endeavoured to establish, by answering objections, and refuting the arguments that have been urged in favour of the Samaritan, whose claim to a competition is now generally acknowledged to be superior to that of the Arabic, Ethiopic, or any other.

"Its priority to the alphabets of other ancient languages as the Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, &c. is allowed by most writers who have compared them," and who, from their knowledge of the subject, were the best qualified to judge. In the Arabic alphabet it has been supposed that the shape of the letters was changed, and their order deranged, by the vanity of the Arabians, which prompted them to depart in these respects from the original, that their own language might be considered as independent on any other: 22 and to the same principle has been attributed their

21" See Pentaglot Lexicon of Schindler-Harmonic Gram. and Lex. of Hottinger and Castel-Hermannus Hugo de

prima Scribendi Origine, cap. v. p. 62, and cap. vii.

p. 65, &c.

22

Gaffarellus's unheard-of Curios. ch. xiii. s. 6. Hermannus Hugo, c. v. P. 42.

addition of letters which the Hebrew alphabet never knew. One circumstance, however, they could not conceal-viz. that the names of several of them are evidently from the Hebrew, as are most of the letters of the Greek alphabet, from which the Romans 23 and other European nations took theirs.

"From these observations, collectively considered, I ventured to conclude that the Hebrew alphabet is the original or parent alphabet, and that this argument, united with the four former, is sufficient to demonstrate not only the priority, but the originality, of the language itself: for, if it appear, from the longevity and the names of the Patriarchs, to have been the language used before the flood-that it has been thence continued uniformly down to the time of Moses, who received the Law in it from God himself-that the words of it express fully and forcibly the nature of the things signified that its roots, however precise and limited in number, are yet copious and connected in their meaning-and its very letters ideal

23" Walton's 2nd Proleg. 12th Sec.

and significant, then will it evidently follow that the Hebrew, as we have it at this day in our Bibles, was the first and original language of mankind.

"It only remains now to be considered, whether it has descended to us pure and uncorrupted: but, if what I have already remarked on the permanent nature of the letters be admitted, this part of my subject will require very little trouble to discuss.

"It is obvious, from experience, that the languages of men who have a constant intercourse with foreigners are continually changing; the importation of new customs always introducing new words adapted to express them. Hence the languages of Greece and Rome were augmented in proportion as their intercourse with other states was increased; whereas the Hebrews, whose religious institutions secluded them, in a great measure, from the rest of the world, preserved their language in its purity; and, as this had been committed to writing before any other language, and a standard fixed for it by the

five books of Moses in particular, which, immediately after their composition, were deposited in the Ark (1 Kings viii. 9. 2 Chron. v. 10.) and afterwards in the Temple, it was, thus far, preserved with the most vigilant care, and secured from all those corrupt additions which had altered and debased the other languages of antiquity.

"That it suffered no change in passing from Moses to Malachi-through a space of more than a thousand or eleven hundred years,24 may be inferred from the similarity of style observable in the several books of the Old Testament,25 except a few that were written about the time of the

24. According to Dr. Kennicott, the whole canon of the Hebrew Bible was closed by Malachi, the latest of the Jewish prophets, about fifty years after Ezra's collection of the sacred books, composed before and during his time. And from Moses to Malachi, he remarks, are 1160 years (viz. from 1580 to 420 B. c.), but, according to Usher, there are but 1012. See Kennicott, vol. ii. of Dissert. p. 305, and his General Dissert. p. 6.

25‹‹‹ In veteri Testamento tanta est constantia, tanta convenientia in copulatione literarum et constructione vocum, ut fere quis putare posset omnes illos libros eodem tempore, iisdem in locis, a diversis tamen auctoribus, esse conscriptos.' Leusd. Philol. Heb. p. 166, 4to.

Babylonish captivity-such, for instance, as the prophecies of Ezekiel and Daniel, written within this period; and the book of Ezra, which was written soon after it. Into the books of Ezekiel and Ezra, particularly, we may perceive that the Chaldaic or Syriac has been introduced; such places, however, have been distinguished by Biblical editors, and may be easily accounted for; ex. gr. part of the fourth chapter of Ezra, from the eighth verse to the end-the whole fifth chapter-eighteen verses of the sixth-and from the twelfth to the twenty-seventh verse of the seventh chapter, are written in this dialect the reason is obvious; for this part of his subject relating chiefly to letters and decrees written in the Chaldee, the sacred historian thought it proper to use the very words of the original, especially as it was at this time familiar to the Jews, who had lately returned from captivity.

and

26

"The second chapter of Daniel also, from the fourth verse to the end, and the succeeding chapters regularly to the end of the seventh, are 26 Prid. Conn. part 1. b. iii. p. 129.