nicious evafion. A fimilar expedient is that of adulterating the ftandard of the coin: the only difference is, that this method of defrauding the creditors of the public is more artful and concealed, An avowed bankruptcy is preferable to fuch artifices,

The public debt can only be equitably difcharged by augmenting the public revenue, or reducing the public expence. The revenue might be increased by a more equal tax upon land, or upon the rent of houfes; but moft eafily and advantageously, by extending the British fyftem of taxation to all the different provinces of the empire, at the fame time allowing them a proportional reprefentation in the British parliament. Ireland is certainly as able, and our American and our Weft Indian plantations, having neither tythes nor poor's rate to pay, more able to bear a land-tax than Great Britain. Stamp duties might be levied in all countries, without variation, where the forms of law procefs are nearly the fame. The extenfion of the custom-houfe laws of Great Britain to Ireland and the plantations, provided it was accompanied with an extenfion of the freedom of trade, would be advantageous to both. The excife duties might be applied to Ireland without any variation, and to the plantations with modifications fuited to their produce and confumption. This extension of taxation, fuppofing that Ireland and the plantations contain five millions of inha bitants, would increase the revenue to fixteen millions; deducting one million for fupporting the civil eftablishment of both, out of this revenue, fix millions might annually be fpared to wards the payment of the debt, and as the debt diminishes, a much greater and continually increafing fum, fo that the whole might be difcharged in a few years.

It is no objection to this plan, that the Americans have but little gold and filver for this is the effect of choice, not neceffity; their great demand for active and productive stock rendering it convenient for them to have as little dead ftock as poffible. Their payments might be chiefly made in produce, by means of their mercantile connections.

If it fhould be found impracticable to draw any confiderable augmentation of revenue from any of these refources, nothing remains but a diminution of expence. And the most obvious and effectual means of doing this, would be by relinquishing the colonies which have been the occafion of fuch heavy burdens. If any of the provinces of the British empire cannot be made to contribute towards the fupport of the whole empire, it is furely time that Great Britain fhould free herfelf from the expence of defending thofe provinces in time of war, and of fupporting any part of their civil or military establishment in time of peace, and endeavour to accommodate her future views and defigns to the real mediocrity of her circumftances,

In order to give our Readers a connected view of the valuable materials contained in this work, we have been under the neceffity of protracting our general furvey of it to fuch a length, as leaves us no room for ftrictures on particular parts. We fhall therefore only add, that after a careful examination of our Author's general principles, they appear to us to have been formed with the moft mature deliberation, and on the most folid grounds; and that, whatever may be thought of the particular schemes which he proposes for the improvement of trade, or the augmentation of the public revenue, his leading ideas are highly deferving of attention, and are capable of being employed with great utility, in the regulation of the commercial and political fyftem.

ART. II. Vetus Teftamentum Hebraicum, cum variis Lectionibus. Edidit Benjaminus Kennicott, S. T. P. Edis Chrifti Canonicus, et Bibliothecarius Radclivianus. Tomus Primus. Oxonii, e Typogra pheo Clarendoniano. Folio. 1776.

E heartily congratulate the Public upon

WE the appearance

of the first volume of Dr. Kennicott's Hebrew Bible, with a vaft multitude of various readings, collected from near feven hundred copies of the whole, or fome particular parts, of the Old Teftament.

The collation of Hebrew manufcripts, and an edition of the Hebrew Bible, with the various readings difcovered in confequence of fuch a collation, hath, from the time it was firft propofed, raifed the expectation of the learned throughout all Europe. Dr. Kennicott was the firft who convinced the world of the neceffity, and pointed out the materials, of the undertaking; it was then recommended to the countenance and encouragement of the university of Oxford by the late Dr. Hunt, Profeffor of Hebrew and Arabic in that celebrated feat of learning; and feveral perfons of great eminence for their rank in literature, as well as their high ftations in the church, united with the Profeffor in thinking Dr. Kennicott, of all others, the fitteft for the employment, and in urging him to undertake it. He had no fooner complied with their request, and made his intention public, than he was favoured with fuch a lift of fubfcribers among the great, the learned, and the opulent, in order to defray the expence of collating not the Hebrew manufcripts in England only, but the principal ones in other parts of the world, as hath never graced any other propofal of this nature for the advancement of religion and literature.

Since few of our Readers may have a juft apprehenfion of the nature and utility of this great work, it may not be improper to ftate a few things, principally from Dr. Kennicott's two dif

ations, and his feveral annual accounts of the progress of his

collation

collation, a little more fully than would otherwife have been neceffary.

A ftrange notion prevailed among the learned, with few exceptions, that the prefent Hebrew text, as published by Ben Chaim, according to the Maforatic copies in common use (which edition hath been made the standard of all the modern printed editions of the Hebrew Bible), is either abfolutely perfect, or that if it contains any errors, they are very few and immaterial.

Confidering that it hath not been the lot of any other ancient book, not even of the New Teftament, to be delivered down to pofterity in this state of integrity and incorruption, it is amazing that fuch an opinion concerning the state of the Old Teftament fhould fo generally, and fo long, have prevailed. Perhaps this, in great meafure, may have been owing to the heat of religious controversy; especially the zeal of the Proteftants against the Church of Rome. The Pope having decreed the vulgar Latin to be authentic, the Proteftants willing, as far as poffible, to oppofe the Papal authority, not only afferted, as they might juftly do, the fuperior excellence of the original to any verfion whatfoever; but, in conformity with the bold pretences of the Jewish Doctors to great accuracy in fecuring the purity of the text, they maintained even the perfection of it. And what is ftill more wonderful, they prefumed, in oppofition to certain facts, which (though they might have done it at any time) they never examined, that all the Hebrew manuscripts were in perfect agreement with each other, or however contained no various readings of any importance.

