in another language would appear an assertion following a negation, is a continued negation. The advantage derived from this elliptical metre, which seems to have reckoned entire words that it suffered to be absent from it, was an elegant addition to the agreeable variety of the verse. By it there appeared to be a grateful intermixture of lines, which occasionally broke, with happy effect, the palling regularity nor was a comparison therefore to be drawn between these parts of the compositions of the Hebrews, and the regular inequalities of the Greek and Roman lyrists. The poets of Judea, it is apprehended, would have been equally insensible to a likeness between their writings and those of Pindar, as they would have been superior to any recognition of iambics, anapasts, and parc.

miacs.'

All this is very pretty, and may also be very true: but other bold critics, having lighted the torch of conjecture, will arrogate to themselves the honour of having made other discoveries, and will exhibit the sacred prophecies according to a different arrangement.

When we came to the Patriarchal Blessings, we expected the author to observe his own rules; which, indeed, he endea vours to do in the distribution of the Hebrew metre, but not in his English translation. We think, also, that it will be objected to him that he has leaned to the Masoretic punctuation, when, after what he asserted respecting the labours of the Masora, he should have read the Hebrew, as Parkhurst does, without points. Let us take, as a specimen, the blessing of Isaac on Jacob, Gen. xxvii. 28. The Hebrew is given in English charac

ters.

Vejit-tén lechá ha-E-lo-hím
Mit-tál hasch-schá-ma-jím,
U-misch-ma-né há-a-rétz,
Verábh da-ghán vethi-rósch.
Já-chgabh-dhi-cha chgam-mím,
Vaj-jísch-ta-hhú lechá leum-mim.
Ho-véh ghebhír leé-hhaj-chá,
Vaj-jisch-tá-hha-vú lechá
Bené ím-mechá.

O'-re-chá a-rúr,

U-me-bha-rá-che-chá ba-rúch.'

May God to thee the dew of heav'n assign!
From the earth's fatness store of corn and wine!
People serve thee! to thee may nations bow!
Lord of thy mother's bending sons be thou!
Themselves thy cursers' curses all shall meet :
And blessings shall thy blessers ever greet.'*

METRICAL ANALYSIS.

Here,

The blessings of Isaac and of Jacob, as Bp. Lowth and other scholars have determined, are very antient prophetical poems: in

Here, instead of running two Hebrew lines into one of English, it would have afforded the reader a clearer insight into the subject, had Dr. C., regardless of rhime, arranged his version as nearly as possible, word for word, according to the original, thus:

And give to thee shall God

Of the dew of heaven:

And from the fatness of the earth
Abundance of corn and wine.

Serve thee shall the people,

Bow to thee shall the nations:

Thou shalt be Lord to thy brothers,

And bow to thee shall the sons of thy mother,

He who curses thee is cursed,

He who blesses thee is blessed.

which, and in others of the same nature, as he observes, the com, position of the thoughts principally consists in a certain equality and resemblance, or parallelism, of the members of any period; so that generally in two members, things correspond with things, and words with words, as if they were purposely measured and reciprocally paired. This construction, he adds, admits many degrees of parallel and much variety; so that sometimes accuracy and perspicuity of parallel prevail, at other times it is more loose and obscure.

6

Of the three divisions of this construction, according to Bp. Lowth, the synonymous, the antithetic, and the synthetic parallels, the blessings of Isaac upon Jacob, and of Jacob upon his twelve sons, seem to have been composed.

The blessing of Isaac upon Jacob* commences with three pairs of synthetic parallels curiously disposed; the first, fourth, and sixth lines consisting of each three measures, of which the last of the first and of the sixth lines are subjects, the rest prædicates; and the second, third, and fifth having only two measures cach; of which the last of the fifth line is a subject, the others all prædicates. The metre is not regulated by the measures; but its construction is not less involved, or less regularly irregular. For instance, the first line and the sixth correspond in being nine syllables each in three words each; the second and fifth in being six syllables each in two words each; and the two intermediate lines in being seven sylla bles each, the former in two words, the latter in three.

To these succeed a pentacolon of antithetico-synthetic parallels; the first line consisting of three measures, a copula, a subject, and a prædicate; the four following of two measures each; first, two prædicates; second, third, and fourth, a subject and a prædicate each, The first and the last line have each eight syllables, the former in three words, the latter in two; the second line consists of seven syllables in two words: the third and fourth lines consist of five syllables each in two words each; reading in the contraction, which the lan guage admits and the metre requires.'

See the metrical analysis of Jacob's blessing upon Reuben,

In

In the next place, we are presented with a new version, accompanied by a metrical analysis and notes, of the blessing of Jacob on his twelve sons, Genesis xlix. 2., et seq. Some critics have questioned the probability of the fact that old Jacob, in his last moments, poured forth these benedictions on his sons in rhythm, and, like the classical swan, expired in harmonious numbers. They suppose that the present metrical form of this striking passage of Scripture was given to it by one of the sons of Jacob, for the sake of facilitating their remembrance of it; or that, in the Augustine era of Jewish literature, it ́ assumed its poetic garb. Dr. Clark considers it as having been divinely indited,' and deposited, without the loss or change of a syllable, into the faithful storehouses of the human mind; until the sublime and divinely-inspired author of the Pentateuch was ready to stamp it in characters of eternity, and destine it to confer an endless consolation upon all the future ages of men.' If, however, the text has undergone the alterations which this writer supposes, and the emendations which he has suggested are necessary to restore it to its original state, we cannot regard it as having been stamped in characters of eternity. Yet, though we are not believers in the absolute. purity of the present Hebrew text, we are fully convinced that no book has been preserved and transmitted to posterity with so much attention to accuracy as the Pentateuch; and that no fanciful metrical arrangements, made by modern Hebraists, can warrant alterations of the present Hebrew text, without the authority of some antient MS. or MSS. Dr. C., moreover, in order to have ample scope in his mode of voweling and reading the Hebrew, has, with some modern scholars, spoken too contemptuously of the Masares; calling them dotting doctors,' and describing them as gentlemen who, about the beginning of the eighth century, in their seat of sloth and ignorance upon the banks of the lake of Tiberias, were the inventors of the sublime learning of Kamets, Tseri, Scheva, Segol, &c. As to the invention of the points, we have nothing to do with it; the question is, does the Masoretic punctuation, as the name implies (D, masar, tradidit,) transmit the antient reading of the Hebrew, or afford us that sound and pronunciation of Hebrew words which prevailed when it was a spoken language? By asserting that it does not, we in fact tell the Jews that we know their language better than they know it themselves, which is not a little presumptuous; and by following Mascleff, Parkhurst, and others, who reject the Masoretic vowels, we adopt a mode of reading which is at variance with the evidence of the New Testament on the subject to say nothing of that of Origen, in the third century, who in his

