Still difficult then, if we carefully sift, Is the vulgar account of the Pentecost gift; Which the learned advance, and establish thereon What the vicar has built his ideas upon, With additions thereto, which, as far as I see, Not one of the learned has added, but he; For example-if some, very few I presume, Have describ'd the disciples as quitting the room.

But let them be many-what reason, what trace, Do we find of their leaving the sanctify'd place? Of a wind from above did they fear at the shake? And the house, thro, a doubt of its falling, forsake? Or did they go forth to the gathering quire, [fire? Lest the many bright flames should have set it on If a thought could have enter'd of going away, What circumstance was not strong motive to stay?

Then again—that the foreigners, all of them, The language then us'd at Jerusalem too [knew For the miracle's sake one would here have demurr'd,

Which is render'd so needless, improper, absurd, That Jerusalem mockers would really have had A pretence, to allege-that the pious were mad; For of speaking strange tongues what accountable aim, [same? Or of hearing fifteen-when they all knew the

Add to this the disciples, the hundred and twenty, [like plenty; Spake, amongst one another, strange tongues, in "One by one," says the vicar, who very well saw What confusion would rise without some such a law,

[gan As the text has no hint of; which says--they beTo speak by the Spirit-not-man after man: Could time have suffic'd for so doing, yet why Speak the tongues of such men-as were none of them by?

The vicar saw too, that this could not attract Any multitude thither-supposing it factAnd so he conceiv'd that a rumour was spread By the men of the house, of whom nothing is said. Now when men of his learning are forc'd to find Such unchronicl'd salvos to dissipate doubt, [out One is apt to infer a well grounded suspense; And the more to look out for more natural sense.

I wish my old friend would consider the case, And how ill it consists with effusion of grace To speak Parthian, and Median, and so of the rest, To none but themselves being present address'd. Unless he can grant, on revolving the point, That indeed there is something not rightly in joint,

Or solve one's objections, or show one the way How to clear up the matter-what can a man say?

EPISTLE IV.

I HAVE with attention, dear vicar, repass'd Your obliging reply to the lines in my last; Am sorry 'tis final; yet cannot but say [way, That your patience to hear me has gone a great And extinguish'd all right to require any more, If I put you to prove two and two to make four1;

I "Your answer to the query-Were the tongues which our Saviour (St. Mark 16. 17.) promised his

Very difficult task, as one cannot deny, [it by. When there's nothing more plain to demonstrate But if" two and two, four,"-I am thinking

has claim

To self-evident truth, has this comment the same? "The new tongues, which are mention'd in pro

mising page

Are the old ones, subsisting for many an age:"-
Is it really as plain, as that four is twice two,
That in no other sense they could ever be new,
But as new to the speaker, John, Peter, or Paul;
While the tongues in themselves had no newness
at all?

Were this a true thesis, and right to maintain, Yet-two halves are one whole-is however more plain; [pear Till the proof, which is wanted, shall make it apHow the two propositions are equally clear: This proof may be had from the chapter, you say, Which relates what was done on the Pentecost day

The best of all proofs-but, to do the fair thing, Give me leave to examine what reasons you bring.

"That yoga is languages oft, if you seek In the Septuagint, or the New Testament Greek, Acknowledge you must."-Yes; 'tis really the

66

ταις ἡμετέραις γλωσσαις—in this very place Must mean, in our languages; sense, you must Is the same as in—τη διαλέκτω ήμων [own, In our languages, or in our dialect2;"Yes, Two and two making four is not plainer than this.

But how it flows hence, that in cited St. Mark It has no other meaning, I'm quite in the dark: Few words of a language are always confin'd To a meaning precisely of just the same kind: For the roots of the Hebrew, in Hutchinson's school,

I remember they had such a kind of a rule; But the reach of its proof has been out of my pow'r, hour. Tho' I've talk'd with their master full many an

1 believe, that by grace, which the Spirit instill'd, [actly fulfill'd "They shall speak with new tongues" was exIn our Saviour's disciples; that, grace being got, They did so speak in tongues, as before they could not.

they then knew not? is, No. This is doing things disciples they should speak with, such languages as to the purpose-a bold Alexandrine stroke-and I am put upon the difficult task of showing, that two and two make four."—Mr. L's Letter.

