ployed after the conjunction; in others, it would be con fidered rather as imparting grace and elegance to compofition, than as effential to grammatical accuracy. The ufe of a fubftantive, adjectively, or as an adjective, which Mr. C. reprobates, is warranted by the practice of many of our beft poets; "In fchoolboy conteft"-" with meteor glare" would, certainly, not be allowable in profe; hut poets may, we conceive, take fuch liberties with the language, without tranfgreffing the bounds of that poetica licentia to which prefeription has given the ftamp of legitimacy. One pallage, which is cenfured for its inaccuracy, our au thor has evidently mifunderstood: "What accents, murmur'd o'er this hallow'd tomb, Break my repofe, deep founding through the gloom?” "In the first line of your first couplet, we fee a wonderful specimen of your ignorarce of the art of writing you interpofe a comma between the nominative, [c.ents,] and the verb, [murmur'd.] And, from that blunder the tranfition was eafy to the impropriety of unfitly changing the tenfe of your verb, from the past to the prefent: you might indeed have chofen either the paft, or the prefent form of your verb: but, as you meant to fay, and fing, what accents murmur'd, and what accents broke my repofe, you were bound by grammatical propriety, and your own election, to adhere to that form, which pocical vivacity required; although poetical vivacity required rather the prefent form. Pp. 595-506. The fatirist certainly does not mean to ask what accents murmured;-murmured is not the past tense of the verb, but the participle; this part of the fentence "murmur'd o'er this hallow'd tomb," is parenthetical; it might be omitted without injuring the fenfe, though it be neceffary for the verse and rhyme; the punctuation, therefore, is strictly correct. The objection to the word fympofiack is unjust; and we know not on what authority Mr. C. recommends fympafiarch as a fubftitute, that being a word which we have never met with, We muft obferve, though, that fympofiack is an adjective; and that we have no fubftantive that bears the fame fignifica tion. In the inftances which we have adduced, the remarks of Mr. Chalmers appear to us hyper-critical; but, as we before obferved, he has, on other points, difplayed much critical acumen, in the detection of errors. His own ftyle is, generally, correct and claffical; fome few exceptions, however, occur, which it is our duty to notice. "Your office, then, confifts in your affuming (affumption) of the right.” (P. 583.) "This very rare book, which neither Mr. Capel, nor Mr. Malone, Malone, nor Mr. Steevens, nor Mr. Herbert, nor Mr. John Egerton, appear [appears] to have feen." (r. 293.) "It cannot be expected that I fhould infpect one hundred more, with the fame elaboratien that (with which) I have tried to explain those encomiaftic effufions, &c." (p. 81.) "Neither Kilcolman, nor Spenfer were (was) fpared." (P. 34-) But thefe are trifling errors; evidently the effect of hafte. We were very much furprized to find the style of Junius treated, by Mr. Chalmers, with fovereign contempt. That inftances of inaccuracy may be adduced from the Letters of Junius, we are not fo weak as to doubt; but while we reprobated their feditious tendency, we ever confidered them as compofitions of a fuperior clafs; and the few errors indicated by Mr. C. have not fufficed to produce any change in our opinion. Nor were we lefs furprized at the declaration of Mr. C. that he is completely fatisfied that "Hugh Mac Aulay, who affumed the name of Boyd, was the real author" of Junius's Letters. We have converfed with a gentleman who knew Boyd intimately, and who has no fcruple to declare, that he was utterly incapable of writing thofe letters. His opinion, indeed, on the subject, may be found in our last number, P. 346. But we fhall fufpend our judgement, until we have feen the documents on which the conviction of Mr. C. is founded. We know few writers fo competent to the investigation of abftrufe points, political, commercial, or literary, as Mr. C.; and theinformation and amufement which we have derived from his pat publications justify the expectations which we have formed of his future productions. ART. IV. Critical Difquifitions on the Eighteenth Chapter of jaiah, in a Letter to Edward King, Efq. F. R. S. A. S By Samuel, Lord Bifhop of Rochester, F. R. S. A. S. 4to. Pp. 109. Price 5s. Robfon, London. 