the Medi and Persæ of Sallust, in his preface to the Jugurthine war, who emigrated across the Straits of Gibraltar to Gades, (as I have attempted to prove that they emigrated, in my notes upon passages explanatory of the poem of Avienus, or of Himilco.) Sir William says, in p. 912. "Strabo states, that there were various languages spoken in Spain:thus the Celtiberians. had a language of their own; this may, indeed, be inferred from Martial, (1. 4. Ep. 55). Nos Celtis genitos, et ex Iberis, Grato non pudeat referre versu: This language ought, according to the statement which I have made, to have been mixed, partaking partly of the Celtic, and partly of the Iberian; and many Celtiberian words may, therefore, be found in the Cantabrian, which is still spoken in Biscay, and which Lluyd has reckoned among the Celtic dialects: the Cantabrian tongue appears to have been considered by the Romans as peculiarly harsh and barbarous : Cantabriorum aliquot populi, says Mela, amnesque sunt: sed quorum nomina nostro ore concipi nequeunt; but however rude the Celtic spoken in Spain may have been, it could hardly have been improved by an intermixture with the SCYTHIAN,spoken on the borders of the oriental Iberus, and among the rocks of Caucasus." I must differ from Sir William in his using the word Scythian,' and I would substitute for it the Khathean.' Now in the Basque paternoster I see much resemblance to many Gothic words (which in Dr. Vincent's Dissertations is proved to be the same tongue as the Khathean, or East Scythic ;) it also has an oriental air, and an Hebraic form of Grammar. Whence has it risen? From these sources. The Colchians and Iberi emigrated from Egypt; the Samaritans in the Polyglott from the neighbouring Media and Parthia; Wilkinson's people of Caucasus' gives us one of their dialects, which is the Pehlavi, or long-lost Persian of the classics; and Sir W. Jones assigns to one stem and root the Coptic and Chaldee. Hence the Basque, very probably, has already been explained by the scholars, equally skilful in that and the Hebrew. The following passage from Chamberlayne's Pater-nosters, p. 27. in Dissertatio Philologica, will both explain Sir W. Drummond's Essay, and confirm my remarks above: "Unde incogniti veterum Hispanorum et Hetruscorum characteres orti sint non constat; ex oriente, (an per Phoenices?) profluxisse suspicio est." (p. 24.) "Linguæ Punica specimen in Plauti Menæchmis extat: Josephus Scaliger agnovit Punica Latinis reddi, et nonnullam linguæ lucem attulit; promovit Thomas Reinesius, vir magnæ doctrinæ in linguæ Punica irrogouμévors: ἱστορουμένοις sed Samuel Bochartus maximè Scenam illam Plautinam illustravit, et detexisse visus est binarum ibi linguarum specimina extare, et Punicæ sive Phoenicia à Carthaginis conditoribus illatæ, et Libycæ veteris: sed in Europam transeamus: reperiuntur in Hispaniâ nummi non pauci, characteres veterum Hispanorum præferentes, quibus scilicet usi erant, antequàm à Carthaginiensibus et Romanis subigerentur, et quos aliquandiu sub Romanorum imperio retinuere: tales quosdam exhibuit Antonius Augustinus; plures nostris ferè temporibus Johannes de Lastanosa, vir non vulgaris inter Hispanos doctrinæ, libello proprio in eam rem edito protulit: sed magnum eorum numerum habet Cl. Baryus, vir insignis, et diu apud Hispalim Batavæ nationis Consul: cùm autem et non rarò reperiantur nummi signati eisdem figuris nunc Latinas, nunc Hispanicas notas præferentibus, et vocabula interdum sint nomina propria hominum aut locorum, non desperem, aliquando veteris Scripturæ Hispanicæ Alphabetum inde constitui posse: frustra fuere qui Runicos Characteres in Hispanicis quæsivere, quasi Gothi intulissent, longè enim vetustiores sunt hi nummi Gothorum irruptionibus ipsam linguam veterum Hispanorum Biscainæ vel Basconicæ similem fuisse credibile est, quæ sese in asperrimis montibus contra Romanos, Gothos, Saracenos, tueri potuit et credibile est hanc linguam etiam se non nihil per vicinam Galliam, Aquitanicam scilicet et Narbonensem diffudisse, sed à Celticâ, i. e. Gallicâ vetere, et Germanicâ longè diversam esse apparet. : Passim in Italiâ reperiuntur inscriptiones, charactere Hetrusco : Græcis literis Gallos veteres passim usos constat-Una olim magna gens ante historiarum memoriam à Tanai Danubio et Scythia veniens per Germaniam et Galliam se diffudisse vide tur, scissaque fuit in dialectos, quæ locorum distantiâ admistisque aliis populis in diversas, ut fit, linguas abiere, et pars migrantium à Danubio et Thraciâ per Græciam septentrionalem, per Alpes, per Pyrenæos montes transierunt. Gentes enim, (etsi contradicat Tacitus) terrâ facillimè, mari difficulter et seriùs propagabantur; cùm navigandi ars serò innotuerit.” I shall continue this imperfect sequel in the next Number, and refer any scholar, who reads the Spanish, to a short chapter on the Basque, in Mariana's History of Spain, in the 1st book and the 5th chapter; but the classical parts in it have in a great measure been anticipated by Sir W. D. BIBLICAL CRITICISM. TO THE EDITOR OF THE CLASSICAL JOUrnal. SIR, I THE most probable interpretation of that difficult passage, the 10th verse of the 2d chapter of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, which has for so many years exercised the ingenuity of Biblical commentators, is given by Dr. Harwood; who says in his "Introduction to the Study and Knowledge of the New Testament," (vol. 1. p. 298.): « For this cause ought the woman to have a veil on her head, because of the angels"— or as it ought to have been translated, because of the messengers, or spies, whom their Pagan adversaries sent to observe the This interpretation may be traced to some Commentators before Dr. Harwood. EDITOR. 