and finally depicts his triumphant return to Europe with his English version, (a language, by the way, which, in the days of Alcuin, was yet unborn). By some unaccountable means, that which had engaged such enthusiasm, and cost such pains to obtain, was utterly neglected after the monk's return. And then follows a stupid story about the document having been left among other papers to a Clergyman in Yorkshire, and of its eventually falling into the hands of the editor at an auction of the books and other property of an old gentleman in the north of England, and of his having, after keeping the manuscript translation thirty years, published it in 1751. And, strange to say, the English version of this Hebrew relic, executed by Alcuin in the eighth century, not only contains good modern English throughout, although there existed no such language in that early age; but also in a considerable number of its passages is a verbatim copy of our King James's version of the Bible, first given to the world in the year 1611; whilst, to crown the impertinence of the attempt, the editor pretends that on the back of his manuscript were a few words written by Wycliffe the Reformer, who endorses the book, not indeed as a part of the Scripture canon, but as deserving of attention "as a piece of great antiquity and curiosity."

Such is the story of this silly imposture, which, nevertheless, again deceived the world in a slightly altered reprint published at Bristol so late as 1829.* And as respects the matter of this pretended Book of Jasher, it was, to say the best, nothing more than an exceedingly lame attempt at re-producing a text resembling in style that of the Hebrew Scriptures, and embodying some of its chief historical facts. But it might be viewed in another light; and then it would appear as not so much a harmless forgery, as an attack upon the credit and authority of the inspired writings. In the "Testimonies and Notes appended to the volume, purporting to be from many ancient and trustworthy hands, Ezra is made to say, that the notes "corroborate all the grand truths of the five books of Moses." And yet there is scarcely a narrative in the whole Mosaic history which, in these same Notes, is not resolved into myth or fable!

And now, what about the Book of Jashar as put forth by Dr. J. W. Donaldson, which we have before us for review? It is surely not to be compared with this blundering imposture, of which we have sketched a sufficient outline. The learned author of "Varronianus" and "The New Cratylus" cannot have committed such ridiculous anachronisms, as are exhibited in the illiterate production of the wild fanatic in scepticism, to whose

* Vide Horne's "Introduction to the Study of the Scriptures," Ninth Edition, vol. v., part i., chap. 3.

Comparison with a former Performance.

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mint the so-called work of Alcuin was subsequently traced. The English Clergyman, the Doctor of Divinity, the teacher of youth at Bury St. Edmund's School, is surely not guilty of a dishonesty which would fain palm upon the world a garbled and inconsistent piecing and patching from the writings of Moses, as the genuine and uncorrupted text which contains the original words of Truth. We must ask our readers to suspend their judgment till, in few words, we have exhibited the predominant features of Dr. Donaldson's book, and the guiding ideas which preside over its construction.

The author of the new Book of Jashar differs from the despicable impostor to whom we have referred, in two particulars. First, he goes to his work more as a scholar, tries to prove his positions out of Hebrew, presents to us at least a large show of learning, which must first be weighed, before judgment can be given as to the conclusions he sets forth. Secondly, Dr. Donaldson pretends to no discovery of a heretofore lost manuscript. He is too wise to adopt any such course. He brings his Jashar, in some way or other, out of our existing Hebrew Scriptures, and thus shelters himself beneath the authority which pertains to their inspiration.

With these two very essential differences,-which elevate it from a production of manifest ignorance and presumption to one of scholarly aspect and plausible ingenuity,-the work of Dr. Donaldson is not so unlike its contemptible predecessor. We grieve to place an author of such repute in association so degrading, but truth demands plain dealing, and justice calls us in this instance to a painful office. If the author of the Book of Jasher of 1751 concocted a product of his own out of the existing books of Moses, the editor of the Jasharan fragments in 1854 has done the same, embracing only a larger sphere, and including all the writings down to the age of Solomon. If Ilive, the raving printer, wherever he altered, altered only to deteriorate, and thrust human alloy into the before unadulterated word, Dr. Donaldson has done the same. If the first would-be editor of Jasher really threw foulest discredit on the sacred writings by his base artifices; and, whilst professing to confirm, cast the false cloak of myth around the inspired narrative; of the latter restorer of the long lost Jashar it might be said, he has yet more egregiously and unwarrantably transgressed. Only, would we compare the two, Dr. Donaldson's dilutions of Scripture are the more diluted, his injustices the more unjust, his insidious artifices the more insidious, and his wounds, aimed at the inspired writings, the more severely wounding in their intention and deadly in their aim. It is not without a very close examination of the main structure of Dr. Donaldson's work, that we record our conviction, that his

attempt to invalidate the authenticity of our existing Scriptures, is as complete a folly, an imposture, and an impertinence, under the cover of profound learning, as was the wretched forgery of Ilive, under the presumption of ignorance.

But to begin. Dr. Donaldson prefaces his work with four pages of Introduction, in which he candidly tells us what he does, and what he hopes to do. There is no mistake about it. What he does, is to strip, or to pretend to strip, the Hebrew Scriptures, as we now have them, of their claim to be received as the genuine oracles of God. They contain the word of God, but mixed up, Dr. Donaldson would have it, with a mass of error and foolish stuff, which has been wrought in with whatever is genuine, and has in great part altered its tenor and complexion. He has put together, by methods in which he can pretend to no guiding principle but that of his own notion of what the real inspired writings ought to be, a series of fragments, wrought up out of the material of the Old Testament, but without respect to the order of that material, or its actual significance; and having done this, he conceives that his "Fragments," which assuredly never saw the light till they appeared in his own manuscript, are the ancient oracles, which in a later age became mutilated, adulterated, and involved in a mass of spurious gloss and fable, by Masoretic scribes, who took in hand the editing of the sacred volume. And therefore, just as, in the streets of Rome, the ancient edifices that have fallen into ruins re-appear in scattered fragments, here a column and there a tablet, in the palaces and churches which modern art has erected, so Dr. Donaldson finds his Bible, and with burning zeal he sets himself to the task of extracting the misplaced fragments, separating the old from the new, fitting afresh the pieces, gathering them into a consistent whole, and restoring the beauty of the original pile, and the grandeur and symmetry of its first architecture. This is our author's own account of his work. And what he hopes to achieve thereby, is of course to shed a new light upon the world, to recover man from the darkness, in the midst of which, through a false Bible, he has long groped, and to restore a long lost glory to the sacred volume.