"You cannot but own that the word yλwoon, in several places of the Old Testament, according to the seventy, and in many places of the New Testament, signifies languages. And that it does so in the above cited (St. Mark 16. 17.) may be fully proved from the very chapter (Acts 2) in which, what was done on the day of pentecost is related. In v. 11. the signification of rais huiтipais ydwooαıç—is evidently, in our languages, the same as is otherwise expressed in v. 6. bydią diaλexrw, and in v. 8. by a diahxrw WV." Mr. L's. Letter.

The summits of plants is the sense of the word."
Such an ancient decision, so quite a propos,
Disperses at once all the classical show
Of a learning, that builds upon Africa's east,
And the traunts, how wild people were fabl'd to
feast

Upon fancied huge locusts, which never appear,
Or huge, or unhuge, but five months in the year:
To be hoarded, and piekl'd in salt and in smoke:
How Saint John is employ'd by these critical folk!
Where the locust could feed such an abstinent
saint,

Of food for his purpose, could never have want:
If the desert was sandy, and made such a need,
How account for the locusts descending to feed?
In short, Mr. Bl-k-u, they cannot escape
The charge of absurd, in all manner of shape;
If they can, let them do it-mean while I conclude
That St. John's was the plantal, not animal food.

Thus, sir, I have stated, as brief as I'm able,
The friendly debate that we had at your table;
Where the kind entertainer, 1 found, was inclin'd,
And acknowledge the pleasure, to be of my mind:
Having only to add, now I make my report,
That howe'er we may differ in points of this sort,
Our reception at Orford, all pleas'd we review,
And rejoice in the health of its master-Adieu.

When his ill-treated priest the whole army had curs'd:

Or rather what suffer'd; for custom computes That Apollo's first shafts fell amongst the poor brutes;

Instructing both critics to construe, and schools, Κυιας agy; the dogs-and as the mules.

Now, observing old Homer's poetical features, I would put in one word for the guiltless dumb

creatures.

And the famous blind bard; for, as far as I see, The learn'd, in this case, are much blinder than he: At the mules, and the dogs, in his versify'd Greek, Nor Phoebus, nor priest, had conceiv'd any pique; And I doubt, notwithstanding the common consent, That the meaning is mist which Mæonides meant.

Why the brutes were first plagu'd, an Eusta

thius, and others, [pothers, Of the nature, and causes, and progress of plague; Have made a great rout with their physical And all, to the purpose, quite foreign and vague: But be medical symptoms whatever they will, Such matters I leave to friend Heberden's skill, And propose a plain fact to all cunninger kenThat the mules and the dogs, in this passage,

are men.

Just then, as they rise, to explain my ideasLet the lexicon tell what is meant by &; In plain, common sense, without physical routs, The Grecian outguards, the custodes, or scouts: The word may be mules too, for aught that I know, For my scapula says, 'tis, Ionice, so; And refers to the lines above quoted from Homer, Where mules, I conceive, is an arrant misnoiner.

If a word has two meanings, to critical test, That which makes the sense better is certainly The plague is here plainly describ'd to begin [best; In the skirts of the camp, then to enter within; To rage, and occasion, what Iliad styles, Incessantly burning their funeral piles; [fools Which the Greeks, I conjecture, were hardly such As to burn or erect for the dogs and the mules.

The common Greek word, the Homerical too, For mules is 8, where it will do; [coerce And there was, as it happened, no cause to Its use in this place, for it suited the verse: Whereas a plain reason oblig'd to discard, If this was the point to be shown by the bard, That first to the parties about the main camp Apollo dispatch'd the vindicative damp.

Thus much for the meaning of xuves Is attended, I own, with a little more newness; For the sense, in this place, will oblige us to plant A meaning for xuvis, which lexicons want: And if that be a reason for some to reject, [pect; 'Tis no more than correction, tho' just, may exBut if it be just, the true critics will add, 'Tis a meaning that lexicons ought to have had.

