not to understand: if he ascends to ideas dissimilar and heterogeneous (from the speaker's,) then he is said to misunderstand. What, then, is requisite that he may be said to understand? That he should ascend to certain ideas, treasured up within himself, correspondent and similar to those within the speaker. The same may be said of a writer and a reader."* Thus, therefore, the only true interpretation of any person's words, is that which must necessarily have been affixed to them by those whom he addressed, and by whom he primarily desired to be understood.

It is obvious that, in order to arrive at an acquaintance with this interpretation, we must analyze every word and phrase, if their import be doubtful; or we must, at least, take into calculation the exact meaning of each, if simple and intelligible, before we can pretend to understand the continuous sense of a passage. Nothing is more common, and yet nothing more pernicious to accuracy of judgment, than the habit of reading an entire context, and, seeing that a certain vague meaning results from it, remaining content with that, though each of the expressions which compose it is not distinctly understood. How many, for instance, read the Epistles of St. Paul, again and again, without ever perceiving the necessity of accurately understanding the exact signification of many of his terms, as the law, justification, calling, election, the flesh, the spirit, and many others? And yet, if every one of

* Harris's Hermes, b. iii. c. iv. p. 399, Lond. 1765.

such terms does not convey an exact idea to the mind, and moreover, if that idea be not precisely the one mutually understood by St. Paul and those to whom he wrote, it is evident that we do not, and cannot, understand his doctrines as he meant them to be understood; or, in other words, that we do not understand them at all. This exact determination therefore, of the meaning of words and phrases, which is the basis and substance of all commentary, is justly called the grammatical interpretation.*

2. But then, words and phrases are variable in their signification, according to time and place. The course of a few centuries alters the signification of words; and the person who interprets an older writer, by the meaning which his expressions bear in his own times, will frequently fall into error and absurdity. When, for instance, he finds in some old English version of Scripture, the Canticle of Canticles entitled the Ballad of Ballads,† he must perceive that the word ballad once bore a very different signification from that which it bears at present. If he lost sight of this reflection, he would charge the author, most unjustly, with a gross impiety, and misinterpret his words. But we need not go so far back to see the variable nature of signification. Many terms common in Shakspeare,

* Ernesti, Institutio Interpretis N. T. ed. Ammon, Leipz. 1809,

p. 26.

+ D'Israeli's "Curiosities of Literature," second series, 2nd. ed. 1824, vol. i. p, 395.

and the writers of his age, have now a totally different, sometimes an opposite meaning to what they have in older writers. To let, for instance, then signified to impede, instead of to permit. Even the writers in Queen Anne's age employed words in a very different sense from what we now attach to them. Thus the term wit has, in their writings, a much nobler and wider signification than with us, as it there signifies genius or abilities. It is evident, that in reading authors of these different ages, we shall not understand them aright, unless we know the exact meaning of their words as then used; in other words, unless, upon reading them, they make the same impression upon us, and convey to us the same idea, as they did to those whom, as contemporaries, they especially addressed.

In languages now dead, the same variations took place, while they were vernacular; and hence, we should misunderstand and misinterpret an ancient author, if we calculated not the chronological vicissitudes of his terms. And, though oriental idioms vary less in this manner than the languages of the west, yet, even in them, this attention must not be neglected. For example, the Hebrew word

(i) in the later period of Hebrew literature, undoubtedly signified an island. Hence, the trans

איים

* In Daniel xi. 18, Antiochus is said to invade and subdue many and we know from history that he so dealt with Samos, Rhodes, and many other islands. In Esther, x. 1, the King of Persia is said to have imposed tribute upon the land, and the islands of the sea, where this word is used.

lators who learnt the language when it was in this stage, as the authors of the Alexandrine and Syriac versions, Symmachus, Theodotion, and Aquila, did not reflect that the word might have changed from its ancient signification; and so translated it by island in the older books, where it has no such meaning, and where such a rendering produces the most glaring absurdities.*

The conclusion therefore is, that it is not sufficient to understand the meaning of words and phrases in general, but that it is necessary to ascertain it precisely for the time when they were written or spoken. This is called by hermeneutists the usus loquendi, which is considered by them the true test of an author's meaning.

3. But this grammatical meaning may have to undergo considerable modifications, in consequence of local or individual circumstances. I. The manners and habits of a nation, the peculiar character of its political or social constitution, the influence of accidental agents, may cause the idea attached to a term to differ greatly from what its corresponding one will represent in our own language. Thus the words which we are obliged to translate by harvest and sowing-time, point out in Hebrew differ

*For instance, (Is. xlii. 15) "the islands shall be converted into rivers." Septuag. Targ. Syr. Gen. x. 5.-The same versions make Greece, Thrace, and Media, to be islands. See the interesting dissertation upon this word in Michaelis's "Spicilegium Geographiæ Hebræorum exteræ. Götting. 1769, pars prima,

p. 136.

ent seasons of the year from what are suggested to us by those words. How complicated is the idea of a bed to a European conception! An ingenious frame-work to support multiplied mattresses and pillows, sheets and blankets, and coverlets to compose, with curtains and hangings to adorn it—such is the image which the word suggests to us. How different from the simple mat or carpet, or at most mattress, spread upon the floor, which the corresponding Hebrew word represented to the Jews! When, therefore, we hear our Saviour say to a sick man, "Arise, take up thy bed,"* we should be much mistaken if we fancied to ourselves the cumbrous piece of furniture which we designate by that name, and might justly consider the order, in that case rather a severe test, even of a miraculously restored health. So, likewise, when we hear the royal prophet protest that he will not ascend his bed,† we may be tempted to imagine something still more magnificent and lofty, in the form of a state couch, instead of the divan or elevated platform at the upper end of an oriental chamber, on which the couch is spread for the night's repose.

II. Besides such local modifications as these, in the signification of words or forms, I said others might arise from personal circumstances. For instance, every teacher has his own peculiar method of conveying instruction, resulting from