Howards

The publication, therefore, of fuch works as the now before us, cannot be received with too much grat it opens thofe fources of information, and paths to kr, the which, either through the ignorance, or the literary convul librarians and their fuperiors, have hitherto lain co fuperfiduft, and remote from human ken. between

Among the various literary treasures that are dements of ample libraries and collections, whether of a private the imkind, the familiar letters of learned and eminent men a s, arms leaft worthy of attention; they affift us greatly in forn equaideas of the times in which they were written; they con ocean the pens of learned men; they defcribe the state of the fcic.. and they give us often curious accounts of the characters and labours of perfons who have been inftrumental in their improvement: while those which have been compofed by politicians, and ecclefiaftics, reveal the fecrets of churches and ftates, and exhibit interesting views of the combined and correfpondent motions of facred and civil policy. Such familiar letters give the truet afpes of the times; they difplay the genuine characters of their authors; and they frequently difclofe important circumftances and scenes, which would have remained funk in oblivion, if they had not been thus recorded by those who were actors in thefe fcenes, or eye-witneffes to what paffed in them.

The library of Geneva (as our Author tells us, and as his catalogue teftifies) contains, among other things, valuable records, relative to the civil, literary, and ecclefiaftical hiftory of the fixteenth century, in the extenfive and interefting correfpondence of Calvin, Beza, and other eminent men of that time, which has never been published: all these are here particularifed by M. SENNEBIER, who has examined and defcribed the manufcripts of the library under his infpection with the attention, fagacity, diligence, and judgment of a true connoiffeur. The labour of fuch an undertaking, as he tells us in his Preface, is confiderable; for even to determine the time and age of a manufcript, much pains must be taken to ftudy the hand-writing, the orthography, the ftyle, and other circumftances adapted to give the requifite information: the work itfelf muft alfo be examined, and the manufcript compared with others that refemble it, and with the editions that have been printed from it.

Our Author, in acquainting us with the means he employed to decypher and illuftrate thefe fecret records of literature and fcience, lays down an excellent feries of rules for perfecting the art under confideration, and with great fagacity has ftruck out new methods of investigation in this line of erudition. He is a very difcerning and judicious obferver, both of the works of nature and art.

Among

Among the perfons to whofe munificence the library of Geneva is indebted, particular mention is here made of Amadeus LULLIN, profeffor of ecclefiaftical hiftory: a man whofe emiRent merit as a scholar and a divine, as venerable for his virtue, as amiable in his deportment and manners, we have often heard celebrated by thofe that knew him. The parcel of manufcripts, which this worthy man gave to the library of Geneva, was a part of the famous collection of the counsellor Petau; the other part was bought by the famous Chriftina queen of Sweden, who made a prefent of it to the library of the Vatican.

This catalogue contains the titles and defcriptions of 12 Hebrew, 2 Syriac, 4 Arabic, 27 Greek, 2 Chinese, 125 Latin, 197 French, 10 Spanish, and 4 Italian manufcripts. Some fpecimens will give our Readers an idea of the merit of this. catalogue, and of the inftructive manner in which it is compofed.

We find among the Latin manufcripts one entitled La Bible Vulgate; i. e. The Vulgate Bible, in folio, on vellum.-As this article is long, we fhall abridge it; ftill, however, following the learned Librarian, without any additional remarks:

The first page of this Bible feems to be wanting: it begins with an epiftle of St. Jerome to Bishop Paulinus, De omnibus Divinis Hiftoria Libris, and contains exhortations to the study of the holy fcriptures, together with an enumeration of the facred books of the Old and New Teftament. This epiftle is tranflated into French, in Sacy's French Verfion of the Bible,

There is alfo prefixed to each of the facred books the particular preface, which St. Jerome compofed for them, with a table of the chapters they contain: thus we read at the beginning of Genefis, Incipit liber Berefchit, feu liber Genefeos. The books of the Old Teftament are placed in the following order: The V. Books of Mofes, Jofhua, Judges, Ruth; the IV. Books of Regnorum or of Kings, Job, Pialms, Proverbs; the Book of Wisdom, Ecclefiaftes, Ecclefiafticus; two Books of Paralipomena or Chronicles, the Prophets, Nehemiah, Efther, Tobit, Judith, the Two Books of Macabees.

