N the section with which we

I usually comence this chapter,

we shall this year have but little to notice, for few years have been more barren than the current in what may be strictly called biblical criticism.

The first work of this description that demands our attention is entitled "Biblia Hebraica; secundum ultimam editionem, &c. A new edition of Everard Van der Hooght's Hebrew Bible; by the Rev. Joseph Samuel C. F. Frey," Part I. 8vo. pp. 128, pr. 4s. 6d. large paper, pr. 6s. While the study of oriental literature is advancing amongst us with wonderful rapidity; while Persian and Arabic may be shortly expected to become almost as extensively pursued as Greek, and even Sanscrit and Chinese to make no inconsiderable progress, it is highly gratifying to us to receive annual testimonies that the language of the Old Testament is in no danger of sinking into oblivion. The first work we were called upon to notice in our last year's survey was a Hebrew Bible, without points, after the text of Kennicott, with notes of various

kinds, by Mr. Boothroyd, who, as we then noticed, has combined in himself the two important characters of editor and printer. And our readers will now perceive that Mr. Frey is engaged upon a similar work, though upon a different plan; simpler by the omission of philological and explanatory notes, but far more complicated by the introduction of accents and vowel points. It is to be completed in twelve parts, one of which is to be published in alternate months. To give the points and accents as accurately as possible, Mr. Frey has engaged several Jewish compositors to assist him, who, from their childhood, have been trained up to a familiarity with the punctuated and accentuated Hebrew. He has taken the text of Salomon Poops as his more immediate standard, and makes the edition of Van der Hooght conform to it; and compared with Poops, the Dutch biblicist is said to be spotted with a great multitude of

errors.

It is this last and most laborious part of the plan that we chiefly disapprove. In reality it is a misnomer to call it a new edition of Van der

Hooght,

Hooght, for it is a mixt rendering of Van der Hooght and Poops; and it is highly probable that many of the alterations in the accentuation and punctuation of the text, introduced into it as corrections from the latter, would be regarded as errors by the former. Such, however, must ever be the case upon a recurrence to the old, and, as we were till now in hopes, almost exploded use of the Masr (702). Upon which subject we shall take leave to remark, for the benefit of the English reader, that the Hebrew Bible, in its earliest state, consistently indeed with the form of most oriental books of high antiquity, was written without any breaks or divisions in its text, into chapters, verses, or even words; every individual letter being placed at an equal distance from that which followed it throughout every separate book. And hence when breaks and divisions were first introduced, as a new scheme, it is easy to conceive what vast differences must have existed in the different copies of every transcriber who undertook to determine for himself. Masr, or Masora, is a scheme, drawn up from tradition, that endeavoured to remedy this variety of lection, by numbering not only every chapter and section, but every verse, word, and letter, of which every book of the sacred Scriptures of the Old Testament consists; and this by the introduction either above or below of vowel points, accents and pauses. Who were the authors of this pretendedly infallible canon we know not. By many of the rabbins it is asserted to be coëval with the delivery of the law to Moses on Mount Sinai; having been communicated to him, in their opinion, at the saine time, and handed down to posterior ages of the Jews by tradition, which in reality is the direct English of

1811.

The

the term Masr. There are others, again, who assert that the system was invented in the time of Ezra ; while Dr. Kennicott, and many other very excellent Hebraists, will not allow it to be older than the beginning of the uinth, and Morinus than the beginning of the tenth century of the Christian era. Be this as it may, since we are totally ignorant who first invented it, and what authority its inventor had for his own opinion rather than for that of any other ancient copy, affording a different division or punctuation, it is obvious that even from the first to its present state, the Masoretic copy must have been as open to the charge of corruption as any rival copy. But if this be true of the Masoretic text at first, and when in its own view immaculate, what ought to be our opinion of the different manuscripts and impressions of it, even the most perfect of them, which have since been circulcated through the world, encumbered and perplexed with this immense burden of diacritic marks; of regal and ministerial attendants (for so the Hebrew grammarians denote their accents); of Saheph-hatons, and saheph-gadols, pashitas and hanneparas, shal-shaleths, and marcakephalas, and matitudes of other names equally barbarous; of which, although it requires an extensive code of laws to marshal them, and Bohlius is said to have wasted seven long years in vain effort to this purpose, neither he, nor any one else has ever been able to point out the practical use.

We have thrown out these hints, because we are sorry to find, that after all the labours of Capellus, and Kennicott, and various other excellent Hebraists to subdue the almost intractable prejudice that formerly subsisted in favour of this perplexity,

and

and the success with which we had flattered ourselves their exertions had at length been crowned, we are once more threatened with being brought back to all the Masoretic trash of the rabbinical pedagogues as the only sure interpreter of the Hebrew Scripture! Surely, this is not the way to excite a general taste for the Hebrew language, or a general understanding of it: nor will the additional expense that must hereby be incurred, and which it appears will render the book incapable of being sold under two guineas and a half for the small, and three guineas for the larger copies, be a means of augmenting its circulation.

