grunting of hogs, the cackling of geefe, or the chattering of apes-the mere natural or instinctive expreffion of the defires and wants of a herd of affociated favages, formed by mutual confent for their common interest!!

How finely is this " crazy wisdom," and orang-outang philofophy, refuted by anticipation, in the first pages of Holy Writ!-reprefenting Adam, the first man,

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as giving names to all the various tribes of animals, by the divine appointment, affembled before him; and this too in his folitary state, before the formation of Eve-" before there was an helpmate found for him."-And Johnson, so well verfed in the theory of language, fagely

remarks:

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Language must have come by infpiration-a thousand, nay a million of children could not invent a language: while the organs are pliable, there is not underftanding enough to form a language; by the time that there is understanding enough, the organs are become ftiff: we

know

know that, after a certain age, we cannot learn to pronounce a new language." Bofwell's Life of Johnson, vol. 3. p. 354.

III. Of all the primitive languages and dialects of the earth, none feems to have fuch just pretenfions to the claim of originality as the Hebrew-that venerable vehicle of "6 pure and undefiled religion to the primeval and patriarchal world; against which, therefore, the powers of infidelity and fcepticism are most firmly banded together, impeaching it of barbarifm, poverty, &c.

A refpectable "Lay Theologian," Mr. Butler of Lincoln's Inn, thus modeftly delivers his opinion, in his Hora Biblica:

"The claim of the Hebrew language to the highest antiquity cannot be denied; its pretenfions to have been the only language in existence before the confufion of Babel, are not inconfiderable."-[Witnefs Gen. xi. 1.]

But with what fupercilioufnefs is it treated by the MONTHLY REVIEW of October 1798, p. 211!

"WE (the M. R.) deem them very inconfiderable; and we are surprised that Mr. B. should have admitted fuch an unfounded affumption. Had he attentively perused the remarks of Schultens, Michaelis, De Guignes, &c. on this fubject, we think that he would not have hazarded an affertion of this fort."

But, had thefe profeffed critics attentively perufed the writings of those very scholars whom they name, they would not have "hazarded" fuch idle cenfure, recoiling on themselves. Notwithstanding an undue predilection for their own fyftems, the ingenious but rather fanciful Schultens, Michaelis and De Guignes, &c. (b) all concur in discovering the traces of fome one primaval language all over the earth,

(b) Magnis olim animis pugnatum inter Orientales quænam lingua antiquitatis palmam ferat. Maronita eam Syriacæ fuæ, five Arameæ, affignant; Arabes item, fuæ ; nec fegnius Hebræi, fuæ.-Atque inde evidentiffimè colligere eft-(ex nominibus propriis tum hominum tum locorum, ab orbe condito memoratis a Mofe)— Hebræam dialectum, (quæ ab Hebero nomen traxit,)

earth, although they are not agreed as to the exclufive pretenfions of the Hebrew each bringing in, as co-eval, his own favourite dialect; the Arabic, the Syriac, or, its twin fifter, the Sanferit; the Phænician, the Egyptian, or the Ethiopic, &c. And had these Reviewers gone ftill deeper, and explored the profound researches of the mighty Caftell, Walton, Bochart, Selden, De Dieu, &c. they would have acquiefced

"faciem" nativam linguæ primævæ fideliffimè retinuiffe; unà cum Chaldaica, Syriacâ et Arabicá dialectis-quæ, ob harmoniam "fororiam," unum corpus linguæ conftituere debuerunt."

SCHULTENS, Inftit. Ling. Heb. p. 4. "Les langues que parloient autrefois les Hebreux, les Pheniciens, les Syriens, les Chaldéens, et que parlent aujourd'hui les Arabes et les Ethiopiens, ont entr'elles une telle affinité, qu'il feroit plus exact, de les prendre pour de fimples dialectes d'un language general, qu'on parloit dans les countrées que ces peuples habitoient."

DE GUIGNES, Acad. des Infcriptions.

-The following obfervation of Schultens is well worth the attention of the M. R.- Si calluit linguas orientales, quid fcribit, ac fi eas non calluiffet, et vix a limine falutâffet?—Si non calluit, quid criticorum agit criticum, ac fi eas percalluiffet?"

in the well-founded pretenfions to the moft venerable antiquity of the language they presume to difparage ;-and whose ftructure, when carefully compared with the nearer kindred dialects of the Eaft and remoter of the Weft, will furnish internal proof of its originality :-as may elsewhere be demonftrated upon ftricter and more scientific principles of etymological criticifm.

IV. EICHHORN, the fucceffor of the celebrated MICHAELIS in the profefforial chair at Gottingen-" rivalling him in erudition, and furpaffing him in critical fagacity and liberal investigation "—as we are told by his reviewers and panegyrifts, M. R. Appendix, August 1797, p. 491.— hath lately discovered, in his Introduction to the Old Teftament, Leipzig, 4 vols, 1787-1795:

I.

1. "That our extant Hebrew Scriptures are a Tranflation executed by Ezra (c) and

his

(c) Ex his, fimilibufque Danielis et Ezra Hebraifmis, (qui his libris peculiares funt) intelliges utrumque li