1799. EVERY lover of genius and learning, and every friend to our valuable establishment in church and state, must rejoice when Bifhop Horfley takes up his pen. So much acutenefs, fo much candour, fo much fine writing, in this fmall tract, make us with that this excellent prelate would bestow more of his thoughts on works of literature. Nothing can give a better impreflion of a writer's good fenfe and good breeding than the manner in which the Bishop opens this controverfy with Mr. King. He addreffes him in the following words: "DEAR DEAR SIR, "Confiderable portions of my time, for fome years paft, have been emploved in the ftudy, of all ftudies the most interefting, of the prophetic parts of the Holy Scriptures; and, among the reft, the prophenes of Ifaiah have deeply engaged my attention. But it was a converfation with you, in the early part of laft fpring, that put me, at that time, upon a more minute examination than I had ever made before, of the 18th chapter of that prophet. The conclufions, to which I found myfelf inevitably brought, differ, in fome very im. portant points, though concerning the general scope of the prophecy they agree, with the interpretation which you communicated to me. I felt, however, no inclination to agitate the question, (even with yourself I mean, for there was nothing at that time to bring into difcuffion before the public,) and, after much deliberation with myfelf, I thought it better avoided; knowing that your opinions are not rafhly taken up; conceiving that you might re-confider the subject; and perfuaded that a man of your learning and upright inten tention is more likely to fer himfelf right, by his own meditation of an abstruse question, than to be fet right by another. But now that you have given that fame interpretation of this prophecy to the public, in your Supplement to your Remarks on the Signs of the Times, I fhould think myfelf wanting to the duties of the station to which God has been pleafed to call me, if I were any longer to fupprefs the refult of a diligent meditation of fo important a portion of the prophetic word. I cannot, however, enter upon the fubject, without profeffing, not to yourself but to the world, how highly I value and esteem your writings, for the variety and depth of erudition, the fagacity and piety which appear in every part of them; but appear not more in them, than in your converfation and the habits of your life, to those who have the happiness, as I have had the happiness, to enjoy your intimacy and friendship. I muft publicly declare, that I think you are rendering the best fervice to the church of God, by turning the attention of believers to the true fenfe of the prophecies. For you are perfectly right in the opinion you maintain, that a far greater portion of the prophecies, even of the Old Teftament, than is generally imagined, relate to the Second Advent of our Lord. Few, comparatively, relate to the First Advent by itself, without reference to the fecond. And of those that have been fuppofed to be accomplished in the first, many had in that only an inchoate accomplishment, and have yet to receive their full completion. While we agree in thefe great and leading principles, I hope that a difference of opinion upon fubordinate points, upon the particulars of interpretation, (fo far as either of us may venture upon particular interpretation, which is to be ventured upon with the greatest caution, with fear, indeed, and trembling,) will be received, on both fides, with that candour and charity which is due from one to another, among all thofe who, in these eventful times, are anxiously waiting for the redemption of Ifrael, and marking the aweful figns of its gradual approach." Pp. 1-4. After After this addrefs, the Bishop goes on to open the plan of his difquifition: "This 18th chapter of Ifaiah is, as you have, with great truth, remarked, one of the moft obfcure paffages of the ancient prophets. It has been confidered as fuch by the whole fucceffion of interpreters, from St. Jerome to Bishop Lowth. The object of it,' fays the Bishop, the end and defign of it, the people to whom it is addreffed, the history to which it belongs, the perfon who fends the meffengers, and the nation to whom the meffengers are fent, are all obfcure and doubtful. Much of this obfcurity lies in the diction, (propter inufitata verba, fays Munfter, propter figuratas fententias,) in the highly figured caft of the language, and in the ambiguity of fome of the principal words, arifing from the great variety of fenfes often comprehended under the primary meaning of a single root. Few, I fear, will have the patience to follow me; but you, I flatter myfelf, will be one of the few that will, in the flow and laborious method of investigation, by which I endeavour to difpel this obfcurity; which, however, is the only method by which obfcurity of this fort is ever to be difpelled. Difcarding all previous affumptions concerning the defign of the prophecy, the people to whom it is addreffed, the hiftory, or the times to which it belongs; I enter into a critical examination of every word of which the meaning is at all doubtful; and