without its advantages, even to him; for the general knowledge, which the ftudent could not fail thus to acquire of the great truths of the chriftian revelation, would aid him, when tudying the critical text, to form a juft judgment of the value of the propofed emendations.

But we have no defire to begin a controverfy with Dr. Marth, especially on a queftion of fo little importance; and therefore we proceed to make a report to our readers of his Lectures on the Criticism of the Hebrew Scriptures.

In his tenth lecture he obferves that as in the Greek Teftament, fo in the Hebrew bible, the various readings have arifen partly from accidental and partly from defigned alteration. Among the caufes of accidental alteration, he enumerates the fimilarity in form of different Hebrew letters; the fimilarity of found when the copyift writes from the dictation of another; the Jewish practice of fubftituting in certain cafes one word in reading, for another, deemed of the fame import; emillion of claufes occafioned by the fame word recurring after a very fhort interval, abbreviations and numerical marks unfkilfully decyphered; the improper divifion of words written without intervals; and the practice of filling up at the end of a line, the space which was too fmall for the following word, with letters meant to have no meaning.

The defigned alterations, which he thinks were made in the Hebrew text before the introduction of the Mafora, he attributes to erroneous judgment, which led the transcribers to imagine that they could fupply defects or correct miftakes; and he fuppofes, with great probability, that they were led into this miftake by the cuftom of writing in the margin of Hebrew manufcripts, notes, which were afterwards transferred into the text. Thefe notes were of various kinds, of which we have here a luminous and most satis factory account, as well as of another fource of various readings, arifing from a difference in the mode of writing certain Hebrew words, after the introduction of the vowel points into the language.

"Let it not, however, be imagined," fays Dr. Marfh, "that the alterations, of which we are now fpeaking, were intentional corruptions of the facred text, or in other words alterations in. troduced with the consciousness that they were corruptions.". "Jerom, who of all the Fathers was perhaps the beft judge of this fubject, was certainly of opinion, that the Jews had not corrupted the Hebrew fcriptures; for in contradistinction to the Septuagint, he calls the Hebrew Bible veritas Hebraica ;" and when he made a new tranflation (into Latin) he tranflated not not from the Greek, but from the Hebrew."

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Thefe

Thefe obfervations lead Dr. Marth to make fome remarks on the labours of the Maforets, which he values very highly, though he is far from thinking with Buxftorf · and fome others, that the Maforetic text is abfolutely perfect. This opinion, which, he establishes by the most folid arguments, leads him again to give fome account of the 'controverfies between the two Buxtorfs on the one hand, and Cappellus and Morinus on the other, refpecting the antiquity of the vowel points, and the refpective claims of the Chaldee and Samaritan alphabets to the honour of being, the alphabet in which the Hebrew Scriptures were originally written. We have barely room to mention these controverfies, and to transcribe the concluding paragraph of this admirable lecture, which we recommend to the moft attentive perufal of our readers.

"This controverfy about the antiquity of the Hebrew letters and points must be carefully diftinguished from another controverfy hereafter to be mentioned, in which Cappellus and the younger Buxtorf were likewife engaged, on the integrity of the Hebrew text: for the controverfies, though in fome measure connected, and frequently confounded, reft on totally distinct grounds. In the opinion that the Hebrew or Chaldee character was not used by the Jews till after the Babylonish captivity, and that the prefent fyftem of vowel points was introduced in a ftill later age, the most diftinguished Hebrew scholars, with a very few exceptions, have fided with Cappellus." P. 90.

In his eleventh lecture, the learned profeffor difcuffes a queftion of much greater moment than the antiquity of the Hebrew points or the Hebrew letters, namely, the integrity of the Hebrew text. "The letters," as he juftly obferves, "may have been changed, the points may be new, and yet the words may have remained the fame." In this lecture, we have an account of the writings of Morinus, Cappellus, and Houbigant, on the one hand; and of Simeon de Muis, Arnaldus Boetius, and the younger Buxtorf on the other. Of these two claffes of critics the former contended that the Hebrew text is exceedingly incorrect, inferior greatly to the Samaritan Pentateuch, as far as it goes, and even to the Greek verfion of the feventy; whilft the other clafs maintained with equal earneftnefs, that the text of the Maforets is abfolutely without error. It is furely needlefs to fay, that a man of Dr. Marth's learning and found judgment agrees with neither of thefe parties; though he thinks, as we believe the learned in general think, that Cappellus was the moft judicious critic of the whole.

After

After giving a perfpicuous view of what thofe parties attempted, and of the conroverfies which were carried on between them, he proceeds to Dr. Kennicott's edition of the Hebrew Bible, of the origin, progrefs, and merits of which he favours us with a minute, and, we believe, accurate detail. He estimates Kennicott's labours very highly, though as a biblical critic he thinks him in judgment inferior to Wetftein and Griefbach; but he confiders his edition as peculiarly valuable, for having contributed to establish the credit of the Maforetic text.

"From it we learn," he fays, "this ufeful leffon, that although a multiplication of written copies will, notwithstanding all hu man endeavours, produce variations in the text, the manufcripts of the Hebrew Bible have been fo far protected by the operations of the Mafora, that all which are now extant, both the oldeft and the newest, may be compared with thofe manufcripts of the Greek Teftament, which Griefbach refers to the fame edition.

