To Bacchus' urn his afhes fhall defcend, Wept by the nymphs whom Bephyrus' ftreams delight; " To After all, whatever Mr. Meen's pretenfions may be to the character of a critic or a poet, we think his labour loft in the prefent inftance. Lycophron is not only ambiguously obfcure, but incorrigibly dull." For the character however of his poet, we refer the public to Mr. Meen himself. affift the reader's progrefs and alleviate his labours, this poem may be divided into parts, and thofe parts into fections, and to each fection may be prefixed its contents. For want of thefe artificial helps, which are so needful here, the poem appears of an unufual length and fatigues at once the eye and understanding. It prefents to both, a chaos without form, a labyrinth without a clue, a wilderness, wild and waste, difficult of accefs, and dangerous to enter. For though Caffandra raves, her readers are fober."-In truth, it is high time to put a period to her ravings! Lectures on Ecclefiaftical Hiftory. To which is added, an essay on Chriftian Temperance and Self-denial: by the late George Campbell, D. D. Principal of Marifchel College, Aberdeen. With fome account of the Life and Writings of the Author. By the Rev. George Skene Keith, Keith Hall, Aberdeenfhire. 2 Vols. 8vo. Johnfon. London. 1800. So many men of eminence in the republic of letters have had their reputation leffened by the injudicious publica tion of pofthumous works, that it was not without anxiety, and even fome degree of alarm, that we opened the volumes before us. Dr. Campbell's fame refts fo fecurely on his Dif fertation on Miracles in anfwer to Hume, on his Philofophy of Rhetoric, and on the differtations preliminary to his tranflation of the gofpels, that we should have been afraid to publish any pofthumous work of fuch an author, if he had not himself left exprefs directions for the publication, left the fuper ftructure ftructure raised by himself had been fhaken by our ill-poifed buttress. A man of fuch literary eminence as bishop Hurd may indeed take liberties with the works of a friend with whom he was fo intimate as his Lordthip was with Bifhop Warburton; but we have no evidence whatever of Mr. Skene Keith's being on the fame footing with Dr. Campbell, and we have very complete evidence that his abilities will not bear to be brought into comparison with thofe of the Bishop of Worcefter. As an introduction to thefe Lectures, he gives us a life of Dr. Campbell, written in a very unequal ftyle, and with very little judgment. Because his hero was a great and a good man, he is determined to make him one of thofe "faultlefs monsters whom the world never faw." He is extremely illpleafed with one author for having compared him to Dr. Leechman, late principal of the college of Glasgow, though the comparison, from his own account of it, feems to have been not only natural, but almost unavoidable. Because another writer, fpeaking of the Philofophy of Rhetoric, fays, that "his (Dr. Campbell's) philofophy in general is the philofophy of Dr. Reid; and where he differs from that acute reafoner refpecting abftraction, and fome other objects of metaphyfical difquifition, it is impoffible to refuse him the pre-eminence in every thing but ftyle;" he labours, with fome degree of ceremony, to prove what no man feems to have denied, that his ftyle is equal to Dr. Reid's. Nay, he goes the length to fay, that had Dr. Campbell's prelections in theology been finished in his best manner, and given to the public, "they would have been, in his opinion, the greateft prefent that not only Chrif tian divines, but also private Chriftians, who are men of literature, have received fince the days of Jerome," forgetting furely the present that was made to private Chriftians, if not to fuch learned divines as Mr. Skene Keith, when the fcriptures were first tranflated into English, and the other vernacular languages of Europe. Such extravagant panegyric as this defeats its own aim, and is infinitely more prejudicial to the character of him who is the object of it, than the feverity with which, to the great offence of fuch flimfy writers as our biographer, Johnfon has treated the later British poets. With all due veneration for the memory of Dr. Campbell, whom we confider as one of the ableft defenders of our holy religion, we cannot think him difgraced by being brought into comparison with Dr. Reid, a man who has often been compared to Bacon, to Malbranche, and to Locke! Of Dr. Leechman, indeed, we know very little; but we can hardly fuppofe the head of one college to be L4 fo fo very inferior to the head of another, as to authorize Mr. Keith to call them fpirits of different orders! And to prefer any courfe of theological lectures, proceeding from the pen of an uninspired author, to the English verfion of the facred fcriptures, appears to us to be fomething bordering upon blafphemy. That the man who can write in this ftyle fhould boast of Dr. Campbell's knowledge of the Greek language, and fet him far above our Burneys, and Glaffes, and Porfons, will not furprize our readers; though," in the apprehenfion of this writer and others," to speak in the ftyle of Mr. Keith, a knowledge of the Greek language is the very laft foundation on which the friends of the learned Principal fhould attempt to build his fame. His tranflation of the Gospel is not the fubject of this review, We should not, therefore, have noticed either its excellencies or its defects, had not we been called upon by this rash man to compare a fection of it with as much of the common verfion, and then to fay, "which of the two, on the whole, has the best effect on our minds." We have made this comparison between the two verfions of the Sermon on the Mount, as it ftands in the gofpel by St. Matthew; and we fay, with confidence, that the old verfion has the beft effect on our minds, for this good reason, that it does not so often deviate from the fenfe or the elegant fimplicity of the original. Dr. Campbell renders the firft verfe of the fixth chapter thus: "Take heed that ye perform not your religious duties before men, &c." But Exεnuoovy never fignifies religious duties, but alms, as our tranflators have properly rendered it; as the Fathers of the Church always understood it; and as the etymology of the word and the fenfe of the context abfolutely require it to be