part of this number. I had already given to the public, in a former edition of this work, those remarks on the history and book of Job, which are contained in the former part of the number. I had upon grounds which appeared to me satis factory, maintained the antiquity both of the book and of its subject: and from this had derived an argument, in favour of the antiquity, and wide extent, of the sacrificial rite. I had also, proceeding in a way directly opposite to that which the Bishop has, in his preface, described himself to have pursued, spared neither pains nor time to acquire the best information, and from the best interpreters, before I presumed to offer my ideas to the public. Soon after I had done so, the Bishop's work appeared, carrying with it the authority of his station, and by a single dictum levelling the whole of my laborious structure in the dust. That my observations were not thought worthy of notice by his Lordship, could not cause, even to the feelings of an Author, much uneasiness; as the works of the most learned and celebrated commentators on Job, were left not only unnoticed, but confessedly unperused. What remained, under these circumstances, to be done? Silence might be construed into an admission, that what I had before advanced, had been unadvisedly offered, and could not be maintained: and on the other hand, in treating of the Bishop's performance, justice required that I should speak

of it in terms remote from those of commendation. Executed with a haste that nothing can excuse, abounding with errors both of reasoning and interpretation, presuming upon slight and fancied theories to new mould the original text, and

Bishop Stock prides himself on a list of conjectural alterations of the Hebrew text, contained in an Appendix to his translation by which it appears, as he pronounces, that there are more than sixty places in Job, in which the text has been corrupted. By much the greater number of these alterations is proposed upon the reading of a single MS. or of a couple at the most; and what deserves yet more to be remarked is, that for not fewer than twenty-three, no authority of any MS. or version whatever is pretended, but the name of Stock alone is annexed, as a sufficient justification ! To this, it must be remembered that we are to add, the rejection of the two last verses of the Book upon the same unsupported dictum.-These, one would think, are tolera. ble exercises of the conjectural faculty, and yet strange to say, they are far exceeded by one which yet remains to be noticed and which will be found contained in the notes on ch. xli. 11, 12.

"I am strongly of opinion, that, in the original of this fine poem, the speech attributed to God ended here" (viz., end of verse 12): "not only because it forms a fuller and more dignified conclusion than that which now closes the chapter; but because it assigns a satisfactory answer to the question, With what view was this laboured description introduced, of the two formidable works of the Creator, the river horse and the crocodile? Answer that question your selves, saith the Almighty: if ye shrink with terror before my works, how will ye dare to set yourselves in array against their Maker?-But to whom then shall we ascribe the Appendix contained in the last two and twenty verses of

withal setting the seal of Episcopal authority to the entire congeries of precipitancies, mistakes, and mutilations-a due regard to my own credit,

the forty-first chapter? Either to the author himself of the poem, who, in his second but not better thoughts, conceived he might add something valuable to his picture of the croco dile; or, which is more likely, to some succeeding genius, impatient to lengthen out by his inventive powers what had justly obtained possession of the public esteem.-After enclosing therefore in brackets a superfetation that might well have been spared, we will go on, however, to give light to it. Observe how the Appendix is ushered in: [12. I will not be silent, &c.] Is this language for the omnipotent? Is it at all suitable to the grandeur of conception manifested in the rest of the poem? the thread is too visible, by which the purple patch, of more shew than utility, is fastened on."

Here indeed is critical amputation with a vengeance. And here we have a large portion of the original at one stroke scored off, and rejected as a "superfetation," (so his Lordship is pleased to call it,) exactly in the same manner as we find the history of the birth of Christ, in the beginning of Matthew and Luke scored off, as a superfetation, by the Editors of the Unitarian New Testament.-Heath had indeed transposed the first 14 verses of the xlth. chapter, and inserted them between the 6th, and 7th, verses of the xliid. For this too he had assigned a reason not deficient in plausibility. But to reject altogether an entire portion of the book, and this upon the merely fanciful and figurative ground of a "thread too visible" and a "purple patch," has been reserved for a Bishop of the Established Church.

Having adverted to the subject of conjectural emendation of the sacred text, I cannot but enter my protest most decidedly against the spirit, which has, of late years, so mis

but infinitely more a due regard to the cause of truth, demanded, that such a work should not be allowed to pass upon the world, as a faithful

'chievously infected the translators of the books of Scripture in that particular respect. The Bishop of Killalla unfortu nately has had no small degree of countenance in such practices. By others, and those too critics of no small repute, this spirit has been too much indulged. The late Bishop of St Asaph has well observed, that considering the matter only as a problem in the doctrine of chances, the odds are always infinitely against conjecture. (Horsley's Hosea, pref. p. xxxiv.)—The consequences growing out of the habit of altering the original Hebrew according to conjecture, must be, that we shall cease altogether to possess a standard text, and that for the word of God, we shall ultimately have only the word of man. Bishop Pocock justly observes upon this practice, that "every one, for introducing any where such a meaning as pleased him best, might alter the words as he pleased, of which there would be no end; and it would be a matter of very ill consequence indeed. We must (he adds) fit our meaning to the words, and not the words to our meaning." (Pocock's Works, vol. ii. p. 493.)-That the MSS. and ancient versions are not to be called in, to assist in rectifying the Hebrew text, where confusion has manifestly arisen, I am very far indeed from contending: but that, what is properly called conjecture should be permitted to interfere, and now especially after the immense labours of Kennicot and De Rossi in their collation of the various copies of the Hebrew, is I think wholly inadmissible. This is not the place to enlarge upon such a subject. I would strongly recommend to the perusal of the reader, the judicious observations of Bishop Horsley, in his preface, as before referred to, and at p. xxxix. See also Dathi Opusfula, p. 135-137.

exposition of a part of sacred writ. In my observations upon the individual defects of this work, I have not thought it necessary to travel beyond the course, which the Bishop's remarks upon the date of Job unavoidably prescribed. But I cannot dismiss the subject finally without saying, that in my opinion, the necessity for a new English version of the Book of Job, (if any be supposed previously to have existed) has in no particular been diminished by that which has been given to the world by the Bishop of Killalla.*

As a matter of curiosity, and as supplying some relief from the tædium controversiæ, I annex a short account of the history of Job, as it has been handed down amongst the Arabians.

JOB, or AIUB, (as he is called in Arabic agreeably to the Hebrew name ",) is reported, by some of their historians, to have been descended from Ishmael; it being held, that from Isaac, through Jacob, all the prophets had sprung, excepting three, Job, Jethro, (the father-in-law of Moses, called by the Arabians Schoaib,) and Mahomet; which three had come of the line of Ishmael, and were Arabians. By others, his

* His Lordship has, since the publication of the second edition of this work, been advanced to the See of Waterford. To avoid confusion, however, I have continued to designate him by the title, under which he is known to the public as the translator of Job.