Both canes in Latin, and xu5 in Greek, And the Hebrew word for them, if critics would seek,

Should be rendered sometimes in prose writers or

bards,

By slaves or by servants, attendants, or guards:

Nec non et gemini custodes limine ab alto Procedunt, gressumque canes comitantur herilem.

KUVES agyo in Homer were then in his view, When Virgil, in Latin, thus painted the two; And the canes in him are the very custodes, Most aptly repeated, dignissime sodes: Did ever verse yet, or prose ever, record Any literal dogs, that kept pace with their lord? Proceeding attending-how plain the suggestion That dogs, in the case, are quite out of the question!

And now I appeal to all critical candour, If Homer's young hero, or senior Evander, Had dogs for companions, to honour their gressus, As translators in verse, and in prose, would pos

HAVING shown you the passage, one cannot avoid

An appendix so proper, kind visitant Lloyd, To the mules and the dogs, which a little while since

[evince: Were guards and piquets, as verse sought to Whether xus attended, two footed, or four, Upon heroes or kings, let the critics explore; But θρίας for mules, in old Homer's intent, I suspect that his rhapsodies never once meant. The word is twice us'd in the twenty-third book, In the space of five lines; where I made you to look;

I'll refresh your attention-Achilles, know then, Had desir'd Agamemnon, the monarch of men, To exhort 'em to bring, when the morning appear'd,

And prepare proper wood, for a pile to be rear'd, For the purpose of burning, as custom instill'd, The remains of Patroclus, whom Hector had kill'd.

When the Morning appear'd, with her rosyfy'd fingers,

Agamemnon obey'd; and exhorted the bringers, The mules and the men;-as translation presents

Exhorted them all to come out of their tents: So the men and the mules lay amongst one another,

If this be the case, in some hammocs or other; And the men, taking with 'em ropes, hatchets, and tools, [mules. Were conducted, it seems, to the wood by the

For the mules went before 'em-the Latinists say[way: Which, a man may presume, was to show 'em the Or, since there was danger, the mules going first Might, perhaps, be because the men none of 'em durst;

For they all were to pass, in their present employ, To the woods of mount Ida, belonging to Troy; And if Trojans fell on them, for stealing their fire, The men in the rear might the sooner retire.

However, both mulish, and well booted folks Came safe to the mountain, and cut down its oaks; And, with more bulky pieces of timber cut out, They loaded such mules, as were mules without doubt:

When you found in the Latin, so certain a place;
Where the loading description show'd mules in
the case,
Your eyes to the left, I saw rolling, to seek
If the word for these mules was spywy in Greek.

And had they discover'd that really it was, Conjecture had come to more difficult pass; But since it was not, since 'drwy came, What else but the meaning could vary the name? Why should Homer, so fond, as you very well noted, [quoted,

Of repeating the words which his Muse had once Make so awkward a change, without any pretence Of a reason suggested by metre, or sense?

'Huovo, mules, tho' a masculine ender, Is always in Greek of the feminine gender; But is, you'll find, let it mean what it will, Never is of that gender, but masculine still; How ridiculous then, that is the Hees, Should become, by their loading 'nuovo, Shees? In a Latin description would poetry pass, That should call 'em mulos, and then load 'em mulas?

Both the word, and the sense, which is really
the bard's,

Show the masculine mules to be certainly guards:
Any mules I desire any critic to name,
If Jacks in the gender, that are not the same:
May be offer'd, perhaps, as a masculine plea;
One place, which I hinted at, over our tea,
But if folks were unbiass'd, they quickly would find
A mistake to be there of the very same kind.

The Trojans met Priam at one of their gates, With the corps of his Hector-Omega relates— Whom they would have lamented there, all the day long,

Had not Priam, addressing himself to the throng, Made a speech-" Let me pass with the mules”and so on[upon: Now the words that he said, at the entrance of For mules drew the hearse which the corps lay Were— Ουρευσι διελθέμεν είξατε μοιο [Troy,

Priam said to the people, still hurrying down,⚫ "Let me pass thro' the guards"-(to go into the town)

This is much better sense, by the leave of the schools,

Than for Priam to say,-" Let me pass with the mules.".

For Idæus directed the mulish machine,
While horses drew that in which Priam was seen;