author motionless. The aristocrats of Geneva fell at the feet of the gilded calf: the patriots (and in this instance the word is not abused) held him cheap.

They only saw in him a sham philosopher, without principles and solidity; a courtier, the slave of rank and fashion: the corrupter of their country, of which he made a jest. Quand je secoue ma perruque, he used to say, je poudre toute la république !" Vol. I. 563.

A copy of Rousseau's Emile, with marginal notes, by Voltaire, is still preserved. M. Simond offers one as a specimen of their general tone. Le miserable n'a de l'esprit que lorsqu'il parle contre la religion.

The extracts which we have made from M. Simond's first volume will have sufficiently manifested the quick observation, the good sense, good principle, and good taste which are the characteristics of his work. The length to which we must have extended this article if we had permitted ourselves to enter upon his history, must account for our present omission of it. We look forward with much pleasure to the prospect of returning to one of the most agreeable of our contemporary travellers.

1820.

ART. VII. Memoirs of the Life and Writings of Brian Walton, D.D. Bishop of Chester. By the Rev. H. J. Todd, M.A. and F.S.A. 2 Vols. 8vo. Rivingtons. 1821. ART. VIII. A Critical Examination of the Objections made to the New Translation of the Bible. By J. Bellamy 8vo. pp. 157. Longman and Co. ART. IX. Supplement to an Historical and Critical Inquiry into the Interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures. By the Rev. J. W. Whittaker, M. A. Fellow of St. John's College, Cambridge. 8vo. pp. 53. Rivingtons. 1820. ART. X. A Letter to Mr. John Bellamy, on his New Translation of the Bible; with some Strictures on a Tract entitled, "Remarks, &c." Oxford, 1820. By Samuel Lee, M.A. of Queen's College, and Professor of Arabic in the University of Cambridge. 8vo. pp. 135. Rivingtons.

1821.

THE attempt lately made by Mr. John Bellamy,to undervalue the merits of our admirable authorized Version of the Scrip

tures, was immediately met, as our readers may recollect, by shewing the utter incompetency of that person to assume the office of a biblical critic. There was still some danger that the very positive assertions made by him, and by the respectable gentleman who was imprudent enough to step forward in his defence, might induce some readers to doubt, whether King James's translators were so intimate, as has usually been thought, with the original of the Old Testament. Mr. Todd has very judiciously provided a satisfactory answer to any such doubts; by a diligent enquiry after the evidence which might still be collected of the extent of critical knowledge, particularly on subjects connected with Hebrew literature, possessed by those learned men to whom we are indebted for the Authorized Version; and by those laborious scholars of the immediately subsequent age, who gave their decided sanction to the excellence of that Version. Mr. Whittaker had previously selected sufficient notices of our translators to prove, that they were not obliged to derive their knowledge of the Scriptures from sources short of the fountain head. But Mr. Todd's extensive acquaintance with the early literature of this country, has enabled him to enter into more particularities; and, whilst his work bears the title of Memoirs of Brian Walton, it contains, in reality, as much as is known of many of his coadjutors in that learned and laborious compilation, the London Polyglot. The biography of a profound scholar can seldom be interesting. He is a scholar, because he has passed his life in the uniform pursuit of knowledge. Walton, indeed, lived when the overthrow both of the Church and State, necessarily drove a loyal man and a churchman out of the even tenor of his way. But the revolutionists of this country, though careless of public or private rights, when they interfered with the objects of their ambition, had none of that diabolical love of atrocity for its own sake, which has since so disgracefully distinguished the revolutionists of France. Fanaticism

overthrew the established government of this country, as completely as irreligion subverted that of our neighbours; but the wretchedness which accompanied the great rebellion as it must all rebellion, will bear no comparison with the horrors perpetrated during the ascendancy of soi-disant philosophers. As the Church was destroyed, Dr. Walton necessarily lost his preferment; and, when summoned before a Committee of the House of Commons he was treated with such incivility as to allow his biographer to say about the latter end of 1642 we find Dr. Walton sent for into custody as a delinquent.' This is the only circumstance, resembling an

adventure, which these Memoirs afford; except a report of his being overturned in his carriage. Lives passed without adventures cannot easily be made interesting in the detail. In Johnson's Biography of the Poets, his own animated remarks on men and manners, on thoughts and language, form, indeed, a charm which make us overlook the insipidity of the story which he has to tell; and the personal history of himself delights us, because the same powerful mind is exhibited in all the wantonness of its extravagancies. But the pursuits of a scholar like Walton turn more on verbal facts, than on opinions in which the imagination could have any share. Whether the Keri and Chetib are critical amendments suggested by the Rabbies, or merely various readingswhether the introduction of points is a recent invention, or dates from the time of Ezra, are questions to be ascertained by a patient investigation and laborious collection of facts; and cannot properly be made the subjects of animated dis

cussion.