The Introduction is followed by thirty-six pages of Prolegomena, which usher in the work itself, that is, the Jasharan Fragments, and the Editor's Commentaries. These Prolegomena expand the idea already suggested by the Introduction. They are the scientific basis of the work, and exhibit the author's theory, together with the arguments by which he would support it. On the field of the Prolegomena must be the contest, if, indeed, contest is needed, over folly so glaring, and hypothesis so puerile. In few words, we will sum up their main contents.

How to turn the Bible inside out.

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The first chapter explains the author's view of inspiration. It consists, he says, in the harmony of Scripture. Where this harmony is discoverable, there is inspiration; that is gold. Where we fail to discover it, the writing is uninspired; it is mere dross. Further, the way to discern between the gold and the dross in the Bible, is through "the witness in himself,"that is, in Dr. Donaldson; for we must take leave to inform him, that our inward witness tells us differently from his. The second chapter is to show the difficulty often attendant on the right interpretation of the New Testament. From which an argument, à fortiori, is drawn, in the third chapter, to prove the yet greater difficulty of separating the new from the old, and of getting at the original text, in "that immense farrago of many ages which the Old Testament contains." In the New Testament, many of the books give us no reason to suspect that they have been altered; but the Old Testament, our author says, depends on mere tradition, being the late compilation of Masoretic scribes, who interwove their own matter into a promiscuous mass derived from various sources, one of which was the Book of Jashar. The fourth chapter is an astonishing one. The Hebrew word Jashar signifies "upright." The Israelites as a nation, or the good of their number, were called "upright;" thus, of King Asa it is said, "He did that which was right in the sight of the Lord." Israel is called sometimes Jeshurun, "the righteous." Grant only a little change of orthography, and the name Israel itself can be derived from the same root, Jashar,-in face of the Scripture etymology, which is its literal reading, "a Prince with God." Therefore, the Book of Jashar was a collection of ancient songs, and other relics, illustrative of the piety, and belonging to the history, of God's people. Instructions in religion and the marrow of the law, exhibitions of the nature of this uprightness, celebrations of the victories of true Israelites, declarations of their happiness, and promises of future bliss, were, without a doubt, the contents of the book; and "whatever of this farina is found interwoven in the sacred writings of the Jews, may be considered an original fragment, and claims for itself a place amongst the remains of the Book of Jashar, being restored, as it were, to its native rights." In the fifth chapter, from the happy condition of the Israelites, and the flourishing of letters and religion during the reign of Solomon, Dr. Donaldson infers that this collection of Jasharan songs was composed (conflatus, "blown together") under the reign of that King. As respects the contents of the book, we have not to go far, he says, to find indications. "God made man upright," writes Solomon. That is enough: this is the substance, without a doubt, of the first part of the "Book of the Upright." And so on with the rest of the parts. The matter arranges itself very conveniently

in seven such parts: whence a strong argument in confirmation of the correctness of the restoratory process, by reason of the veneration in which that number was held by the ancient Hebrews. The last chapter of the Prolegomena occupies itself in saying what rich fruits may be anticipated from such a treatment of the Scriptures.

After what we have said, it is scarcely necessary to proceed further. Dr. Donaldson has discovered (to use his own metaphor) a back-bone which runs through the Old Testament; and it is his to eliminate this, and thus to give us back our Scriptures purified of all their dross. We have only to say, if the same attempt were made with any other book, the author would not be tolerated; and that if Welcker and others had done the same, as our author affirms, by Eschylus, we should have very little faith that there was any of the original Æschylus left in the writings subjected to a treatment so violent. More than three hundred pages follow, comprising the fragments thus restored, and the commentaries of their editor, or, to speak more truly, of their author. We have little inclination to present any of the matter to our readers, and we would recommend them to do any thing rather than trouble themselves about an examination of either text or comment for themselves. For the sake of the small modicum of good, which, in the midst of so large an amount of verbal criticism, it is but natural to expect, it is not worth while to wade through such a mass of puerility and often obscenity as this volume contains.

That the more ancient books of the Old Testament are a "farrago" of modern fabrication, and that the small portion which is to be received, namely, Dr. Donaldson's Book of Jashar, dates no further back than the reign of Solomon,-such are the two main particulars of the theory here presented for our acceptance. Do our readers wish to know how large their new Bible is? We will tell them: about equal to four and twenty average chapters of our actual Scriptures, a handy size for the waistcoat-pocket. Do our readers suppose this to consist of extracts, in some measure consecutive, and forming, although terribly abridged, something, at least, which we can call scriptural? Not at all: a half verse from one book, squeezed into the heart of another verse from a different book; chapters turned inside out; words altered ad libitum; new meanings forced wherever necessary: this is the kind of process to which the Scriptures have been subjected by Dr. Donaldson. “Adam, when he had gone out, had three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth." (Page 80.) "And Shem begat two sons, Cain, the elder, and Abel, his brother." (Page 81.) If these two verses are considered fair dealing, then we will surrender the rest; but the liberty in these is little, compared with that taken in a vast