The books of the New Teftament are preceded by a General Preface, and the Canons of Eufebius; and are placed as follows: The IV. Gofpels,-the Acts, &c.-the General Epiftle of St. James,-the Two General Epifties of St. Peter,

-the Three General Epiftles of St. John,-an Epiftle of St. Jude,-the Revelations, and the Epiftles of St. Paul in their ufual order.

The title given to the First Epiftle of St. John is remarkable, Johannis Epiftola ad Spartos. Different explications have been given of this title. Some have thought that Spartos was put for Sparfos; in which cafe St. John would have written (as APP. Rev. Vol. Ixi.

N n

St.

St. Peter does in his Firft Epiftle) to the ftrangers fcattered abroad in different places: others have imagined that Spartos was of the fame import with Spartanos; but it is not probable that the epiftle of St. John, which is stiled General, `was addreffed to any one particular people: others, again, have obferved, that by Spartos may be understood Parthos; and it is remarkable not only that St. Auguftin makes mention of an Epistle of St. John addreffed to the Parthians, and muft have had the Firft Epiftle in view, as he quotes feveral paffages from it; but that Pofidius, his difciple, and the writer of his life, places in his lift of the works of that Father, De Epiftola Johannis ad Parthos Sermones Decem. It may be, that St. Auguftin obferving that the General Epiftle of St. Peter was addreffed to the inhabitants of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Afia, and Bithynia, abridged that long title in a general and comprehenfive denomination, even that of the Parthians; a name given to all the different nations fubjected to that empire, of which Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, and Bithynia were provinces. Hence it is very poffible, that fince the time of St. Auguftin, the title ad Parthos may have been given to the epiftle under confideration.—It may also be obferved farther, that the term Parthian fignifies fometimes the Perfians, whofe empire was fucceeded by theirs : St. John feems to allude to the opinions of the Perfians and their philofophy, in his frequent ufe of figurative expreffions drawn from light and darkness.-The two principal opinions, which contend refpectively for the readings ad Sparfos, or ad Parthos, may be reconciled; for the word Parthus fignifies diSperfed: Scythico Sermone Parthi exules dicuntur, Juftin. lib. xli. See also Fourn. Litter. d'Allemagne, T. i. and Bibliothèque Raifonnée, T. xii.'

But what deferves particular attention, in this manuscript, is that it contains the famous paffage of the three that bear witnefs, I. John v. 7 and 8, but placed in a different manner from that of our Bibles and pofterior manufcripts. The 8th verfe is placed before the 7th, and the words in earth are omitted. The whole paffage runs thus: Quia tres funt, qui teftimonium dant, fpiritus et aqua et fanguis, et hi tres unum funt; et tres funt qui tef timonum perhibent in coelo, pater, verbum & fpiritus, et tres unum funt.-The omiffion of the words in terra is quite natural ;for, before the interpolation of the 7th verfe, it was not neceffary to diftinguifh the witneffes, and to mark the difference between the celestial and the earthly witneffes. And as to arrangement of these verfes, it is probable, that the interpolated verfe was, at firft, placed after that which belonged to the original text; but when it was read for fome time in the public affemblies, it is natural to conjecture, that, out of refpect, they thought proper to place the celeftial witneffes before the terref

trial,

trial, and that the verfes were tranfpofed on that account. See concerning this interpolation, the New Teftament of Mill and Wetstein.L'Europe favant. Mai. 1718, and Biblioth. Ang. T. v. 317.

bjoined to this manufcript are fome curious records, ong these several acts placed in the margins to afcertain thenticity. Of thefe M. SENNEBIER gives a particular t. The mixture of uncial and capital letters-the freunction of different words, the frequent placing of an h words that begin by vowels, particularly by the a, with other circumftances, fhew that this manufcript is not recent than the ninth century.