But if Mr. Todd has not produced a work of general interest, (where the nature of his subject precluded all possibility of doing so) he has brought together information which will be valuable to the theologian, who wishes to know, what importance he ought to attach to the criticisms of our early divines. We must, however, warn Mr. Todd that, with all our respect for the learned persons, whose attainments he has endeavoured to ascertain, we are seldom inclined to acquiesce fully in the accounts of their great virtues and profound learning, which a writer of his knowledge may collect from prefaces, or from the obscure sources of local and collegiate biography. Such documents are as abundant in prodigies of learning, as ordinary obituaries are in great men of every description. What Burke said of heralds may be applied, with little change of language, to the historians of counties or colleges. These gentle writers, blazoners of arms and virtues, recorders of degrees and professorships, dip their pens in nothing but the milk of human kindness. They require no farther proof of merit than the official language of a diploma, or congè d'elire. Every man created a Bishop was previously a most meritorious Divine. They judge every writer's capacity for instructing the world, by the titles of the books he has written; and the more volumes the more ability. With them every Head of a House is a Bentley; every Editor of a Greek Play, a Porson, and every one who could read Hebrew a Buxtorf.

Still, after every allowance for the partiality of his authorities, Mr. Todd has collected very sufficient proofs of the

extensive cultivation of the Hebrew language amongst those English Divines, who flourished in our reformed Church, during the first century of its existence. Had that great work the London Polyglot been wholly lost, Walton's Considerator considered' would, alone, be quite evidence enough, how deeply he was versed in all the most intricate questions of Hebrew criticism. The reprint of this valuable tract forms nearly the whole of Mr. Todd's second volume; and the biblical scholars of the present day have reason to thank him for placing such a treasure within their reach.

Had Mr. Bellamy's errors and misrepresentations been connected with any less important subject of enquiry, his absurdities might have been left to sink under their own weight. But whilst he is so ignorant as to believe, that the New Testament was not originally written in Greek *; and so foolish, as to allow a Spanish Jew to persuade him, that the Hebrew MSS. used in modern Synagogues are altogether clear of errata, being " as pure as the autograph of Moses" to a "word, letter, and vowel" +; he has the presumption to assert, that the arguments of Deists against the inspiration of the Sacred Volume must be accepted as irrefragable, unless his strange mistranslations of certain passages in the Old Testament be received as correct. On this overweening vanity Professor Lee drily observes, that Mr. Bellamy must expect one or other, at least, of these three things to be taken for granted

Either, that John Bellamy professes a knowledge of the Hebrew language superior to that of all others, who have gone before him;

Or, secondly, that he is endowed with powers of mind sufficient to turn the knowledge he possesses to a greater account than others have done.

Or, thirdly, That none, up to the present time, have had

"This belief of his is not confined to the case of St. Matthew's Gospel; but apparently extends to all the Evangelists, and possibly to the Epistles.

"But I may be told that they had the gift of tongues, and consequently the Greek among the rest, and that they wrote the New Testament in Greek. That they had the gift of tongues may be admitted; but that they wrote the New Testament in Greek I deny; for in such case nothing could be wrong, obscure, or obviously contradictory to truth; such as Luke xvi.9. And I say unto you, make to yourselves friends of the mammon of unrighteousuess; that when ye fail, they may receive you into everlasting habitations. Such a command certainly could not be given by our Saviour. This verse remains in the state it was in when first translated out of the native language of Judea, in the early ages of the Christian Church, not translated; and this is the case with numbers where the Hebrew words have been retained by the translators in Greek."

Bellamy, p. 67, and 37.

honesty sufficient to give a faithful translation of the Hebrew Bible.

The Professor has, without any ill humour, stated certain rather strong reasons against conceding any one of these points. Mr. Bellamy himself can scarcely mean, that the world should adopt the last supposition of the three; because all former translators, according to him, have made the Bible less available than it might have been, towards the maintenance of their own opinions, a fraudulent intention would have led to the exactly contrary result. We should rather imagine, that Mr. Bellamy hoped the first hypothesis would have been adopted on two grounds; the gross ignorance of all prior translators, and the conspicuous profundity of Mr. Bellamy's attainments in Hebrew. But whilst Mr. Todd has proved, that the English translators were not the ignorant persons Mr. Bellamy has called them; Mr. Whittaker and the Professor, acting a still more uncivil part, have fully convinced such persons as know any thing of Hebrew, that many of Mr. Bellamy's assertions are equivalent to calling hæc the masculine article, or to saying, that amavit and amatus est mean precisely the same thing.

Those readers, who are not able to investigate the extent of Mr. Bellamy's acquaintance with the first rules of Hebrew grammar, may perhaps still imagine themselves competent to estimate the propriety of Professor Lee's second hypothesis. That Mr. Bellamy is endued with powers of mind sufficient to turn the knowledge, which he possesses, to a greater account than others have done. But this question is a more difficult one than they would suppose. The inexplicable confusion and absurdity, which pervades the whole of his arguments and statements, have perplexed and harrassed all, who have attempted to unravel their strange tissue. We were not at all surprised, therefore, at Mr. Whittaker's declaring, of certain assertions made by Mr. Bellamy, that "he knows not how," and is, in fact, utterly unable to account for them." The remark which Mr. Bellamy has made, by way of reply to these exclamations of despair, is too amusing to be overlooked; he repeats the words, I know not, nor can I account; and then he asks, with unequalled naivetè, "Is this kind of language a proof, that this writer is wellinformed? Can this be called common sense?" (Bellamy, p. 34.)

66

We shall leave our readers to ascertain for themselves, whether common sense is enough to lead them to the meaning of the following passage; and we can assure them, that it appears to us quite as unconnected with the paragraphs,