quered, a vast mass of phraseology which by degrees amalga mated with their own, and may have been refined by the time of the kings into a polite language: but it must have differed widely from the idiom of Moses. Let us suppose the separation of Israel from Judah not to have in any thing affected the language of Jerusalem, and that this endured without any material change as long as royalty: still a captivity of full seventy years at Babylon must have produced a third great innovation, and (as in the case of the Protestants banished by Louis XIV.) have reduced the patrial language of the exiles into a strange tongue only to be learned by study. The Babylonian dialect, brought back from the captivity, will indeed have reverted somewhat towards the Judahite language in which Solomon and Isaiah had composed: particularly after a certain residence in the original country, many of the inhabitants of which remained;-and this mixed speech will have prevailed, with little variation, from Nehemiah until Alexander's conquest: after which the inroads of Greek phraseology occasioned a new revolution. To suppose that the Coptic- Hebrew of Moses, and the Judahite-Hebrew of Solomon, and the Babylonish-Hebrew of Nehemiah, can be the same language; or even so much alike as to be all at any one period intelligible to the Jews; is in our opinion a nearly untenable doctrine. Now the Bible is written from beginning to end in one of these three dialects. The law is not written in one, the prophets in another, and the chronicles in a third dialect but an unifor mity, an identity of idiom, a contemporaneity of style, pervades the whole canon. Hear Leusden's Philologus Hebræus, 17 diss. Miratus sæpissime fui quod tanta sit lingua Hebræa, convenientia in omnibus libris veteris testamenti, cum sciamus libros illos a diversis viris, diversis temporibus, & diversis in locis esse conscriptos. Scribatur liber a diversis viris in eadem civitate habi tantibus, videbimus fere majorem differentiam in illo libro, vel respectu styli vel copulationis literarum, vel respectu aliarum circumstantiarum, quam in totis bibliis. Verum si liber sit scriptus, verbi causa, a Teutonio-ac Frisio, vel si intercedat inter scriptores differentia mille annorum, quanta in multis libris veteris testamenti respectu scriptionis intercessit, eheu! quanta esset differentia lingua. Qui unam scripturam intelligit, vix alteram intelligeret: imo erit tanta differentia, ut vix ullas eas linguas, ob differentiam temporis

loci ita discrepantes, regulis grammatica & syntaxeos compre hendere possit. Verum in veteri testamento tanta est constantia, tanta convenientia in copulatione literarum, constructione vocum, ut fere quis putare posset omnes illos libros eodem tempore, iisdem in locis, a diversis tamen authoribus esse conscriptos. According to Professor EICHHORN, the dialect of Mores; and according to

Dr.

Dr. Geddes *, the dialect of Solomon, prevails in the Scriptures. The following reasons might be adduced in behalf of the remaining hypothesis, that the most modern of these three Hebrew dialects is at present really our sacred language. That Ezra quoted various state-papers in the original Chaldaic is an indirect proof that he was writing in a vernacular tongue : had he been using a learned language, laboriously imbibed from writings treasured up by the priesthood, he would have translated his fresh documents into the holy language:-but Ezra's dialect is that of the whole Hebrew writ. In the next place, it is still more improbable that Nehemiah, a man apparently not very lettered, should have written the account of his own actions in an obsolete language, accessible only to the priesthood, such as that of Moses or of Solomon must in his time surely have become. Now the book of Nehemiah, again, does not differ from the rest of Scripture, and (even if we reject the whole 12th chapter, which contains a list of highpriests down to the time of Alexander, and the connected first six verses of the 13th chapter, as interpolations,) it supplies evidence of a very late state of the language of Jerusalem; to say nothing of compositions yet more modern. Lastly, the book of the law of Moses was understood by the mixed multitude when publicly read by Ezra and others (Nehemiah, c. viii. v. 1. to 8. c. ix. v. 3. c. xiii. v. 1.); it existed, therefore, in the living language of that æra; and we have no reason to suppose ourselves possessed of any other copy. It is not, then, unlikely that our extant Hebrew Scriptures are a translation, executed by Ezra and his coadjutors, of the more antient writings of his nation:whence, else, their Babylonian alphabet, and the Chaldaisms scattered in them?

