To the Editor of the Pocket Magazine.*

SIR,-Having seen in your Pocket Magazine for the present month, some verses on the 4th verse of the 17th chapter of St. Matthew, with the name of Hillary Hetherington subscribed as the author, I beg leave to contradict his having composed them, in the most positive manner. You may see, Sir, by the printed copy which I have sent you, that they were published by Mr. Knowles in October, 1816; at that time they appeared in the York Herald, and have lately also appeared in the Literary Gazette. It will but be doing justice to the memory of poor Herbert Knowles, as also behaving fairly to your readers, to acquaint the public with Mr. H. D. H.'s infamous plagiarism, Your's, &c.

- Richmond, Yorkshire,

R. UPTON.

March 7th, 1817.

ABSURD COMMENTARY

ON THE

Sixteenth Verse of the Fourth Chapter of Genesis. "AND Cain went out from the presence of the Lord, and dwelt in the land of Nod, on the east of Eden."

Matthew Henry's illustration of the above passage is thus:-"His, (Cain's) attempt to settle was in vain; for the land he dwelt in was to him the land of Nod, that is shaking, or trembling, because of the continual restlessness or uneasiness of his own spirit."

Now this explication may do very well for an ignorant English fanatic, who when he reads the Scriptnres has no idea that any other language exists be

We have received another letter, on the same subject, signed Condiscipulus, the author of which informs us that Herbert Knowles died at Richmond in Yorkshire, on the 17th of February, 1817, at the early age of nineteen. The lines which Hillary Hetherington has so unfeelingly and shamelessly stolen, were written in Richmond Church-yard, on the 7th of October, 1816.

sides his own, and consequently, takes the words of the above verse to be the very identical ones that the Deity dictated to Moses; but, to a person who has some small share of sense, the very great absurdity of such a commentary must be obvious. Nod, it appears, is the original word, or at least the original sound is such as we give to the word nod. This being the case, how can Matthew Henry's application of it be made in other languages, wherein Nod has no affinity, in respect to spelling or sound, to those expressions which denote shaking, or trembling, or to any word which may have a relation to the meaning of our verb to nod.

Let us see how this discovery of our sapient commentator will appear in a French translation. "Ses efforts pour se fixer étoient en vain: car chaque place òu il demeuroit étoit à lui la terre de Nod, c'est à dire, secouant, ou tremblant, à cause de l'inquiétude continuelle de son esprit."

The word nod is not in the French language except as applied here, and no Frenchman could possibly divine, how there could be any analogy between the verb secouer, or trembler, or any of their affections, to this word. I think then, all this sufficiently proves that commentaries in one language will not always hold good in another; and, also, that the allegorical meaning of passages, frequently depends on the language in which they may be written. It likewise teaches us, that we ought not to trust to great names; and, even though the great Sir Isaac Newton himself (who also commented on the Bible) should assert any thing respecting this book, contrary to nature and common sense, that we should, so far, set him down as a mere old woman. People are, perhaps, not generally aware of the injury a silly conceit like the exposition I have quoted above, does to the cause of genuine Christianity. D. HARISSON.

March 11th, 1819.

DETACHED THOUGHTS.

PEACE be to the race of bad writers! In one respect is the system of commerce like the system of

nature, that the vilest things are of use in both. Many and many are the persons who derive as much benefit from the itch of writing in others, as the proprietors of the Caledonian ointment derive from an itch of another kind: from the collector of rags, and the printer's devil, up to his majesty's exchequer, and the foreign powers, who do us the favour to accept subsidies therefrom, how many trades and callings are supported by bad writers! How would Mr. Fry's types, Mr. Whatman's paper, Mr. Bulmer's presses, Mr. Stothard's pencil, and Mr. Heath's graver, be em ployed, if it were not for those literary gentlemen who favour the world with their poems? Were it not for bad authors, the reviews would shrink from their present portly proportions, and Falstaff-size, to the skeleton-like lankness of Master Slender. Peace be to them! we will not accelerate their destiny. Why should we throw stones at a drowning dog, or send out catamarans against foundering fishing smacks?"