understood in this place. Our bleffed Lord is here giving directions how to perform rightly the three capital duties of religion, Almsgiving, Prayer, and Fafting. He begins with almsgiving, then proceeds to prayer, and concludes with fafting; and Dr. Campbell might, with as much propriety, have rendered the words naι olav moσevyn (in the fifth verfe) lav de volɛunlɛ (in the 16th) when thou givest alms, as he has rendered eλenuouvy (in the first verse) religious duties. Dr. Campbell tranflates the fourth verfe of this chapter: "that thine alms may be in fecret; and thy Father, to whom nothing is fecret, will himself recompenfe thee." No doubt, this is nearly the meaning of the original; but the words-to whom nothing is fecret, will himself recompenfe thee, are no translation of the Greek words; ὁ βλέπων εν τω κρυπίῳ, αυτες αποδώσει στις EV 7 Daveg, which are very properly rendered by our tranf lators lators; and might be ftill more literally rendered thus; "who feeth in fecret, fhall himself reward thee in public." 66 In this boasted tranflation, the 7th verfe is thus rendered; "And in prayer talk not idly as the Pagans, who think that ufing many words will procure them acceptance." The people known in Judea by the Greek denomination of luxo, were never in that country called Pagans in Latin; nor was the term anywhere used as it is now used, for three hundred years after our Saviour's afcenfion. Qi vino and Pagans are indeed, even yet, words of very different meaning: the former denoting fuch antient nations as were aliens from the commonwealth of Ifrael, and strangers to the covenant of promife;" the latter, fuch inhabitants of the Roman empire, as after the converfion of Conftantine, continued to oppofe the religion of Chrift. We are fully aware of the difficulty of afcertaining the precife and original import of the word Bartohoyyonle, but μy Barloλoyyone is very improperly rendered into the vague expreffion talk not idly, fince its meaning in this place is afcertained by the fubfequent words to be what our tranflators have rendered it" use not vain repetitions." In Dr. Campbell's verfion the first verse of the feventh chapter is thus tranflated: "Judge not, that ye be not judged; for as ye judge, ye fhall be judged; and with the measure wherewith ye give, ye fhall receive;" but palgele does not fignify ye give, nor αντιμετρηθήσεται υμιν—ye hall receive, nor ev yap uguali for as ye judge! The authorized verfion is here fo perfect that it seems impoffible to improve it either in found or in fenfe; and the learned Principal's verfion is certainly inferior to it in both. His tranflation of the next verie, however, is ftill more extraordinary; " and why obferveft thou the mote in thy brother's eye, but art infenfible of the thorn in thine own eye?" That Aoxos never fignifies a thorn we will not be confident, though we have never met with it in that fense; but that it does not fignify a thorn here is most obvious, because a thorn in the eye would produce fuch exquifite pain, that no man could be fuppofed, even in a metaphor, to be infenfible of it in his own eye. The truth is, that the eye is fometimes fubject to a difeafe, in which a dark line reaches from the upper to the lower part in such a manner as to divide the pupil into two, making every object appear double. It is to this disease that our Saviour alludes, when, in the 22d verfe of the preceding chapter, he fays, if thine eye be άnhous άπλους fingle, (not found as Dr. Campbell tranflates the word) "thy whole body thall be full of light." The black line producing this double vifion was, by the Jews, called a beam, probably because the perfon affected with it, really fees objects indif tinctly tinctly as if a beam were interpofed between his eye and them; and hence, a cenforious peifon, who extenuated his own faults and magnified thofe of his neighbour, was, among that people, proverbially said to have a beam in his eye. The do&tor tranflates the words το δε σαπρον δενδρον, in the 17th. verfe," every evil tree;" but the word evil is fo vague, that when applied to a tree it has no precife meaning. The word pov literally fignifies rotten, or, as our tranflators have rendered it, corrupt, and the whole verfe might be properly tranflated; "every fresh tree yieldeth good fruit, but every ratten or corrupt tree, evil fruit. Thefe few ftrictures, and we might have made triple the number even on the fingle fection entitled the Sermon on the Mount, are perhaps fufficient to fhow the extreme rafhnels of Mr. Skene Keith, where he claims for Dr. Campbell a very high place among the Greek fcholars of the age, and much more when he holds him up as a greater mafter of that language than the divines, who were employed by King James I. to tranflate the Greek Scriptures. The truth is, that Dr. Campbell appears to have been a man of very various attainments in metaphyfics, morals, theology, Belles Lettres, and botany; and when all this is confidered, together with the laborious duties, which, for nine years, he performed as the paftor of a country parish, we are fo far from being furprized at his not being the firft Greek fcholar of the age, that we are rather furprized at his having attained fo confiderable a fhare of Greek learning as he undoubtedly poffeffed. Our indignation is excited, not against him, for he did more than mcft men for the caufe of truth, but against his biographer for not reftraining his own labours to a fimple narrative of his hero's life, and getting his literary character described by Dr. Beattie or fome other man capable of eftimating it. Highly as we think of Dr. Campbell, it is too much to fay of him that "few of the children of men have poffeffed his reach of mind and diverfified erudition!" Our readers will form their own opinion of his reach of mind and bis erudition, and that opinion will be high, when they confider what he performed during the courfe of not a very long life, of which the following narrative contains the principal events. Dr. George Campbell was the youngest fon of the Rev. Colin Campbell, one of the minifters of Aberdeen. He was born in that city on the 25th of December, 1719, and was by death deprived of his father before he had completed his ninth year. His education, however, was not neglected. Having tudied the Latin tongue in the Grammar School of Aberdeen, |