The 16th and following sections are occupied in analyzing the signification of canon; in order to separate, on some fixed principles, the canonical from the apocryphal writings. The author inclines to attribute canonicity to all those Scriptures of the Jews which Christ and the apostles considered as sacred. Now, as they have not nominally discriminated between the pious romances of Esther and Jonah, and of Tobit and Judith, nor between the moral apophthegms of Ecclesiastes and Ecclesiasticus, but appear to fall in with the public opinion, and to leave uncontroverted the national ideas of their time as to the relative character of their holy books; it is obvious that those books are to be still regarded as canonical, which the

** "The Pentateuch, in its present form, could not be written before the reign of David, nor after that of Hezekiah." Preface, P. xviii.

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Jewish nation, in the time of Christ, regarded as such; and these, by the help of Josephus, can by probable induction be very satisfactorily ascertained. He informs us at least (Josephus contra Apion. lib. 1. § 8.) that the holy books were twenty-two in number, and that the collection was finally closed in the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus. Whatever, therefore, was of posterior date (as the books of Maccabees) does not properly belong to the canon of Scripture, however authentic the information it may contain; or however analogous its mode of origin to that of the book of Judges, or of any other merely historical portion of the Old Testament. As it is probable that the minor prophets were once considered as a single book, 4 as well as some other writings now separated from each other, we may in various ways account for the number twenty-two, even with some additions to the present canon, such as Baruch, and the prayer of Manasses.

The second Chapter includes a very learned and elaborate critical dissertation on the history of the text of Scripture; which the author supposes to have been originally written in Ægyptian letters on rolls of linen. Various probable sources of corruption are pointed out, and severally exemplified, with great industry and great success.

The third Chapter enumerates and analyzes the various resources of criticism for the purification and restoration of the text. These are appreciated, in general, with much learning and judgment: but the Samaritan Pentateuch (§ 303.) is perhaps somewhat hastily undervalued.-This general matter occupies a volume and a half.

To these various and comprehensive preliminaries, succeeds a specific introduction to each individual book of Scripture. The few remarks, to which we can allow space, will rather respect those neologic opinions which appear to require farther elucidation, than the more satisfactory mass of instruction. If, occasionally, we interweave our own surmises, it is not because we attribute to them an undue weight, but because we think that every account of an important book ought to aspire, at least, to contribute somewhat towards the elucidation of its topics.

In discussing the antiquity of the Pentateuch, the author takes high ground, and endeavours to prove that it is in the main a work of Moses, occasionally interpolated by subsequent transcribers. His method of proof is to set off from the earhest date at which its existence is universally allowed, and thence to trace it backwards by probable induction unto its very origin. No one denies that it was extant in the time of Ezra. It was written before the capture of Jerusalem: else the seem

