to suffer another disappointment; for so far is our author from being able to instruct others on this point, that he seems quite to have misunderstood the nature of the Keri notes himself. This subject is discussed pretty much at large in the 1st sectionof the 2nd class of Mr. Whittaker's Historical and Critical Enquiry. I have now arrived at that part of Mr. Whittaker's book which treats of the Hebrew accents, the knowledge of which department of learning Mr. Bellamy has arrogated to himself exclusively; his ignorance of the subject has, however, been shown in the most glaring colors. This subject occupies the 2nd section of the 2nd chapter of the Critical and Historical Enquiry. In the 3rd section of this chapter Mr. Bellamy, so far from having made those discoveries which he had so loudly proclaimed, is shown to be unacquainted with the subject of the conversive conjunction Vau, and, in the fourth section, to be equally uninstructed on the subject of the reciprocity (of which reciprocity he had denied the existence) of the preterite and future tenses in Hebrew. The remaining chapter is devoted to a minute enquiry into his qualifications for becoming a translator and expositor of the Hebrew Bible. After what has been already seen of this gentleman's critical abilities, you will not, Sir, be surprised to find that he has been proved deficient in those qualifications which have, heretofore, been looked upon as requisites in an undertaking of this description. It must not however, Sir, be concealed, that Mr. Bellamy has published 156 pages of what he calls a Critical Examination and a Refutation of the objections which Mr. Whittaker had raised against his translation. Your readers will be surprised when I inform them, that he has not answered any one of Mr. W.'s objections. The whole of his book is a tissue of the most unfounded assertions. Many, indeed, of his former statements he has, as far as silence may be construed into consent, abandoned; but still the errors which he thinks it incumbent on him to defend, surpass every thing I have yet met with. I have, Sir, given this short account of Mr. Whittaker's Critical Enquiry into the merits of Mr. Bellamy's translation, that it may be clearly perceived, that, before he published the two following parts of his work, he had had sufficient notice given him of his errors, to prevent him from falling into errors of the same description in any future parts of his translation. He did not, however, profit from this in his subsequent part, and, consequently, Mr. W., faithful to his promise, published a supplement to his critical enquiry, convicting Mr. B. of the same ignorance of the simplest rules of the Hebrew language in the second, which he had already displayed in his first part. The mistakes, arising from violations of the first principles of the Hebrew Grammar, amount to the astonishing number of 189, which added to 134, the amount of those in his first part, make 323! And yet they bear but a small proportion to those which might have been enumerated; for, says Mr. W., "those mistakes which have arisen from giving words a different sense from that which they really bear, or other senses which they may in some cases require, comprising all perversions which do not involve the charge of grammatical ignorance, will not be noticed at all. Had any attempt been made to collect such errors, the file would have been gigantic." Whether such animadversions as these on his first and second parts, have produced that effect on our ingenious Critic in conducting his third part, which they ought to have done; whether he have betaken himself to his Hebrew grammar, and made himself acquainted, as every one who pretends to translate ought to be, with the nouns, pronouns, and verbs, as well regular as irregular and defective, in their various moods and conjugations; whether he have abandoned that unmeasured abuse of all who have labored in the same vineyard for the last 1700 years; and whether he have succeeded in putting his translation, I will not say, into language equally impressive, beautiful and clear as that of the authorised version, but at least into language that may be understood, and that does not violate every rule of grammar and of composition, I shall now, Sir, briefly enquire. : The 16th chapter of the book of Numbers is the first complete chapter of our author's third part, and, unfortunately for him, he gives a wrong translation of the very first verse by rendering 1987 "the son of Reuben," instead of "sons of Reuben," as in the authorised version; nor is he more fortunate in his attempt to mend the language of the common version in the fourth and fifth verses: the juxtaposition of the two translations will, perhaps, better enable your readers to appreciate their respective merits. New Translation. 4. When Moses heard, then he fell before his face. 5. And he spake to Korah, VOL. XXVI, Common Version. 