Hexapla

Hexapla has presented us with the then pronunciation of the Hebrew, expressed in Greek characters. Shall we find in him, or in the Gospel, any authority for the modern Aleim instead of Elohim? Had been pronounced Aleim, in our Saviour's time, we must have found A or Aλw, and not Ex or Eaw in Matt. xxvii. 46.; and Origen would have read ah, and not wμ, in Gen. i. 1. The student of Hebrew in the present day must admit, if he has a grain of modesty, that the Masorets, who succeeded each other at different periods, must have been much more at home on the subject of Hebrew pronunciation than he can be; and that these professed preservers and transmitters of the antient mode of speaking the Hebrew language, though no doubt occasionally wrong, must have been more generally right than we can be by proceeding to vowelize the Hebrew at random; and that nothing but the strongest reasous can justify a modern, who acquires a smattering of the language from a grammar and a lexicon, in departing from them. The Hebrew cannot be read without vowel-points, either expressed or understood; and though the Synagogue-copies of the Jewish Scriptures are without the Masoretic punctuation, they are read according to it by the officiating rabbi or priest: - Jewish children, also, are always taught this punctuation, as necessary to the correct pronunciation of the language of their forefathers. These. remarks, we think, ought to be taken into consideration by the readers of Dr. Clarke's volume; and they merit his particular notice, because, in spite of his ridicule on the dotting doctors,' he could not have proceeded altogether without their assistance. In his readings of the passage before us, how would he have known the letters which are to be duplicated, without the Dagesh? and how would he have ventured, without the aid of the points, to read wisch, in one syllable, instead of aisch? Why does he not read beni instead of bené ( filii ), and atté instead of atta (tu), &c.*? —but let us proceed to his new version. The 3d verse of Gen. xlix. he thus puts into modern characters:

Rá-av-bán becho-rí át-ta,
Co-hhí verí-scho-níth o-ní,

* Whether we follow or reject the assistance afforded by the Masorets, the laws of Hebrew versification cannot now be recovered. "A man born deaf" (says Dr. Lowth in the Preliminary Dissertation to his new version of Isaiah) may as reasonably pretend to acquire an idea of sound, as the critic of these days to attain the true modulation of Hebrew by metre." We object, therefore, to alterations of and to bold liberties with the Hebrew text, for the sake of aiding a fanciful hypothesis.

Jé-ther

• Jé-ther seéth vejé-ther chgóz.
Pa-hház cam má-jim al to-thar,
Ci chgal-lí-tha misch-cabh a-bhí-chi,
A'z hhil-lál-ta jétzu-chgáj chgo-léh.”

Thus translated into English metre:

Reuben, first-born of this my honour'd train!
Strength of my youth! my manhood's prime maintain
Excel as I excell'd; my valor prove :

But shun the wand'rings of incestuous love;
Which to thy father's couch his Reuben led,
And fix'd thy footsteps foul upon my bed.'

We say nothing of Dr. C.'s substituting in verse 2. le Jis-ra-el' for al Jis-ra-el: but we cannot pass over without notice his substitution, in the passage above, of veri-scho-nith, for vereschith (M) and misch-cabh for misch-cebhi ('wp). The Doctor requires these alterations to support his metrical system, and he begs, in the latter instance, to be allowed the liberty which he has taken; but is it not better to question his knowlege of Hebrew poetry, than to sanction such bold emendations? In behalf of his new translation, excell as I

excell'd,' &c. Dr. C. remarks, in a note, that the common version of the original is inconsistent with Moses's blessing of Reuben, Deut. xxxiii. 6. Let Reuben live and not die, &c.: but we can perceive no inconsistency in the two passages, as they appear in the English Bible. Jacob is speaking of Reuben's personal character; Moses, of the tribe of Reuben, or of his descendants. Nothing is more evident than that Jacob meant to reprove the incontinency, not to say the lubricity, of his son Reuben, who was like water overflowing the banks which ought to have contained it. This idea the LXX., or Alexandrine version conveys, and Dr. C. has expressed it with suffi cient strength. Our objection to his rendering is that he has altogether sunken the reproof which Jacob intended to convey, by giving to the whole passage the form of exhortation; whereas, in our judgment, the dying patriarch meant to say, " though, Reuben, thou wert my first born, the prime of my vigour, and fuperior both in dignity and strength, by departing from thy duty thou hast failed to excel." We cannot agree with Dr. C.that Jacob's blessing was unmixed; that only a gentle reproof is meant to be conveyed by the words ; and that they seem to require and admit the interpretation Thou didst not then excel. Surely, Jacob did not mean to speak so lightly of the crime of incest, as to say that it was not excellence!

In v. 5. the proper name Simcon, or Simhon, is here disfigured