exercise, that it may communicate a secret gracefulness to his manner ever after."

In this manner did the old gentleman and I pass the time, till the clock struck five, when Miss NOEL came into the parlour again, and her father said he must retire, to take his evening nap, and would see me at supper; for with him I must stay that night. HARRIOT, make tea for the gentleman. I am your servant, sir," and he withdrew. To HARRIOT, then, my life and my bliss, I turned; and, over a pot of tea, was as happy, I am sure, as ever with his Statira sat the Conqueror of the World.) I began to relate once more the story of a passion, that was to form one day, I hoped, my sole felicity in this world, and with vows and protestations affirmed that I loved from my soul. "Charming angel," I said, "the beauties of your mind have inspired me with a passion that must increase every time I behold the harmony of your face; and by the powers divine, I swear to love you as long as Heaven shall permit me to breathe the vital air. Bid me then either live or die, and while I do live, be assured that my life But in vain was all

will be devoted to you only." this warmth. Miss NOEL sat as unmoved as Erycina on a monument, and only answered, with a smile, "Since your days, sir, are in my disposal, I desire you will change to some other subject, and

some article that is rational and useful; otherwise I must leave the room."

"To leave me," I replied, " would be insupportable; and, therefore, at once I have done. If you please then, madam, we will consider the Miracle at Babel, and enquire into the language of the world at that time. Allowing, as you have proved in our late conversation, that the language after the flood was quite another thing from that used in Paradise, and of consequence, that Moses did not write in that tongue which Adam and Eve conversed in: nor is Hebrew of that primævity which some great men affirm; yet, if there was a confusion of tongues at Babel, and many languages were spoken in the earth in the days of Abraham, how did he and his sons converse so easily with the various nations they passed through, and had occasional connexions with? For my part, I think with Hutchinson, that the divine interposition at Babel was for quite another end, to wit, to confound their confession, and cast out of their minds the name or object of it, that a man might not listen to the lip or confession of his neighbour. They were made to lose their own lip, and to differ about the words of their atheistical confession."

"As to a confusion of confessions," replied Miss NOEL," it appears to me to be a notion without any

the phrases, also used for

foundation to rest on. The argument of Hutchinson that the word' shephah,' the name for a lip, when used for the voice or speech, is never once in the Bible used in any other sense than for confession, is not good; because, though shephah' is often generally used for religious discourse or confession, yet other lips' and other tongues,' are other languages, utterances, pronunciations, dialects.' St. Paul, 1. Corinthians, ch. 14. v. 21. 22. applies shephah to language or dialect, in his quotation from the prophet Isaiah, ch. 28. v. 11, 12. He says, in the law it is written, 'With men of* other tongues and other lips will I speak unto this people, and yet for all that they will not hear me.' And the words of the prophet are, speaking of Christ promised; with stammering lips, and another tongue will he speak to this people.' It is evident from this, that the Hebrew word shephah here signifies tongues or languages, and not confessions or discourse. So the apostle applies it, and explains the prophet: and by stammering lips,' Isaiah means the uncouth pronunciations of barbarous dialects,' or languages of the nations, which must produce in strangers to them ridiculous lips or mouths; and in this he refers undoubtedly to the

* The words men of are not in the Greek.

stammering and strange sounds at the Babel confusion, when God, by a miracle and visible exhibition, distorted their organs of speech, and gave them a trembling, hesitation and precipitancy, as to vocal and other powers. In short, the miraculous gift of tongues would in some measure affect the saints, in respect of pronunciation, as the Miracle of Babel did the people of that place. Nor is this the only

To this stammering or uncouth pronunciation of barbarous dialects the prophet Ezekiel refers, chap. 36. v. 3. “Ye are made to come upon the lip of the tongues :” that is, ye are become a bye-word even in the heathen gabble, among the babbling nations where ye are in captivity. Holloway, the author of Letter and Spirit, says, the word barbarous, used in so many languages, (with only their respective different determinations) for persons of strange or foreign tongues, is a monument of the great confusion at Babel; this word being a corruption of the reduplicate Chaldee word Balbel, by changing the l in each place into r. Some say, the word in the other languages is derived from the Arabic Barbar, to "murmur like some beast." Scaliger defines it, Pronunciatio vitiosa et insuavis, literasque male exprimens, blæsorum balborumque more: which was hitting upon the truth as to part of the original manner of the confusion. Indeed Blasus and Balbus, in Latin, are both derived in like manner from Bal and Balbel. The Welsh have preserved a noble word for this barbarism of confused language in their compounded

place in Scripture where shephah, lip, signifies language, pronunciations, and dialects; and where there is reference to the confusion of tongues at Babel, Isaiah, speaking of the privileges of the godly, says, 'Thou shalt not see a fierce people, of a

term Baldwridd; which is a plain compound of the Hebrew Bal, and Dabar, without any other deflection from the original Hebrew, than that of changing the b in the latter member of the word Dabar into the Welsh w, a letter of the same organ. Moreover, from their said Baldwridd, and Das, we again derive our Balderdash ; which therefore signifies strictly, a heap of confused or barbarous words, like those of the gabble of dialects, originally gendered at Babel. See Letter and Spirit, ch. 11. It is very remarkable, that this learned gentleman says he had been long of Hutchinson's mind, as to a confusion of confessions, and not of tongues; but on weighing the matter, is now of another opinion. Ibid. p. 115. Therefore, Hutchinson not infallible, but out for once, and as Dr. Sharp well observes, this may be an earnest of deserting Hutchinson in other points of his new hypothesis. See Dr. Sharp's Two Discourses on the Hebrew Tongue and Character against Holloway. His Two Discourses on Elohim, and Defence. And his Three Discourses on Cherubim. The Hutchinsonians lay the stress of their hypothesis on the Biblical Hebrew, being the language of Adam in Paradise; and if this be taken from them, they are left in a poor way indeed.