ing prophecy, (Genesis, c. xlix. v. 10.), the fulfilment of which the captivity rendered impossible, would never have been inserted. It was extant in the time of Josiah (2 Chronicles, c. xxxiv. v. 14.), and was then of such acknowleged authority, that the perusal of it occasioned immediate reformation of the religious usages which swerved from its precepts. It was extant in the time of Hoshea; since a captive priest was sent back from Babylon (2 Kings, c. xvii. v. 24.) to instruct the new colonists of Samaria in the religion which it teaches. It was extant in the time of Joshaphat (2 Chronicles, c. xviii. v. 10.), who employed public instructors for its promulgation. It existed in the time of David; since his psalms (xl. v. 8. &c.) contain allusions so manifold to its contents, yet it was not drawn up by him, since it differs in spirit from his writings, and forbids many practices of which he was guilty. Samuel could not have acquired the knowlege of Egypt which the Pentateuch implies; and Joshua plainly describes (c. viii. v. 31. and c. xxiii. v. 6.) some such book as already extant. It can, therefore, be attributed to Moses alone; and this indirect evidence from tradition is stronger than a more positive and direct ascription, which would have been the obvious resource of fraud. Nor would any writer posterior to Moses, who was contriving a sanction for actual laws, have noticed the progressive variations of those institutes, (compare Leviticus, c. xvii. with Deuteronomy, c. xii. v. 20.) as the composer of the Pentateuch has done: but Moses, (continues our author,) with respect to prior periods of history, must have been himself a compiler. He lays no claim to the character of an inspired historian. Indeed the very idea is absurd. The narrator who should substitute the representations of his fancy for the evidence of his senses, and for the result of his inquiry, would not be an historian, but an epic poet. In order, then, to appreciate the credibility of the primeval history of Moses, we must inquire concerning the documents which he may be supposed to have employed. These, in our author's opinion, were principally written documents, distinct sagas, preserved with little alteration in the apparent order of their events. If those which mention the god Elohim be supposed to be of origin distinct from the origin of those which mention the god Jehovah, two leading sources of information; he thinks, may be discrimi nated, as already particularized by Dr. Geddes; (Preface to the Holy Bible, p. xix. and xx. ;) besides some smaller insertions.

Professor EICHHORN's hypothesis may be questioned, but his analysis must be admired. The future critic of the Pentateuch will find his attention sharpened by it to the arts of in

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vestigation, and will learn from it a multitude of delicate yet not imaginary tokens, by which he may detect what is original, what is transcribed, which train of idea is of one age and which of another; and thus separate an historical Mosaic work into its elemental fragments. Some objections to the doctrine, which ascribes the composition of the Pentateuch to Moses himself, may be drawn from the consideration that so many especially of the earlier portions appear more akin to Oriental than to Ægyptian tradition. The Zend-Avesta, when first translated, was attacked as a modern forgery by Sir Wil liam Jones: but he has since discovered (Asiatic Researches, vol. ii. p. 52.) the documents of Anquetil du Perron to have been originally Sanskrit. They offer evidence, therefore, for a state of popular opinion as remote as the age of Cyrus. Now the Zend-Avesta contains (vol. iii. p. 378.) a religious fable or uubos, entitled Boun-dehesch, closely resembling the account of the Fall of Man in Genesis. The tradition of a deluge, if Egyptian, was also Oriental. The geographical document (Gen. c. x.) contains so many names still in use in the time of Ezechiel, (see especially c. xxvii.) that we can hardly suppose these writings to be of an antiquity so very widely distinct as is imagined. The building of the Tower of Babylon, which Herodotus has described (Clio 181.), was no doubt a favourite saga in the city to the minster of which it related. Concerning Abraham, indeed, and his descendants, it is quite probable that Moses should have obtained all the pedigrees and other family-documents which could contribute to an authentic history:-yet the story of Joseph and his Brethren wants, in our apprehension, some internal characteristics of reality.A marvellous felicity of incident bordering on the romantic,-a delicacy of moral sensibility scarcely to be expected among the forefathers of the conquerors of Canaan,-every where mystical numbers, seven years of plenty, seven years of famine, twelve children of Jacob,-miraculous dreams and inspired interpretations, the story of Zulikha, so familiar to Oriental romance,the intimation(c. xlix. v.28.) that there is allegory in the account, and the marks of time in it,all these things tend to cause hesitation. Besides, was not the division of the Jewish nation into twelve tribes a geographical division, probably subsequent to their settlement in Palestine, of which decisive early traces do not occur? Could these tribes have remained so wholly distinct in the Wilderness and in Egypt? Was it not the practice of the East to borrow, from the actual name of a province, that of the supposed progenitor of its inhabitants? Ferishta begins his history by observing that Dekkan was a son of Hind, meaning thereby that Dekkan is a subdivision of Hindostan :