opponent. In his exposition of the vision of the ram and the be-goat, he leaps at once from the subversion of the last of the four Macedonian kingdoms by the Romans to the rise of Mohammedism in the year 606. Not that I at all blame him for this: on the contrary, I think him perfectly right, Yet it is somewhat singular, that, after I had undertaken Mr. Whitaker's defence against Dr. Zouch*, he should urge against my exposition of a part of Daniel's last vision the very same objection that Dr. Zouch urges against his exposition of a part of the vision of the ram and the be-goat. Quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus.

His fifth objectiont is to what he calls "a curious attempt to get rid of Bp. Newton's application "of the kings of the south and the north, in Dan. "xi. 40, to the Saracens and the Turks, by saying "that they are entirely different potentates from those mentioned in the earlier part of the chapter". This assertion in the abstract he allows nevertheless to be true, as well he may‡; but he insists that "the relative situation of these kings "to the land of Judea (the land which is throughout

*Dissert. Vol. I. p. 253, 254. + Letter, p. 48.

Bp. Newton asserts, no less than myself, that the kings of the south and north in Dan xi. 40 are different potentates from those mentioned in the earlier part of the chapter. How then does my "curious attempt" to get rid of his application of them to the Saracens and Turks at all depend, as Mr. Whitaker curiously misrepresents it, upon my making the self-same assertion of this difference that his Lordship does? In the abstract assertion of the difference in question we perfectly agree; it is in the application of the assertion that we disagree.

"the scene of the vision) must be the same, or they "are no longer kings of the south and north". Now, even allowing Mr. Whitaker's statement to be accurate, in what have I contradicted it? I said that the king of the north was most probably Russia, which I suppose he will not deny lies due north of the land of Judea; and, as for the king of the south, I observed that it was not quite so easy to determine at present what potentate he might be thought to mean. But I do not allow his statement to be accurate. He has repeated his ancient error of making the land of Judea throughout the scene of the vision; and thence fancies that the last-mentioned kings of the south and the north must necessarily lie south and north of Judea. They may, or they may not; time alone can determine: but this I will venture to assert, that such is not their necessary position.

After passing through much matter of inferior importance, we at length arrive at what Mr. Whitaker evidently, and justly too, considers as his main objection: because of the point objected to "I make "a most important use in endeavouring to establish

my hypothesis; which, indeed, cannot stand "without it". This sixth objection, which is tacked to the foot of the preceding one, is an attempt

* Letter, p. 48.

+ This is not quite true; because, even if the king of the north were the person that undertook the expedition into Palestine at the time of the end, that would not invalidate my previous application of the wilful king to infidel France. However I shall not stop to strain at a gnat, when Mr. Whitaker thinks he has given me a camel to swallow.

at

at grammatical Hebrew criticism. The question is, whether the clause And he shall enter into the countries*

* I avail myself of the opportunity afforded me by a controversial pamphlet of noticing, what I otherwise should not have thought worth noticing, a passage in the Edinburgh Review, wherein my derivation of a Phenician word is dispu ted in terms alike unworthy of a scholar or a gentleman. Sanchoniatho mentions an ancient mythological character whom the Phenicians denominated Elium the most high. In my Dissertation on the Mysteries of the Cabiri, I supposed this word to be a corruption of the Hebrew Eloah or El, which signifies God: and for this I was heartily abused by the editor of that publication, and was represented as totally ignorant of the Hebrew, merely because I did not derive it from another word signifying lofty, from which he supposes it ought to be derived. No person, who is acquainted with the ambiguity which attends the derivation of oriental words when expressed in western characters, would have used the language which this editor has done; but indiscriminate scurrility, not candour, is the characteristic of the Edinburgh Review. Without any disparagement however to the learned editor, I may perhaps venture to say, that my late venerable friend Mr. Bryant's knowledge of the Hebrew was at least equal to his: and he has not scrupled to refer this very Phenician word Elium, not to what the Reviewer dogmatically pronounces its Hebrew prototype, but to El which (as I have just observed) signifies. God, and which properly (as Mr. Bryant rightly remarks) denotes the true God. (Anal. Vol. I. p. 13.) I consider it a question of very nice determination, whether to be abused by the editor of the Edinburgh Review, and in the same sentence with my two learned friends Mr. Bryant and General Vallancey, ought to be accounted an honour or a dishonour. In addition to his representing me as ignorant of the Hebrew, merely because I did not derive a word as he fancies it ought to have been derived, he shrewdly intimates that I never saw Herodotus, because in citing his account of the island Chemmis in the lake near Buto I omit a circumstance no way connected with its traditional history, with which alone I was concerned. This pitiful insinuation, worthy of the quarter whence it

originates,

countries* is capable, or incapable, of being referred to the wilful king: in other words, whether in point of grammar it must necessarily be referred to the king of the north, or whether it may be referred to the wilful hing. I maintain, that, so far as the mere grammar of the passage is concerned, the clause is ambiguous, and may be referred to either the king of the north or the wilful king. Mr. Whitaker

originates, will serve only to provoke a smile in the countenances of those who know that it has been my fate to occupy the situation of a college-tutor during ten years of my life, in the course of which period the very passage, which the man supposes charitably I have never seen in the original, has been perused and reperused by me at least a dozen times. Before the person, who is generally supposed to be the conductor of what he calls the Edinburgh review, next obtrudes his lucubrations on the public, it would be well if he resolved to write with more caution and less pertness.

* Dan. xi. 40.

+ As for my noticing the change of tense in this passage of Daniel, I never meant to build any positive argument upon it: I merely mentioned it incidentally. As little should I bring forward as a positive argument another circumstance, which nevertheless is not unworthy of being noticed. If we may judge by the Masoretic punctuation, the contrivers of that sys. tem referred the contested clause not to the king of the north, but to the wilful king; for they place the point which is equivalent to a colon immediatley before the clause, and do not add another colon till the sense plainly requires it, as thus. "And at the "time of the end shall the king of the south butt at him and the "king of the north shall come against him like a whirlwind with "chariots and with horsemen and with many ships: and he "shall enter into the countries and shall overflow and pass

over and shall enter into the glorious land and many "countries shall be overthrown: but these shall escape out of "his hand". From this punctuation they seem to have

considered

66

Whitaker maintains (at least so I understand him to maintain, otherwise his argument has no force; it falls to the ground a mere telum imbelle sine ictu), that, agreeably to the laws of Hebrew grammar, the clause cannot be referred to the wilful king, but must be referred to the king of the north. "Mr. "Faber", he compliments me with saying, "is too good a Hebrew scholar not to be acquainted "with the rule of that language, thus laid down by Parkhurst: Vau connective prefixed to verbs often supplies the place of the signs of persons, "moods, and tenses, and numbers, and makes them "take in signification those of a preceding verb, as " and often doth in the English". This rule is a very sound rule; and has moreover the merit of being worded with great accuracy: but for what purpose does Mr. Whitaker adduce it in the present difference between us? Does he mean to say, that, whenever a verb occurs circumstanced like the verb shall enter, the power of the connecting Vau is such that it compels us to assign to that verb the same nominative case as its predecessor; or that the power of the Vau is often, though not always, such? If the second, I perceive not wherein we differ; for I believe, so far as the grammar of the passage is concerned, that the verb shall enter may be referred either to the wilful king or to the king of the north: but in this case I can perceive as little for what

considered the prophet as entering upon a fresh division of his subject both at and he shall enter and at but these shall escape: and from such punctuation most persons would conclude, that the person who was to enter was the him, who had been previously assaulted by the two kings. But I wish not to build a decisive argument on the Masoretic punctuation.

purpose