted Josephus, and translated the passage for his own use, but could he have chanced upon the particular words- snatched the food out of the very mouths,' which is Newton's own translation of Josephus's account-yuvaixas you ἀνδρῶν, καὶ παῖδες πατέρων, καὶ, το οικτρότατον, μητέρες νηπίων ἐξήρπαζον ἐξ αὐτῶν τῶν στοματῶν τὰς τροφάς.—lib. v. c. x. § 3. No two translators could have hit upon the exact same form of expression; and to wind up the whole of this curious affair, it

seems

seems clear that Dr. Keith either did not consult Josephus,* or made his notes very carelessly, for he refers for all this to the sixth book, third chapter, fourth section, whereas this last passage is in fact in the fifth book, tenth chapter, and third section; and he has fallen into this error because Bishop Newton had collected from different parts of Josephus all that belonged to the same subject, aud Keith took the bishop's last reference, not knowing, as it seems, how much belonged to one book and how much to another.

We hereabouts find an additional instance of Dr. Keith's use of the bishop's version of Josephus, accompanied by a little artificial attempt at originality :

"The constitution of nature, says the Jewish historian, (Jos. iv. 4,) was confounded for the destruction of men, and one might easily conjecture that no common calamities were portended.'-Keith, p, 60. Bishop Newton quotes the same author to the same point, and in the same part of the argument:

'It was manifest (as he [Jos. iv. 4] saith) that the constitution of the universe was confounded for the destruction of men, and any one might easily conjecture that these things portended no common calamity?' -Newton, p. 379.

Here the words employed are all identically the same, except that Dr. Keith substitutes nature for Newton's universe-Newton being nearest the original-rav öλwv.

We think we may now venture to assert that we have proved that Dr. Keith made very ample use of Bishop Newton's book, though his preface seems to negative even the possible existence of such a work. But, to make assurance doubly sure, let us compare a whole chapter of Keith with a whole dissertation of the bishop's-we select that of Nineveh as the shortest and most suitable to our limits. The identity of the texts and topics, and consequently of the substance of the essays on both sides, will be best shown by exhibiting on the one hand all the quotations, whether from scripture or profane writers, made by Doctor Keith, and on the other 'the similar quotations which are to be found in Newton's chapter of Nineveh :

A small circumstance leads us to doubt Dr. Keith's having himself consulted Josephus in the original. In those parts of his work which are more directly borrowed from Bishop Newton, the references to Josephus are made, as in the Bishop's work, in Latin- De Bello Judaico' (see pp. 53, 59). When Dr. Keith, in a part of the work which is his own-being that which mentions recent travellers-has occasion to mention Josephus, the reference is in English,- Josephus, of the Wur' (see pp. 118, 119).

Китн.

These are the whole of the quotations and references made by Dr. Keith from the Scriptures or the classics, and we see that every one of them, except two, is to be found in Newton. Of these two, one is the tenth verse of Nahum ii., which the bishop does not specifically quote, though he does verses 9 and 11 at each side of it; the other is not to be found in Newton, because it is clearly a mistake of Keith's, who makes the reference but gives no corresponding text.

This would, we apprehend, be sufficient evidence that Keith borrowed the materials of his chapter from Newton; but we can here again carry the proof a little higher by exhibiting some verbal coincidences:

КЕІТН.

"Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, was for a long time an extensive and populous city. Its walls are said, by heathen historians, to have been 100 feet in height, 60 miles in compass, and to have been defended by 1500 towers, each 200 feet high.'

In the second century, Lucian, a native of a city on the banks of the Euphrates, testified that Nineveh was utterly perished; that there was no vestige of it remaining; and that none could tell where it was once situated.'

