endeared their names to posterity, while their persecutors are mentioned only to be despised. Driven out of the church, and interdicted from even keeping school for a livelihood, these excellent confessors, instead of caballing and plotting against their adversaries, devoted themselves to the preservation of learning and the defence of rational Christianity. Then that profound scholar, John Pearson, besides his invaluable "Exposition of the Creed," compiled the body of "Sacred Critics," of which immense treasure of erudition his last biographer has taken not the least notice, though he has given an elaborate account of the abridgment of it by Matthew Pool, as an original work,

We hope that the example so laudably set by Mr. Todd in rescuing the memorials of Bishop Walton, will have the effect of stimulating some one equally able and equally liberal to do similar justice to that Prelate's illustrious successor, Bishop, Pearson. Never

were works of this description more needful than at the present moment, when by a large portion of the community spiritual illumination is accounted of greater importance than human learning; while others in a vain conceit of their own knowledge, affect to treat the attainments and labours of former times with contempt. Hence it is that the country is overrun with enthusiastic teachers, who, destitute of even a competent acquaintance with their mother tongue, take upon them, by virtue of a sixpenny license, to explain to the ignorant multitude those recondite mysteries of religion, which as even an apostle allowed are hard to be understood." Thus also is literature insulted by empirics, who, claiming an extraordinary insight into the native principles of the ancient languages, condemu without mercy or modesty, all former scholiasts, lexicographers, and grammarians, as ignorant block.

heads that were never right but by accident. In an age of such sciolism nothing, therefore, is safe; and no authorities, however venerable, can be depended upon. Homer is a blind name for works written, or rather songs composed by different persons of whom nothing more is known, than that they in vented legends in verse, of about the same credibility and to the same purpose as the puerilities ascribed to Ossian. With a still more daring flight one man has converted the Jewish history, Pentateuch and all, into an astronomical enigma; while another with the same faci lity, and he too a priest and an affected believer in Christianity, has traced these same revered records to a set of old ballads.

At length, as if the climax of absurdities and paradoxical assurance, wanted the utmost excess of audacity to impose upon public credulity, we are told that no scholar till the present day ever understood the original construction of the Hebrew language; and, consequently, that all the world, the Jewish rabbies not excepted, have hitherto been in darkness respecting the real meaning of the Scriptures. This, to be sure, is paying a fine compliment to the human understanding; but it is of far more serious import as affecting the honour of the Divine Being; for in what light can these books be considered as his revelation to man. kind, when it required the superior sagacity of an English cobler to interpret them correctly for the first time after the lapse of above twenty centuries from the completion of the Sacred Canon ?Yet we have lived to see noble and royal patronage lavished, no doubt without pre vious examination, upon this most impudent species of quackery, the very pretensions of which are at: variance with the common sense of mankind; and if admitted, must at once destroy the validity of the whole Bible.

Were we to measure the danger

by the power of the instrument, we should have no hesitation in saying, that it would be the wisest course to treat presumptuous ignorance with silent contempt, for who "would break a fly upon a wheel?" But when we reflect upon the advantages which infidels have always taken of the rash emendations of the Sacred Text, proposed by even learned and well-meaning critics; we must confess that every thing, however trivial it may be, which has a tendency to increase scepticism, alarms our fears. Though truth cannot suffer either by the malice of enemies, or the indiscretion of fools, it is the duty of all who have the ability to remove such obstacles as may from time to time be thrown in the way of its progress by eraft or ignorance.

It is to the influence of this imperative obligation that we are indebted for the publication which has drawn from us, perhaps with somewhat of too much prolixity, these remarks. We should, however, be worse than the Traditores of old, who timidly gave up the Scriptures when demanded of them, did we not, as occasion offers, express a honest indignation against those who would fain substitute a new Bible of their own manufacture, for that which we have been led to venerate from our infancy. To vindicate that Sacred Volume, and its translators, is a commendable undertaking; and the task has been well performed in the present work, which exhibits such a luminous view of oriental learning in England in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as must effectually put to shame those who imagine that till this enlightened period, in hoc chartarum sæculo, all was twilight.

Little additional information is here given of Dr. Walton's personal history; but it appears that in proportion as his learning and virtues made him beloved by the loyal and orthodox, he on the same account

became an object of persecution to the zealots of reformation; " and once when sought for by a party of horse sent in pursuit of him, he was forced to shelter himself in a broom field. In this state of distress he fled to Oxford, then a royal garrison, and while at that famous University he planned the Polyglot Bible, an undertaking only adapted, as any one would have supposed, to a season of prosperity, and impossible to be carried into execution without the invigorating beams of royal patronage. Yet did this stupend ous concern begin when the Church was under a cloud, and when her ministers were reduced to abject poverty. Walton, and his learned colleagues, when they associated in this Herculean labour, were living in a state of casual dependence upon the charity of their friends; and the only mark of favour experienced by them from the men in power, was that of obtaining the paper from Holland, free of duty. But lest any should be disposed to make a merit of this grant on the part of the usurpers, let it be considered that those zealots had already deprived Walton and his principal coadjutors, not only of their preferments, but their temporal estates; so that such liberality was like that of the sheep-stealer, who to quiet his conscience, gave away the trotters to the poor for God's sake.