"Hebrew Criticism and Poetry; or the Patriarchal Blessing of Isaac and Jacob, metrically analyzed and translated; with appendixes of readings and interpretations of the four greater prophets, interspersed with metrical translation and composition; and with a catena of the prophecies of Balaam and Habakkuk; of the Songs of Deborah and Hannah, and of the lamentations of David over Saul, Jonathan and Abner, metrically translated: also with the table of first lessons for Sundays, paged with references. By George Somers Clarke, D. D. Vigor of Great Waltham, Essex. 8vo. pp. 440. We have given the whole of this voluminous title, as answering the purpose of a table of contents. Dr. Clarke is a critic of great courage and speculation, and we have been about equally pleased and displeased with his attempts. His preface is an extraordinary composition. With uncalled for and erroneous concession, he admits that the authors of the creeds and articles of our established church have endeavoured to unite in one bond of religious consent, error on all hands, for the mutual good of all; the error of Origen, of

Jerome, and of the church of Rome with the error of Calvin, of Luther, and of Grotius-for where is human perfection?" And asserting that this has been done for the mutual good of all, and having become the national creed, or, in his own language, that which is uppermost, be calls upon sectaries of every description to accede to it; "there ccrtainly,(says he),ought to be no quarrels on account of religion. If subscription is the law of the land, every one ought to subscribe." We have not time to point out all the errors, and evil tendencies of so wild and visionary a declaration and conclusion. From what source has Dr. Clarke ascertained that the doctrines of the Church of England have been derived from the pages and doctrines of all these various and discordant writers, rather than from the pages and doctrines of the Bible, to which they all appeal? And from what source, more especially, has this beneficed son of the church made the galling discovery that they are a compilation of the different errors of these different writers ? — That error of any kind can ever be for the good of all-that if it could be so, this would be a sufficient reason for subscribing to error, or that subscription of any kind is in fact the LAW of the land? How, moreover, the errors of Grotius, who was born towards the close of the sixteenth century, can have entered into an establishment which was commenced half a century before his birth, and completed half a century be fore he was of age, we must leave to some future effusion of his fancy to determine: and in the meanwhile shall content ourselves with believing in the more correct view of the Bishop of Lincoln, that "out church is not Lutheran ;-it is not Calvinistic;-it is not Armenian;—

it

it is SCRIPTURAL. It is built upon the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief-corner-stone."

We pass to consider, in few words, Dr. Clarke's scheme for measuring and ascertaining Hebrew poe ry. That many parts of the Old Testament were originally composed in a metrical arrangement, is now admitted by every one; but the rules of Hebrew prosody being no longer known, the nature and constitution of the metre are altogether conjectural. Dr. Lowth supplanted Bishop Hare, but did not establish any thing very satisfactory instead of the building he pulled down. Dr. Clarke is dissatisfied with Dr. Lowth, but his own theory, though ingenious, is too unsolid, and requires too many sacrifices in the common reading to have any chance of popularity or longevity. His key-stone is the parallellism of line with line; and the principles he has erected upon this basis are the following: he contends "1st, That the metrical lines of the Hebrew writers never consisted of more than four terms or words; not excepting very small ones, such as and 7; and admitting very rarely, if ever, two words, joined together by maccaph, as one. 2dly, That such lines most commonly have only three words, which often stand by themselves, and also are not seldom intermixed with those of fours. And 3dly, That both the lines of four words and those of three are very frequently succeeded by a line of only two words joined to them; usually by the conjunction, which comprehends an understood repetition of one or more of the terms of the proposition in the immediately preceding line; and sometimes also by the force of some term in that preceding line, the repetition of which term is to be understood as introducing the

verse of two words." This last rule is subject to certain exceptions, which the writer endeavours to explain and account for. The theory is altogether hypothetical; but our chief objection to it is, that, in order to bring the received Hebrew text into conformity with it, it is necessary to suppose an almost perpetual existence of verbal errors, and to throw out many of the longer words for shorter, and many of the shorter for longer. A single example must suffice. In Jacob's blessing upon his sons, Gen. xlix. 20, it is prophesied that " Ashur shall yield royal dainties, (delicias regis);" or, as Mr. Green has it "dainties for a king;" the original is for this phrase is too long for Dr. Clarke's principles of Hebrew; and the consequence is,that the common reading must be incorrect, and that the short term 1

should be adopted in its stead. We have not space for a critical examination of Dr. Clarke's translations; but though many of his hints are ingenious, and a few of the changes which he proposes perhaps admissible, we cannot admire the sort of taste he manifests in his version, and have very seldom been able to prefer it to that of Lowth, Blaney, Green, Dodson, Stock, or even Geddes, to say nothing of our very excellent standard rendering. There is, in our opinion, a great awkwardness, instead of an improvement upon the established lection, ia giving the particle so often the force of even instead of and of which the following, selected at random, may serve as an example, and with which we are compelled to conclude: Dan. ix. 24.

Seventy years are-the-times appointed-to-
thee,
Concerning thy-people, even-concerning 2-
city
Appropriate