Here

Here we see that Dr. Keith employs, in his text and without any reference or marks of quotation, the very words of Bishop Newton's own translations of Diodorus and Lucian. Had Dr. Keith been writing from his own stores, he might have quoted Diodorus and Lucian, but it is impossible that he could have quoted them in the identical words of Bishop Newton's version. Two words, indeed, in the last extract, are changed. Dr. Keith has substituted 'testified' for 'affirms,' and 'vestige' for 'footstep,'-but even for these variations he may be indebted to the bishop, who talks in the next line of Lucian's testimony;' and in the latter passage, after giving footstep' in the text, he adds in a foot note, out of his superabundant accuracy, the Greek word ixvos, and the Latin vestigium-by which Dr. Keith was probably enabled to make these important alterations. We shall add another instance of Dr. Keith's desire to make-when it does not cost any great expense of learning or study-variations from his model. Towards the conclusion of the Dissertation on Nineveh, the bishop quotes the old travellers Thevenot and Tavernier and the geographer Salmon, as to the ruins still existing along the banks of the Tigris, 'ruins of great extent,'' heaps of rubbish for a league along the river, full of vaults and caverns,' 'heaps of rubbish almost a league along the Tigris over against Mosul, which people imagine to be the remains of this great city.' Instead of these Dr. Keith substitutes (what it would be better if he had added) the account of the recent traveller Buckingham, of the appearances of mounds and ruins extending for ten miles, and widely spread, and seeming to be the wreck of former buildings.' The meaning is obviously the same, but the introduction of Mr. Buckingham's name and the suppression of the others gave a little air of novelty and originality to Dr. Keith's compilation. There are a variety of other points in this remarkable chapter, which might be quoted to the same conclusion, were it not a waste of time and space to add to the proofs already accumulated; but there is one final circumstance which proves so clearly the uncandid and deceptive spirit in which the whole matter has been dealt with, that we cannot omit it. Dr. Keith thinks proper to conclude this chapter with an acknowledged quotation (the FIRST that occurs in the work) from Newton

*

'Such an utter end has been made of it.......and such is the truth of the divine prediction' (p. 232) :—

to which he appends this note,

'See Bishop Newton's Dissertations.'

There are, as we have before stated, in the subsequent half of Dr. Keith's work five or six other references to Bishop Newton, but they are in the same style of acknowledging a trifling obligation to conceal or negative a greater one. these instances are very gross, but we have not room to expose them.

Some of

Why

Why should Dr. Keith, who had not hitherto acknowledged any of his innumerable and substantial obligations to Newton, have thought it necessary to distinguish this general observation, which would apply to any part of both the books as well as to Nineveh? Was it with the intention that-if it should be thereafter discovered by some over-curious critic that he had borrowed every fact, every argument, every quotation, and every reference, from Bishop Newton-he might be able to say in his defence that, forsooth, he had so little intention of concealing it, that he actually referred his readers to Bishop Newton's Dissertations?' If he should now attempt such an excuse, we reply, first, that he only refers to Newton for the half dozen words we have quoted, and that, although his usual references are made with great display of minute accuracy, as lib. i. cap. 2, § 3, p. 4, (Newton always furnishing him therewith,) he gives no reference to any of his six quotations from Newton. A reference might have led to examination-comparison-detection! But, again; if he meant by this note to avow any obligation to Newton beyond the mere passage quoted, why did he not say so? and why did he not do the same justice on the thousand other occasions in which he has borrowed from the bishop? and why, above all, did he, in his preface, affect to be ignorant that such a work as Newton's Dissertations' ever existed? and why does he add in his Appendix, The preceding pages occupy for the greater part a space which writers on prophecy have very sparingly touched,' (p. 373,) when, in point of fact, they for the greater part occupy a space which Bishop Newton had so unsparingly touched-that, except geographical facts extracted from very recent travellers, Dr. Keith may be said to have scarcely produced a new text, a new quotation, a new illustration, and hardly even a novel expression?

We sincerely regret that our sense of truth and justice has forced us to make this exposure. We lament it for Dr. Keith's own sake, for that of literature, and, above all, for the sake of the cause of which he is, in other respects, a useful auxiliary. Why, we ask in equal wonder and sorrow, did not Dr. Keith candidly confess his general obligations to Bishop Newton's work? Why did he not say, as we should have been ready to admit, that, admirable as in all its leading features it is, its general utility would be much increased by revision and curtailment-that some of its subjects have for common use become obsolete—that others are drawn out to a tedious length, and occasionally encumbered by a superabundance of proof-that some of his interpretations were rather strained, and others, those particularly relating to Christian sects, too dogmatical-and, above all, that the discoveries of modern travellers afford so many and such important illustrations and confirmations of the bishop's argument, that such a work as

Dr.