4. And when Moses heard it, he fell upon his face. 5. And he spake unto Korah, NO. LI. I Cl. JI. and to all his company, saying: In the morning, (for Jehovah will distinguish who are for him and who are consecrated) then he will approach before him; yea, concerning whom he will select for himself, he will draw near to him. and unto all his company, saying, Even to-morrow the Lord will show who are his, and who is holy; and will cause him to come near unto him; even him, whom he hath chosen, will he cause to come near unto him. However strange it may appear to those who have not been in the habit of perusing the lucubrations of this sagacious author, he substitutes this mass of obscurity as an improvement on the authorised version! What meaning he may attach to this collection of words, I am quite incapable of determining. The twelfth verse of this chapter is thus given in our common version: " And Moses sent to call Dathan and Abiram, the sons of Eliab; which said, We will not come up :" and people have generally supposed that Dathan and Abiram, when they used the words "We will not come up," refused to go to Moses, who had sent for them; not so, however, our critic, who thus instructs us in his note, which at least has the merit of being short, "We will not come. The word naegneleh, does not by embrace the meaning of come, but to ascend; that is, to ascend to the land of Canaan !!!" In his note on the 17th verse, we perceive a striking proof of the great care that Mr. Bellamy has taken not to misrepresent the version which he pretends to correct. "Each of you his censer. The word pukehow, the imperative of the verb to take, is omitted in the common version. It describes the manner in which they were to approach, viz. Heb. And take ye.” The propriety of this note will be apparent when the two translations are placed before your readers: Common Version. 17. And take every man his censer, and put incense in them, &c. &c. New Translation. 17. And take ye every man his censer, and put incense therein, &c. It would be needless for me, Sir, to call the attention of your readers, after the above specimens, to the rest of this chapter: suffice it to say that Mr. Bellamy goes on, in the same manner, charging the translators with errors which they have not committed, and proposing new renderings which can never be sustained, being alike opposed to the plain meaning of the original, and the idiom of our own language. I shall therefore proceed and examine some of the more obvious errors of which he has been guilty in the subsequent pages of this part of his work. We find the authorised translation of the 10th verse of the 17th chapter to be," And the Lord said unto Moses, Bring Aaron's rod again before the testimony, to be kept for a token against the rebels; and thou shalt quite take away their murmurings from me, that they die not." Although this rendering is quite consistent with the sense of the original, and perfectly intelligible to any one who understands English, it does by no means suit the refined taste of our Critic, who thus tries his hand at amendment: "And Jehovah said to Moses, Bring the rod of Aaron in the front of the testimony, to be kept for a token before the children of the rebels: thus thou shalt end their murmurings against me, that they die not." It will be perceived from Mr. B.'s note, that he objects chiefly to the words "against the rebels," in our version, charging our learned translators with having omitted the word 5. The fact is, as might be supposed, that those excellent scholars did not omit this word; they found in the original against the children of rebellion; and instead of this Hebraisin they adopted the plain English word "rebels," which exactly answers to the sense of the original. But Mr. B. renders the singular noun as if it had been in the plural number, and then proceeds to accuse our translators of not having given the meaning of the clause! In his note on the 21st verse of the following chapter, he, in like manner, charges King James' translators with having omitted the word 5 chaleph in their version, which they have not omitted; and absolutely calls the participle Day gnobdim, a noun plural, and translates it servants; referring his readers for authority for such a novel rendering, to Gen. ix, 25. Lev. xxv, 55. 1 Sam. xvii, 8. where the word does not occur, unless he have abandoned the vowel points, which he has over and over again declared to be of equal antiquity and authority with the consonants. But leaving, for the sake of argument, the points out of the question, the construction of the passage will show every body acquainted in the slightest degree with the Hebrew, that the consonants compose a participle in Numbers, and a noun substantive in each of the three passages to which he has referred. In a note on the 26th verse of the 20th chapter, we find the following piece of information: "Four times the translators have rendered the vau, in this verse, by the conjunction copulative and; whereas, according to rule, it occurs only once." What this rule is, or whether its discovery is one of the fortunate results of his profound researches into the doctrine of the accents, our author has not deigned to let us know. [To be concluded in our next.] 132 OXFORD LATIN PRIZE POEM, for 1822. ALPES AB ANNIBALE SUPERATÆ. Romanis arcibus olim Exitium magnum, atque Alpes immittet apertas. TURBAM inter, fremitusque, et pallenti agmina luctu, Audiet, ultoremque armari in prælia Martem; Gallia alit prolem, volucrumque agitator equorum Gallorum circa campi-pleno æstuat amne |