In 1652 the proposals for the Polyglot were first issued; and though by the battle of Worcester the hopes of the royalists were laid in the dust, the love of learning was not abated, and before the end of that year near four thousand pounds were subscribed for the encourage. ment of the work,

As the Prospectus is a literary relic of great curiosity, and affords a clear view of this important undertaking, it will we doubt not prove acceptable to our readers.

of the Bible in the Original Hebrew, Sa"A Brief Description of an Edition maritan, and Greek, with the most ancient

Translations of the Jewish and Christian Churches, viz. the Sept. Greek, Chaldee, Syriac, Ethiopic, Arabic, Persian, &c. and the Latin Versious of them all: a new Apparatus, &c.

"Whereas the ground of faith is the Word of God, contained in the Scriptures, it must needs be a work of highest consequence to preserve those sacred oracles in their original purity, freed, as much as may be, from all possibility of error that may arise, either by the negligence of scribes, and injury of times, or by the wilful corruption of sectaries and heretics, which, as was foretold, abound in these latter times, and so to transmit them to posterity.

To this end nothing can more conduce than the publishing of the Original Text, according to the best copies and editions, with the most ancient translations, which have been of greatest authority in the Church, especially those of the Eastern languages; which, in regard of their affinity and nearness to the original, are fittest to express, and, in regard of their antiquity and general use, in the first and purest ages, are the thest glasses to represent that sense and reading, which was then generally received into the Church of Christ, to whose care the custody of the Scriptures is committed; the comparing of which together, bath always been accounted one of the best meaus to attain the true sense in places doubtful, and to find out and restore the true reading of the text where any variety appears.

Besides this, the harmony and consent of so many ancient copies and translations, made in several ages and parts of the world, so far remote one from arother, and continued to this day, agreeing all in matters of moment, are no less the voice of God, testifying from heaven, that those books proceeded from a Divine Author, who hath so marvellously owned and pre served them in all parts of the world, among so many changes and revolutions that have happened, mangre the malice and power of satan, labouring by heretics and sectaries, to corrupt, and by persecutors to extirpate the Scriptures, and therewith Christian religion. "Therefore, in the greatest empires and kingdoms of the world, God hath so ordered by wise providence, that the Scriptures have been either originally written, or translated into these languages, and by that means spread over the world, (though besides the intention of the conquerors,) as appears by the Hebrew and Greek Originals, the Syriac, Chaldee, Persian, Arabic, Latin, Ethiopic, and other translations in which the praises of God REMEMBRANCER, No. 31.

have been sounded forth over the world, by means of the Assyrian, Greek, Persian, Roman's, &e. conquests and victories.

"Hence it was, that when Origen compared his Tetrapla, Hexapla, and Octopla, though they consisted only of the Hebrew and diverse Greek translations disposed in several columns, yet they were received with such general applanse, that, as St. Jerom saith, they presently filled all libraries.

"The like care hath been taken, in this last age, by sundry editions of the original texts, and of sundry ancient translations, made by the pains and industry of learned men, and by the munificence of princes and others; yet none of them are so complete and perfect, though of great use and high esteem in the Church, but_that the diligence of those, that come after, may add something to perfect the work which they begun, as the authors of those editions have done to those before them.

"The chief editions of this last age, (not to mention those by Bomberg, Vatablus, Buxtorf, Stephanus, Munster, Hütter, and others,) are, I. The Complutense. II. The Antwerp. III. The Parisian."

"I. The Complutense was set forth by the Complutense divines, at the charges of Cardinal Ximeneus, Archbishop of Toledo, in six volumes, anno 1520; wherein is contained, !. The Old Testament Hebrew. 2. The Vulgar Latin. 3. The Septuagint Greek, and Latin. 4. The Chaldee Paraphrase by Onkelos, upon the Pentateuch, with the Latin Translation. 5. The New Testament, Greek and Latin. 6. An Apparatus, consisting of an Hebrew and Chaldean Lexicon, an Hebrew Grammar, an Index, &c.

