prove the necessity of such a measure, in some learned dissertations on the state of the printed Hebrew Bibles. The design came at length to maturity; Mr. Kennicott himself was appointed the sole conductor of it; and such powerful interest was made in its behalf, that persons of the first honour and eminence supported it by an annual subscription to a very great amount. Manuscripts were collected from all parts of the world; and a company of collators were employed under the eye of Mr. Kennicott at Oxford; who gave an annual account, attested by Dr. Hunt the Hebrew professor, of the state of the collation. The subscription was continued, and the work went on for several years. A new Hebrew Bible was at length printed in folio; a copy of the first volume of which came to the library of Sorbonne while I was at Paris in the year 1776, and was shewn to me by Mr. Asseline the Hebrew professor of that time *.

Far be it from me to speak with disrespect of an undertaking, which had the encouragement of so many great, so many good, and so many learned persons; who must be supposed to have acted with the best intention, in consequence of such reports as were laid before them; for many of them certainly had no judg ment of their own upon the subject. But Mr. Horne, and some other readers of Hebrew never approved of the design from the beginning; and Dr. Rutherforth of Cambridge, a man of no small erudition, wrote professedly, and with some asperity, against it; or, at least, against the way in which he thought it would be exe

After the Revolution of 1789, this gentleman was made. Bishop of Bologne by the King; but by reason of the increasing troubles, he went to Brussels, and afterwards into Germany. He is universally spoken of as a person of great worth and learning.

cuted. Some of the considerations they went upon were these following:

1. That the design was dangerous, and had a badaspect. A new translation of the Bible into English had been strenuously recommended some years before by suspected persons with an ill intention. That such persons, being not well affected to the Church of England or its doctrines, would probably interfere with all their heart and interest, to turn the design to their own purposes. For it was evident by the intention of Dr. Kennicott at first, that there should be both a New Hebrew Text, and a New English Version: and I am rather of opinion, that Mr. Horne and his friends, by their remonstrances, however apparently unnoticed, might have some little share of merit in preventing it.

2. It hurt and alarmed them, to see a learned gentleman plead and argue, as if he had a victory to obtain by proving the corruption of the Hebrew Text, and it were the game he was hunting after; for this did not look as if the glory of God was the object in view, but rather his own emolument as a collator-s το συμφέρον, εκει το ευσεβες.

3. They were of opinion, that the attempt was superfluous; because the exactness of the Masoretical Jews had guarded and secured the Text of their Bible in such a manner, that no other book in the world had

It appears from a Life of Dr. Sykes, p. 334, that the Socinians had great hopes from a new English Version of the Bible, by which all our present learned illustrations of the S. S. were to be superseded

all things were to become new-the disciples were to become one fold, and the absolute unity of the peerless majesty of God was to be maintained by the whole community of Christians-Socinianism alone was to introduce Paradise and the Millennium. The Sociuians of Poland had a translation made; but it did not answer their purpose. See Mosheim's Hist of Socinianism.

ever been so guarded and secured that therefore there could not be room for any great alarm upon the subject.

4. That Cardinal Ximenes and his assistants, about two hundred years before, had carefully collated the Hebrew Text with manuscripts, older and better than were now to be met with in the world; and had exhibited a printed Hebrew Text, as perfect as could be expected or need be desired: because, by Mr. Kennicott's own confession, no such errors occurred in the Text as affected any point of doctrine; the various readings being chiefly to be found in dates and numbers, which are of less importance and more uncertain notation. That therefore, what Cardinal Ximenes had done in a better manner and with greater advantages, would now be done with more difficulty, and probably to less effect.

5. They apprehended, that the dispute about the Hebrew Text, the Samaritan Pentateuch, &c. had been sufficiently agitated and judiciously stated by Carpzov of Leipsic in his writings against Whiston; so far at least as to shew, that no great things were to be expected from any adventurer, who should afterwards take the same ground. Carpzov's book was thought so useful and satisfactory, that Moses Marcus a converted Jew, had translated it into English.

6. A consideration which had great weight with Mr. Horne was that of the probable consequence of an undertaking so conducted as this was likely to be. Unbelievers, Sceptics, and Heretics, of this country, who had affected superior learning, had always been busy in finding imaginary corruptions in the Text of Scripture and would in future be more bold and busy than ever; as the work of confounding the Text by unsound criticism would be carried on with the sancVOL. VÍ.

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tion of public authority, and the Bible left open to the experiments of evil-minded critics and cavillers. For besides the collating of manuscripts, the collator, in his Dissertations, had opened three other fountains of criticism, by which the waters of the Sanctuary were to be healed: the Ancient Versions, the Samaritan Pentateuch, and Sound Criticism. Having considered these in their order, Mr. Horne sets before his readers above twenty instances from Mr. Kennicott's own books, as a specimen of his manner of proceeding; to shew "what an inundation of licentious criticism was "breaking in upon the sacred Text." These instances are such as fully justify his reflections; which the reader may find at p. 12, &c. of his View of Mr. Kennicott's Method, &c.

Such were the considerations on which Mr. Horne and his friends opposed Mr. K's undertaking; and, it is hoped, nothing has appeared to their disadvantage. In the progress of the controversy, some other considerations arose, which served to confirm them in the 'part they had taken. They observed that Mr. Kennicott changed his ground: first urging the necessity of a new Text for the purpose of a new English Version; and afterwards giving it up, without assigning his reasons. Another fact arose, which was palpably contrary to his own principles. When the design was to come forward, he had objected to the labours of Cardinal Ximenes, as being ineffective, because he admitted manuscripts furnished by Jews: but, when the work was to be carried on, he himself made Jews his agents to collect manuscripts for him in foreign parts, and admitted them, so far as we know, without reserve and with this remarkable difference, that the Jews of the Cardinal were turned Christians; whereas the Jews of Mr. Kennicott were still in their unbelief

except one; and he was of a character so extraordinary that the reader cannot be displeased if I give some account of him; without which, so great a curiosity would, in all probability, be lost to the world. While the work of collation was going forward, it so happened, that Mr. Kennicott and his work, and Mr. Horne, and some of the friends to both, fell into difficulty and danger, from a man whose name was Dumay; a person, who having been encouraged upon benevolent motives in the beginning, proved in the issue to be not much better than the Dumas, who had been attended in the Castle at Oxford; and of whom it is still uncertain, whether he did not come to the same untimely end. It was my fortune to be the first person in the University of Oxford that took notice of him, and the last that received any intelligence about him after he left this country; and it is doubtful to me whether any body is better acquainted with his character and history than myself. He was a French Jew, born upon the borders of Lorrain, and had received such an education as enabled him to understand Hebrew, and to write it with consummate excellence. He could turn his hand to drawing, and any other work of art: he had the ingratiating address of a Frenchman, with an appearance of sincerity; but with the unprincipled mind of a Jew; so that there was no depending upon him. Before he was twenty years of age, he appeared at Oxford as a petty Jew-inerchant, whose whole stock consisted of a few seals, pencils, and other trinkets. His civility drew my attention, and I took him to my chambers, to inquire what he had learned. I soon found his qualifications considerable, and, for his excellence in writing Hebrew, set him to work, with design to preserve his performances as curiosities; and I have several of them by me at this time. His ingenuity soon pro