e fhall give another fpecimen of this work from the 99th - the Latin manufcripts. It is a poem in honour of MA, under the following title-MARII PHILELPHI A. et Doctoris, Equitis Aurati, Poeta Laureati ac Comitis, de Rebufque geftis Invictiffimi Regis et Imperatoris, Clariffimi METI, Turcarum Principis. This remarkable poem has itherto abfolutely unknown, as appears by a letter from abofchi, the librarian of Modena, to our Author, and alfo vhat that learned man obferves in his excellent literary of Italy, volume v. p. 296.-The prologue to this poem, is in profe, is addreffed to Mahomet, by Othman Lillus anus, who had engaged Marius Philelphus to fing the exof that conqueror. M. SENNEBIER gives an ample and ting account of this epic, or rather hiftorical poem. It ded into IV. Books, or Cantos. In the Ift, the poet rehe hiftory of Mahomet, from his birth; and the book des with the defign formed by that great leader to overHe Grecian empire. The IId begins with an account of hh of Amurath, the father of Mahomet, in 1451; it convariety of interefting events, enumerated in our Author's fis, and ends with the death of Conftantine, and the tak Conftantinople. The IIId Book relates the fending of antine's head to the Sultan of Babylon; the furrender of reeks; the divifions of Thomas and Demetrius, the brothers nftantine, who had fled to Peloponnefus; the furrender of peninsula to the arms of Mahomet; his conquest of the om of Colchos, the city of Trebifond, Lefbos, Bofnia, clavonia; and his fitting out a fleet to attack the Venetians. [Vth Book contains the reflections of the poet on the y of empires; with a defcription of the defeat of the Ve s by Mahomet, and a series of all the victories of that ening man.

We learn from this poem, that Mahomet neither understood nor the sciences of his times; that the taking of Con ople was owing to the inteftine divifions of the Greeks;

to their weak defence; and their falfe fecurity ;-that the con queror tranfported his gallies by land into the Gulph of Ceratinum; and we fee here the terror that Mahomet spread through Italy, displayed in the most lively colours. We find here alto (fays our Author) the circumstances that attended the taking of Moncaftro, or Bialogorod, in Beffarabia; which place was abandoned and burned by the inhabitants, at the approach of Mahomet. Hiftorians are filent as to this fact; but, in all the i reft, their accounts are conformable to the poetical relation of Philelphus. This bard was born at Conftantinople, in the year 1426.'

ART. XII.

BIBLIOTHEQUE ORIENTALE, ou Dictionaire Universelle, contenant tout ce qui fait connoitre les Peuples de l'Orient, &c.-The Oriental Library, or, Univerfal Dictionary, containing every Thing require to the Knowledge of the Eastern Nations, their Hiftory, Tradi tions, Religions, and Sects,-their Forms of Government, Politics, Laws, Manners, and Revolutions,-their Arts and Sciences, Theology, Phyfic, Mythology, Magic, Natural Philofophy, Morality, Mathematics, Natural Hiftory, Chronology, Geography, Aftronomical Obfervations, Grammar, and Rhetoric; alfo the Lives of their Philofophers, Poets, Hiftorians, and Military Commanders, with Extracts of their Writings in the Arabic, Turkif, and Perfian Languages. By Mefl. C. VISDELOU and A. GALAND. Folio and Quarto. Hague. 1779.

HE quarto impreffion of this learned work makes the

fourth volume, or Supplement, to the elegant, correct, and improved edition which Meff. Neaulme and Van Daalen have publifhed, at the Hague, of HERBE LOT's Oriental Library. This fourth volume (which is alfo printed in folio for the ad vantage of those who have the folio edition of Herbelot), was compofed by CLAUDE VISDELOU, known by the titular denomination of Bifhop of Clandiopolis, and who was one of the miffionaries fent to China, in the year 1685, by Lewis the XIVth; and it was defigned by him as a fupplement to Herbelot. The contents of this fupplemental volume are, ift, Obfervations of M. de VISDELOUu on Twelve Articles of the ORIENTAL LIBRARY, relative to China.-2dly, A History of Great Tartary, that extenfive Region, known to the Ancients under the Name of Scythia, and whofe Sovereigns twice fubdued China.-3dly, A Differtation on the Title of KHAN, in Ufe in the Eaft.-4thly, Obfervations on Forty-one Articles of the above-mentioned Library, more or less relative to China.— 5thly, The famous Monument of Christianity in China, with a Paraphrafe, and learned Notes, and alío a Defcription of the Roman Empire, according to the Chinese.-6thly, A Defcription of the Chinefe Empire, in a Letter addreffed to the late