“11. The Antwerp Bibles, in eight great volumes, set forth by Arias Montanus, and other learned men, at the charges of the King of Spain, anuo 152; wherein is added to the Complutense, 1. The Cha'dee Paraphrase, upon the rest of the Old Testament, by Jonathan and Joseph Cacus, with the Latin. 2. The Interlineal Translation of the Old and New Testament, 3. The Syriac New Testament, in Syriac and Hebrew characters, with the Latin. 4. An Apparatus, in two volumes, containing di vers Lexicons and Grammars, Hebrew, Syriac, Chaldee, Greek, with some Tracts for better underst.nding the text: some Idiotisms: few various Readings: divers Indices, &c.

"III. The Parisian Bibles, in ten large tomes, anno 1645, set forth by Michael Le Jay, Morinus, Gabriel Sionita and others, by authority of the Cardinals Richlieu and Mazarine, and the French Bishops; 31

wherein is added to the Antwerp Bible, which (except the Apparatas,) is herewith reprinted: 1. The Old Testament, Syriac and Latin. 2. The Arabic Old Testament and New, with the Latin. 3. The Samaritan Pentateuch, with the Samaritan and Latin Versions. But here is no interlineal or other literal translation of the Hebrew into Latin; none of the Apparatus at all, as in the other editions: no various readings in any language; no index; no idiotisms: (the edition being abruptly put forth by reason of some difference among the publishers;) but only the text in the several languages, and those not according to the last copies.

"Though these editions be justly had in high esteem, the second of which was styled, by some learned men, orbis miraculum, though it come short of the third; yet, it must be confessed, that divers ancient and useful translations may be added; that there are better copies now, than those followed in the former editions: that many things useful then, but needless now, may be taken away; that a new apparatos, far more useful, may be framed; and the several languages digested in better me thod; besides the greatness of the price, and vastness of the volumes, which makes them scarce useful for private libraries, being printed in such paper and characters as served rather for pomp than use; (that of Paris being sold at 45 or 50. the price of an ordinary library :) so that with out detracting from the just praises of the publishers, (whose labours must be made use of, as they did of other men's that were before them,) it may be said, that a more perfect and useful edition, than any yet extant, may be made in five or six ordinary volumes, which may be had a: a fourth or fifth part of the price of those of Pars, or thereabouts. The several parts whereof follow.

"1. The Old Testament, Hebrew, and the New Testament, Greek, with the interlineal translation which is wanting in the Paris and Complutense Bibles.

"2. The Vulgar Latin, according to the accurate edition of Sixtus Quintus, and Clement VIII. wherein many 1000 errors and faults of the former editions are corrected, as appears by the catalogue set forth by Lucas Brugensis.

"3. The Roman Septuagint, the Greek whereof was printed by the most ancient Vatican copy, written, as is conceived, before St. Jerom's time, which is without doubt the most authentic of any yet ex

the old vulgar Latin used in the West, be. fore St. Jerom's translation, is restored and preserved: whereas the Septuagint followed in the other editions, is made only to agree with the modern Hebrew, and accordingly enlarged or cut short, and may be better called a new Greek Translation of the modern Hebrew, than a true edition of the old Septuagint.

"4. The Chaldee Paraphrase on the Old Testament, by Onkelos upon the Pentateuch, and by Jonathan upon Joshua, Judges, Samuel, Kings, and Prophets, about our Saviour's time; and by Jos. Cæcus upon the rest, written afterwards. All according to Buxtorf's exact edition, wherein many thousand errors are corrected, and the points, which were added by some ignorant Jew, after the invention of points, are rectified and reduced to the analogy of Ezra and Daniel, which was only in part attempted by Arias Montanus, but not perfected, as himself acknowledges. The Latin translation also amended, according to Paulus Fagius, and others.

"5. The Syriac Old and New Testament (the native language of Christ and his Apostles,) corrected by copies transcribed out of the most ancient and perfect MSS. remaining with the Patriarch of Antioch, which is according to the old and simple edition (as it is called) translated out of Hebrew, about the Apostles' times; the other Syriac edition out of the Septuagint, being long after. That of the Paris Bibles had many lacunas, which they supplied e proprio ingenio.

"6. The Arabic Old and New Testament corrected and compared with those parts set out by Erpen us and others, and with other copies here in public and pri vate libraries.

"7. The Samaritan Pentateuch, (the old Hebrew text, as is conceived, about Esdras's time, if not before,) in the Samaritan character which is the o'd Hebrew letter, before Esdras changed it into the Assyrian (the mode n Hebrew,) after the return from Babylon.

"8. The Persian Pentateuch, by Jacobus Tavosus (formerly printed by the Jews in the Constantinopolitan Bibles in Hebrew characters,) put into Persian characters, and translated into Latin, not extant before in any of those other editions.

"9. The Persian Evangelists, with the Latin Version, which are now at the press, published by Mr. Wheelock, a learned linguist, and not extant heretofore.

"10. The Ethiopic Psalms, Canticles, and New Testament, with the Latin Version, not extant in any former edition.