"That the integrity therefore of the Hebrew Text, from the time when it was fixed by the authors of the Mafora, has been as ftrictly preferved to the prefent age, as it is poffible to preferve an antient work, is a pofition, which no longer admits a doubt. Another question of equal importance is, whether we have fufficient reafon to believe, that this Maforetic text is itself an accurate copy of the facred writings. In the examination of this queftion, Hebrew manufcripts are of no ufe; the oldest now extant are younger by fome centuries than the Mafora itself; and therefore they cannot furnish the means of correcting the faults, which the Maforets themselves may have committed. -But if we

cannot appeal to pofitive evidence, we mult argue from the evidence which the nature of the cafe admits. It is indeed one of thofe queftions, which ought to be holden in the affirmative, till we have reason to believe the negative. Now the learned Jews of Tiberias, in the third and fourth centuries, must have had access to Hebrew manufcripts which were written before the birth of Chrift. We know that they fought and collected them. We know that their exertions to obtain an accurate text was equal to their endeavours to preferve it. Why then fhall we conclude, that they laboured in vain? Our notions of integrity muft not indeed be carried to fuch an height, as to imply that no deviations from the facred autographa were retained in the Maforetic text, that there are no pallages in our prefent Hebrew Bibles, which betray marks of corruption, and ftill require critical aid. Such paffages undoubtedly there are: and we are still in want of an edition of the Hebrew Bible, conducted on the plan of Griefbach's Greek Teftament; Kennicott's edition having brought us hardly fo far in the criticifm of the former, as Mill's edition in the criticifm of the latter." P. 109.

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The twelfth lecture, which is the laft in this publication, and completes the first branch of the course, is employed in defcribing the authors, who have illuftrated, according to its feveral departments, the criticifm of the Hebrew Bible. As great part of this lecture confifts of the mere title-pages of books, with very short estimates of their respective merits, the learned profeffor deemed it unfit for delivery to a public audience; and for the fame reafon it appears to us incapable of abridgment, being indeed itself nothing else than an abridged view of a most important branch of theological study.

In perufing this lecture we confefs that we felt fome degree of humiliation on finding so very few of our own countrymen recommended by Dr. Marfh as Hebrew critics; for, except Walton, Caftle, Ufher, and Lowth, we do not recollect one English writer in this department of literature, of whom he speaks in terms of high refpect: though we cannot help thinking that Dr. Lightfoot and the late bishop Horfley, not to mention others, whofe names delicacy to living authors may have prevented him from publifhing, were entitled to fome notice as biblical critics. The names of Lightfoot and Horfley-two of the moft illuftrious scholars in their respective ages-are not once mentioned in this lec-1 ture; and had we no other knowledge, than what it affords us, of the progrefs of facred literature in Europe, we should infer that Germany is the only country, in which biblical criticism has ever been cultivated with zeal or fuccess. Far be it from us to detractor wish to detract from the real merits of the learned men of Germany. They have, in every age fince the revival of letters, been diligent and laborious fcholars; and while they contented themselves with acting the part of the pioneers of literature, for which nature feems to have intended them, their labours were highly ufeful, and their fame established on a folid foundation.

For more than half a century, however, they have affected to take the lead in the regions of difcovery, even in thole regions, where no real difcovery can be made; and fince this became their ruling paffion, almost every divine, and every philofopher of Germany has been ambitious of that fame which is to be obtained by deviating from generally received opinions, farther than any man had ever ventured to deviate before him. Thus the wild reveries, both philofophical and theological, of Piftorius, Herder, and others; and hence too, the daring hypothefes of even our author's friend Eichhorn!

We

We do not by this mean to infinuate that the authors recommended in this lecture are unworthy of the attention the learned profeffor wifhes to be paid to them; we only advise our readers, when perufing their works, to judge for themselves, and not fubject their own English understandings to German authority. When they relate facts, honeft men of every nation are entitled to the fulleft credit; but there are very few men indeed of minds fo vigorous and vigilant, as to be proof againft prejudice in favour of fome particular opinions; and that even critical opinions and fyftems have their partizans among the Germans, is rendered indifputable by the account which Dr. M. gives of the prejudices of Matthæi in behalf of the Byzantine manufcripts of the Greek Teftament.

ART. II. Expofe Statistique du Tunquin, &c. par M. M―N, fur la Relation de M. de la Biffachere.

OUR

(Concluded from our last, p. 111.)

UR readers are aware, that the work of which we here refume the confideration is in fact the produce of two men of very different defcriptions; the fimple ftatement of the facts, refting entirely on the evidence of the Miffionary, whom we may well fuppofe to have paid greater attention to his pious exertions, than to the political and domestic concerns of the people among whom he spent many of the best years of his life; while the obfervations and inferences deduced from thofe facts, where we find abundant inftances of fagacity and extenfive political knowledge, are due to the editor, who manifeftly appears to have had confiderable practice in ftate affairs. We are now arrived at the Second Part, which, as well as the third and laft, affords much greater fcope to the latter to display the qualities we do not fcruple to afcribe to him; nor do we hesitate to declare, that the beft part of the gratification we have derived from the perufal of this work has been obtained from this source.

"PART II.

1. Political conftitution and government. Tung-quin, as to its political inftitutions, is, if equal, certainly not fuperior to the other Afiatic ftates, all of them much inferior to those of Europe. Originally derived from, and till lately fill in a ftate of vaffalage under China, the Tung-quinefe have preferved their

ancient