I confider the meaning of every word as, in fome degree, doubtful, which has been taken in different fenfes by different interpreters of note. I confider the etymology of the word; I enquire in what fenfes it is actually used, by the facred writers, in other paffages; and I compare with the original, and with one another, the tranflations of interpreters, in different languages, and of diffe rent ages." Pp. 4, 5. After fome fhort obfervations on the credit due to the Syriac, and Septuagint versions, the Bishop proceeds as follows: "When by this procefs, by fcrutinizing etymologies, exploring ufage, and confulting translations, I think I have afcertained the plain literal meaning of a word, and have felected, from a variety of fenfes, that which feems the best fuited to the context; my next step, is to confider what the thing denoted by the word, in the literal meaning, may figuratively reprefent, according to the principles of the prophetic imagery; for thefe two things, the literal meaning, as the foundation of the figurative, and the figurative meaning, according to the principles and ufage of the prophetic ftyle, are the only fure bafis of interpretation; which will ever be precarious and delu. five, if it be founded only on fome general refeinblance, haftily caught up by the imagination, between particular detached events, and the expreffions of the prophet loofely and fancifully expounded. And fuch, I believe, all interpretations will be found to be, which refer texts of prophecy to events merely fecular; not connected, or but but very remotely connected, with the ftate of religion and the for. tunes of the church. Thefe fanciful interpretations, in one way of another, always are mifchievous. Either they take, and then they fpread a general error; or, if they find few admirers, they raise a prejudice against the interpreter, who, in other refpects, may deferve attention, or, what is worfe, against the word of prophecy itself. And for this reason, I confefs, I have often wished, that the forma. tion of the Goodwin Sands, the invention of the telescope, the difcoveries with regard to fixed air, and the invention of the airballoon, had not been brought forward, as things at all connected with the effufion of the tremendous vials of wrath, on the fea, the fun, and the air. Great as these things feem to the narrow mind of man, I cannot think that even greater things than these, not even the difcoveries of Copernicus and Newton, were worthy of the notice of that fpirit, which was in the holy prophets. "The method of investigation I have defcribed, if men had the patience to purfue it, in moft cafes, I am perfuaded, would difcover the general fubject of a prophecy, and even develope the particulars of the accomplishment, when the general fubject lies in any part of the history of paft times, if the detail of that part of hiftory is accurately known. But when the accomplishment of a prophecy is ftill future; when once the general fubject is afcertained, at that point interpretation ought to ftop for the prefent, reverently expecting the farther comments of time, the authorised and infallible expofitor. You have well remarked, that, with refpect to the detail of things future,facred truth fhould be very much left to fpeak for itself, by flow degrees. And for itself it will fpeak, in God's good time; and it is only to a certain extent, that man fhould attempt to fpeak for it; juft fo far, as to lay hold of the general fubject, that we know whereabouts, if we may fo fpeak, in what particular quarter of the world Politico-Ecclefiaftic, we may watch for the completion. If we go beyond this, and attempt to defcend into particulars, it is difficult, I am perfuaded, even for a man of the moft fober mind to keep his imagination in order. And, though among the fanciful gueffes of a man of learning and judgement, one, perhaps, in twenty, which I think is a large allowance, may turn out true; it is far better to leave this truth to be brought to light by time, than to hazard the credit, both of the expofition and the text, by the other nineteen, which time will confute. No mifchief is done in the one cafe; much in the other. "This 18th chapter of Ifaiah is one inftance among many, in which expofitors have perplexed themselves by gratuitous affumptions, concerning the general fcope of the prophecy, before they attempt to fettle the fignification of the terms in which it is delivered; and then they have fought for fuch interpretations of the language, as might fuit the applications they had affumed. But it is a prepofterous way of dealing with any writer, to interpret his words by his fuppofed meaning, instead of deducing his meaning from his words. It has been affumed by moft interpreters, firit, that the principal matter |