The greatest discoveries have been frequently made by acci dent and this, it seems, was very much the cafe with the dif covery made by Dr. Kennicott, of the variations in the Hebrew manufcripts. He had previously entertained the common opinion; till being, feveral years fince, defired by the prefent Bishop of Oxford, to compare the two catalogues of David's mighty men in Samuel and Chronicles, in order that by the comparifon of two paffages, which ought to be perfectly confiftent in fense, in a perfect text, he might difcover the mistakes of the transcribers, and the confequent imperfection of the present printed text, it occurred to him that it would not be improper to caft his eye on the manufcripts in the Bodleian library; and here, though he had little expectation from indulging his curiosity, a new scene opened upon him. He found the various readings of these manufcripts, contrary to the hitherto unexamined fuppofition of the whole learned world, to be very numerous, and many of them very important. Publishing foon after two very curious differtations upon this fubject, in which he gave the world many fpecimens of thefe various readings,

he

he had the happiness to convince the learned in general of the erroneous opinion they had hitherto entertained, and of the utility and neceffity of an accurate collation of the Hebrew manufcripts of the Old Teftament; at leaft, of the oldeft and beft of them. The defign met with fingular and deferved encouragement; and Dr. Kennicott, being, in the manner before-mentioned, engaged in the undertaking, finished this laborious collation in ten years; the time which he originally proposed; and perhaps he is the firft perfon who, in a work of fuch extent, variety, and labour, hath kept his engagement with the Public, and completed it within the time at first appointed. Having, fince the collation was perfected, spent a few years in the laborious employment of reducing his immenfe mafs of materials into order for publication, he hath printed, at the Clarendon prefs, in a beautiful letter, and elegant page, hisfirft volume; and propofes to comprehend the remainder of the work in a fecond.

It is obvious that, in confequence of the once predominant, though now declining, if not wholly exploded, notion of the perfection of the Hebrew text, there was little room for the exercife of just and, rational criticism, in order to remove the numerous difficulties which occur in the prefent printed Hebrew Bibles. The Samaritan Pentateuch, and the ancient ver fions, the Seventy particularly, might perhaps lead to the interpretation, now and then, of an Hebrew word; but no farther advantage could be derived from them. In every case where the Samaritan text differs confiderably from the Hebrew, as it does in numberless inftances, that text must be confidered as exceedingly corrupt; and the ancient verfions, the Septuagint especially, must be efteemed exceedingly arbitrary, fince they often give us renderings which are abfolutely inconfiftent with the readings of the prefent Hebrew. The mere blunders of tranfcribers, thofe which common fenfe may discover and a fmall talent in criticifm may correct,-not to fay the most palpable abfurdities and contradictions,-are all fanctified by a fuppofed perfection of the text; and thus the miferable commentator is often reduced to the hard neceffity of ftraining to reconcile what is utterly irreconcilable.

But very different is the ftate of things fince the discovery which Dr. Kennicott hath made of the multitude of various readings contained in the manufcripts which he hath collated: which readings appear now, from this firft volume, to amount to a much greater number than those collected by Mill, Kufter, and Wetstein, from manufcripts of the New Teftament. Indeed, the number of manufcripts collated by Dr. Kennicott for the Old Teftament, much exceeds the number of the manufcripts which have ever been collated for the New.

It cannot be expected that we fhould inquire into the merit of particular readings in this vaft collection. But if, as feems on a flight examination to be the cafe, many of them are important in themselves; if they confirm, as they certainly do in numerous inftances, the readings of the Samaritan text, and of the Septuagint and other ancient verfions; they then furnish the fagacious, inquirer with an ample fupply of the materia critica and Dr. Kennicott will, in our opinion, highly deferve the character which is given of him by his learned friend the Bishop of Oxford, when he ftiles him, in the preface to the fecond edition of his Prælections, Critices facræ veræ et genuina inflau

Tator.

On opening this elegant volume, the first thing which prefents itfelf to our notice, after the infcription to the King, is the Author's lift of fautores or patrons; for he includes in it, not only those who have given their names as fubfcribers for printed copies of the work, but those who have contributed to the great expence attending the collation of fuch a multitude of manufcripts both at home and abroad, and the preparation of the work for the prefs. This extraordinary lift is adorned with no fewer than seven crowned heads, not to mention feveral Princes, Cardinals, Archbishops, and Bifhops, univerfities, public libraries, and many of the most eminent literati in va rious parts of Europe.

In his preface Dr. Kennicott hath explained the arrangement of his various readings, and the marks which he uses to diftinguish of what kind they are, whether additions, omiffions, tranfpofitions, or the change of one or more words or letters for others. But for a particular account of the manufcripts, and of fome old printed editions prior to the Maforatic Bomberg edition, which have been happily difcovered, and now collated for reftoring the facred text, the Doctor refers us to his Differtatio Generalis, to be publifhed with his fecond volume; in which he propofes to treat of thefe and fome other matters, that cannot well be confidered before the whole work is completed. There he will, undoubtedly, point out fome of the most important various readings, and perhaps give his judgment upon them, as Dr. Mill hath done in his Prolegomena, with refpect to many various readings of the New Teftament; and will, likewife, lay before the learned all other particulars which will contribute to the right ufe and application of the critical mate rials with which he hath amply furnished them.

Dr. Kennicott excels in an elegant and useful arrangement; and of this there are various examples in the work before us, as well as in fome of his former publications. It may natu rally be expected, therefore, that he will not commit the fault with which Dr. Mill is chargeable, who hath no where given

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