"Sacred dramas would be more useful for the amusement of the people on the Sabbath day, than sacred music is for that of the higher classes; and if there be no objection to the one, there surely can be none to the other. In the savage state man loves total indolence; if his passions be not roused, he likes to lie in the sun and sleep like a dog: but it is the effect of civilization to make even those in the lowest ranks who feel none of its blessings, impatient of listlessness and craving after sensation. The policy of the church should be to fill up those hours of leisure which it has created, and which are now chosen for the campaigns of its antagonists. Open a Sunday theatre: a good Samson among the Philistines would be the best champion against the united Calvinists; and the itinerants might preach about fire and brimstone to empty benches, while their former congregations crowded to see it raining down upon Sodom."

66 Every religious sect which unites itself with the state, is favourable either to despotism or revolution, as it suits its interests. The Catholics were the first moderns who justified tyrannicide, and the Presbyterians brought back Charles II. The established

clergy concurred with Charles I. in every act of tyranny, and they expelled his son.'

"Let us not deceive ourselves: this is a reading age, but it is one of such reading as might as well be let alone. The main motive which induces the majo rity of readers to take the trouble of perusing a new book (old ones they never look into, any thing new is the question at the bookseller's, as it is at the milliner's) the main motive is, that they may have the pleasure of criticising it in conversation; and to give them much trouble is the fault of all others which they are least willing to forgive. Brevity is the humour of the times; a tragedy must not exceed fifteen hundred lines, a fashionable preacher must not trespass longer than fifteen minutes upon his congregation. We have short waistcoats and short campaigns; every thing must be short except law suits, speeches in parliament, and tax-tables."

"Mr. Malthus's book must have convinced the British public that population is always and every where progressive with the means of maintenance, and with, them alone; that nations, which cannot procure a drain for their superfluous adolescence, must rebarbarize, and allow the brutal qualities of strength and courage to snatch the goods of life from the feebler hands of the industrious, the luxurious, and the refined; that colonies, far from being exhaustive of national force, or burdensome to public revenue, promote a wholesome emigration, and facilitate at home. early marriages, manufactural demand, and domestic: thrift, that with our power they extend our fame and influence, diffusing our exemplary arts of life; our multifarious occupations of profit, our traditional and recorded experience, enlarging the area of existence, and distributing the blessings of civilization. ancient world enrolled among its favourite worthies the founders of states; to their honour monumental cities arise; their ashes fertilize provinces. A time of war is the fittest for founding a new colony: few emigrants are wanted in the origin, and those not so much of the fighting as of the industrious class: the primary difficulties are thus overcome against the period

The

when the redundant population of peace is ready to pour forth its shoals of recruits. A treaty recognizes possession; whereas, during peace, wars are sometimes incurred by the attempt at new acquisition.".

"The first historians of Rome were poets. Ennius wrote metrical annals of the kings; and Nævius a metrical chronicle of the first Punic war; but the former of these two bards could have no authentic sources of intelligence; he did not, like Nævius, relate events of which he saw a great part. Romulus. and Remus, Numa and Egeria, class with the kings and nymphs of the Polyalbion. The priesthood are stated annually to have written on a white board, which was exposed to the inspection of the few who could read, a short register of the magistrates and events of the year. These agreed notices of public occurrences were afterwards transcribed and preserved in the archives, and are quoted as the fundamental documents of Roman history. Now these archives, down to the year 390, perished totally during the conflagration of Rome by the Gauls. Fasti, and other collections of precedents for laws and public rites, were afterwards compiled, and ascribed to the traditional fathers of the country; but there is no trust worthy history before Camillus."

"What missions have you undertaken to convert the Heathen? is one of the questions which the Catholic asks the Protestant; and to this no satisfactory answer can be returned. As with the Romanists zeal fermented into persecution, so with us toleration has become indifference; they, in their ardour for the salvation of sonis, perpetrated the most dreadful enormities that disgrace the history of man; we with an apathy which religion does not sanction, and cannot excuse, behold the idolatrous crimes of nations whom we conman1, and make no effort to prevent them.But,' says the philosophist, if salvation be possible out of the pale of the church, wherefore propagate Christianity? Because the moral institutes of Christianity are calculated to produce the greatest possible good, individual and general; because it would root out polygamy, with its whole train of evils; because it would abolish human sacrifices, infanticide, and