and we cordially agree with him in hoping that it will not be made in vain.' Beneficence cannot easily be more usefully exercised than in lending its support to such institutions: for they not only minister to the relief of those who are afflicted with fever, but tend to check the diffusion of the malady; the dwellings of the poor being thus prevented from becoming depositories of infection, by which the contamination might be spread around, and numerous lives endangered. Mr. Hewlett has advocated the cause of these valuable institutions with sufficient ability and becoming zeal. CORRESPONDENCE. In our Number for January last, p. 24., we remarked that it was desirable that some person, who had access to the Biblical hoards of the Missionary Societies, would print in a separate volume a complete collection of Pater-Nosters in all the tongues of the earth. With reference to this observation we have received a letter, signed M. L., in which the writer states, apparently supposing us to be ignorant of the fact, that this work has been already performed in a book printed at Amsterdam in 1715, and edited by John Chamberlayne, F.R.S. intitled "Oratio Dominica in diversas omnium fere Gentium Linguas versa," &c. We have to observe to M. L. that we have long been familiar with Chamberlayne's imperfect and mis-spelt collection of the Lord's Prayer; and also with the more extensive and more critically edited collection of that prayer which is included in Adelung's Mithridates, printed at Berlin in 1806. In consequence, however, of the labours of the British Missionary Societies, many versions of the Lord's Prayer now exist in languages not yet accessible to the extensive research even of Adelung; and therefore we expressed the wish, which we now repeat, that some person who has access to all the new versions of the Testament would reprint a Polyglott Pater-Noster. We have to thank S. for the purport of his letter: but it is not our intention, at least at present, to undertake the task in question. It was our wish and design to have attended to Dr. Trotter's work in the present Number, but an accident has delayed our notice of it. To Sir H. L. we beg to make the reply conveyed in the preceding note. Mr. Worgan must excuse us for declining to continue the musi cal controversy in which he seems disposed to engage us. We cannot beat time so as to afford leisure for it. THE MONTHLY REVIEW, For APRIL, 1820. ART. I. Letters from Palestine, descriptive of a Tour through Gallilee and Judæa; with some Account of the Dead Sea, and of the present State of Jerusalem. 8vo. pp. 259. 125. Boards. Black. 1819. N° o country bordering on the Mediterranean has been left unexplored by the adventurous spirit of our later English travellers; who have burst forth since the return of peace as if, through many years, they had been 66 Gyara clausi scopulis, parvâque Seripho;" nor have those portions of the earth, through which the present author extended his travels, been either rarely visited or imperfectly described: for it has indeed been said, and perhaps truly, that more Englishmen have trodden the soil of the Holy Land within the last few years than had previously wandered through it since the era of the Crusades. Among the recent writers who have supplied us with information as to its actual state, and the memorials of the past which it contains, no one of our countrymen has been so much read as Dr. Clarke. In the list of foreign travellers in the same parts, and within a few years, M. de Chateaubriand claims some pre-eminence; and, as his work was also much circulated in our own language, it is probably as well known to us as that of any native tourist. The style of the French author, indeed, is rather too much animated for our more sober taste, who are apt to prefer a certain quantity of quiet reflection to larger bales of enthusiastic declamation: but, making some abatement in the value of M. de C. on account of this defect, we are not unwilling to allow that many of his descriptions have been amusing, and we would hope that they have been faithful. The volume before us is advertized as the production of T. R. Jolliffe, A. M.; whose travels, we understand, have been much more extensive than they appear from this publication. He professes to inform a friend, in a series of letters written from Palestine, of all that struck his notice most REV. APRIL, 1820. forcibly forcibly during a short visit to that country; and his observations bear the stamp of the passing remarks of a traveller. They have not much to recommend them on the score of deep reflection, or careful comparison of his own opinions with those of his predecessors in the same route: but they afford a good guide to succeeding wanderers in pointing out the objects most worthy of their attention; and they sometimes give a lively, at all times a remarkably intelligible and clear, representation of them for the information of those whose occupations preclude them from such distant expeditions. We imagine that the author himself will not object to the character which we have thus assigned to his work. It has no claims to merit of a higher cast than that which we have accorded to it, but justifies those which ought to be, and probably were, its real aim and pretensions. Letter I. is dated from Acre, and retraces the journey thither from Tripoli, the capital of a Pachalic to the north of that of Sidon. The last is written from Damietta in Egypt; and, as the whole expedition was performed by land, with the exception of a passage by water across the lake of Menzaleh at the conclusion of it, the general route of the traveller, making allowance for a few excursions at different points, will be sufficiently understood by our readers without the necessity of a more particular delineation of it. Acre does not appear to contain many vestiges of antiquity: a few mutilated arcades, supposed to have formed a part of the cathedral-church of St. Andrew, and so esteemed by Maundrell, the nominal ruins of the church of St. John, the patron saint of Acre, and the convent of the Knights' Hospitallers, were all that arrested the attention. Suleyma Pasha had succeeded the execrable Djezzar in that government, and was a man of mild and un-energetic disposition. In younger life, however, (he