2 This is the meaning of ayyeλos in almost every Greek writer, particularly in Eschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides: ayyhos signifies messenger in Acts xii. 15. “ And, as Peter knocked at the door of the gate, a damsel came to hearken; and when she knew Peter's voice, she opened not the gate for gladness, but ran in; and told how Peter stood before the gate: And they said to her, Thou art mad; but she constantly affirmed that it was even so : then said they, It is his angel:" a strange version! It ought to have been rendered, It is a messenger from him. The spies, whom Joshua sent, are called by St. James, ayyínovs, ii. 25. Christians, and to detect and expose any faults and imprudences they might happily discover: this circumstance, the ever-wakeful vigilance of the Heathens to descry any thing criminal and immoral in their conduct, in order to calumniate and vilify their religion, occasioned many important and pathetic admonitions from the Apostles to the primitive Christians, "to abstain from all appearance of evil-to walk honestly towards them who were without," that is, "out of the pale of the church—to give no occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully"—to watch over their conduct with an unremitting vigilance, that those of the contrary party might be ashamed, having no evil" justly to say of them, or publicly allege against them: hence St. Peter thus exhorts the Christians, " Be sober, be vigilant, for your adversary, the false accuser, goes about like a raging lion, in solicitous quest of any of you, whose reputation he might tear in pieces." Thus also St. James, "Resist the false accuser"by a life agreeable to the Gospel; defeat his designs to calumniate and traduce your characters--and when he sees nothing criminal in you, he will fly from you, and for ever desist from his insidious attempts to fix a note of infamy on your virtue. When the eyes of a malignant, censorious world, were all turned upon the Christians, when they were disposed to credit every calumny that was fixed upon them,' how absurd and impossible soever; and when not merely the sword of the magistrate, abetted by the hierarchy, was unsheathed against them, but spies were continually penetrating into their publie assemblies, and private meetings, to discover any thing obnoxious and reprehensible in their worship or conduct, it was peculiarly incumbent upon them to maintain an inviolable sanctity of manners, and to make it their study to furnish no occasion to their adversaries, by any one open or secret immorality, either to asperse their character, or calumniate their religion."Hence," continues Dr. Harwood, in a note, "St. Paul, among other directions to Timothy, about the conduct and As for example, of eating children, of worshipping an ass, of worshipping the rà aldoïa, of sacrificing infants, of sodomical practices, &c. See Minucius Felix, p. 55. 6,7.8. Davis. and Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Turtullian, &c. character of a bishop, or pastor, says, that he, who sustains this sacred office, must not be a novice, a raw, ignorant, illiterate person, lest being inflated with insolence and pride, he fall into the condemnation of the calumniator, expose himself to the censure of those, who are eager to pick up any thing to revile the Christian religion, and reproach its professors: moreover, says he, he must have a good report of them which are without, lest he fall into the reproach and snare of the slanderer; that is, he ought to be a person, whose amiable virtuous character is attested by unconverted heathens, lest, otherwise, he should give too much occasion to the satire and reproaches of the enemies of Christianity.” 1 Tim. c. iii. 6. 7. In the 1st, 2d, 3d and 4th Numbers of your useful work, are some remarks upon this obscure passage; but I must confess, that the observations of your correspondents are by no means satisfactory: it will afford to me great pleasure, if Dr. Harwood's ingenious interpretation of it, which does not seem to have been sufficiently noticed in this controversy, should meet with their approbation. I think that I remember to have seen, in the Gentleman's Magazine, some interpretations of it, to which I refer your correspondents. June 2. 1811. ON THE Your's, &c. B. ORIGINALITY OF THE CLASSIC WRITERS. THE moderns, I confess, have borrowed both the varieties of style, and the diversities of subject, history, poetry, whether epic, dramatic, pastoral, or lyric, satire, ethics, biography, topographical description, or even the art of criticism, from the ancient Classics. A new inquiry arises are the classics originals, or copyists, from models : |