was eighty years of age when Mr. J. visited him,) he could not have been deficient in that activity which his situation required, since he seems to have triumphed by perseverance, with the assistance of fortune, over many vicissitudes and defeats. Nazareth at present consists of a collection of small houses built of white stone, and scattered irregularly towards the foot of a hill. The inhabitants, mostly Christians, are presumed at a vague estimate to amount to about thirteen hundred. The church comprizes within its walls the ancient dwelling of Joseph of Arimathea; and tradition has preserved the identity of the spot where the angel announced the miraculous conception to the Virgin.' A sort of subterraneous recess is also shewn as the dwelling-house of Joseph and and Mary. The appearance of two small apartments thus situated is sufficiently antique,' says the author, to justify the date, and there is no great violence to probability, from the nature of their situation, in the account delivered of their former appropriation.' Many and ridiculous impostures have doubtless for ages been exercised by the friars of these convents. The present traveller rarely reasons on the probability of their traditions, but, more generally perhaps when they relate to rites, and are not at variance with written record, is inclined rather to assent to than reject them. We require, however, stronger testimony than the belief of the Empress Helena, where other circumstances are wanting to strengthen tradition, before we can attach any great credit to such claims. It is equally absurd to pursue with unmitigated ridicule traditions which in themselves shew no impossibility of truth, and which we are unable to disprove. The place whence the Jews attempted to precipitate Christ, (St. Luke, iv. 29.) is about a mile and a half from the town, and affords, by its natural appearance, stronger corroborations in its favour than we can derive from the assertions of the friars. The country near Nazareth is now barren, but seemingly from neglect, and not from any material deficiency; which is the case, as other sensible travellers have told us, with respect to many parts of Palestine. At Cana, the scene of our Saviour's first miracle, Mr. Jolliffe made the same observation which occurred to Dr. Clarke, on the numerous fragments of stone-jars; a rather singular coincidence with the scriptural narrative. On this occasion he remarks sensibly: Fragments of stone-jars, apparently large enough to contain several gallons, may be still found in particular parts of Gallilee, although vessels of their description are no longer in use in that district. As relics of antiquity they are entitled to some attention; but the authenticity of the Gospel narrative cannot, surely, be affected by any such evidence: the author, even of a work avowedly fictitious, would hardly describe the usages of any known country otherwise than they were universally recognized to exist at the period of his writing.' About the middle of the same day, the traveller reached the summit of the mountain, presumed to be that on which Christ delivered the memorable sermon. It is an eminence commanding a magnificent view of the lake of Tiberias, and the adjoining country. Dr. Clarke describes it in terms of equal praise: but we may observe that Maundrell says that a few points to the north of Mount Tabor stands the presumed mount of the beatitudes, and he calls it a small rising. . Dr. Wells Z 2 Dr. Wells thinks that it is probably the place to which our Lord retired, and where he spent the night in prayer, before the ordination of the twelve apostles. More insatiable fleas, than those which attacked either Dr. Clarke or the present traveller at Nazareth, tortured the latter at Tiberias; where he passed nearly a sleepless night in the church. • When at some little distance from the town, I was invited by the transparency of the water to bathe in the lake, which I found as buoyant as the Hellespont. The greatest breadth does not appear to exceed six or seven miles, and its utmost length cannot be more than double that measure*; but as a sheet of fresh water in this arid district, its beauty and value are beyond all calcu lation. The surrounding scenery possesses many of the requisites of picturesque beauty and sublimity; the great deficiency is an almost total absence of wood. Chorazin and Capernaum are at the north-eastern extremity. Our ecclesiastical Cicerone was at some pains to correct my pronunciation of the latter place, which he maintained should be called Caperna-hoom: both towns are at present exclusively inhabited by Arab families. In the rocks facing the water there are some cavities hewn, which may possibly have been used as sepulchres: during the period of our Saviour's mission, it is probable that the wretched maniacs and victims of demoniacal possession made these their temporary haunts.' Mr. Jolliffe does not appear to have visited the hot-baths, described by older travellers as about one league to the east of the present town, and in the way to which the ruins of the antient city are said to be discoverable. About a mile, indeed, from the town, on his leaving it, he came to a hot spring, which is said to be beneficial in cases of paralysis, but this does not appear to correspond with the site of the baths. On his return to Nazareth, he visited Mount Tabor, a pleasure denied to Dr. Clarke by some accidental circumstances. After an expression of his diffidence in discussing localities, Mr. J. proceeds to inquire whether this mountain really was, as it is popularly supposed, the scene of the transfiguration. Literally speaking, he observes, Mount Tabor is not an insulated hill by itself, because another rises near to its western base. Now, according to the received version of Mat * According to Pliny, it is sixteen miles long, and six wide: that author describes it as being encircled by delightful villas, amænis circumseptum oppidis, (lib. v. cap. 15.) but these have all disappeared so completely, as to leave no traces of their former exist ence. The lake was called the sea of Galilee from its situation in that province of Tiberias, from the city erected on its shore. Gennesareth, from which it also derived one of its names, is no longer extant.' thew, |