answered all these objections and reconciled the inconsistencies. which appear in the translation?" Our author, in this passage, steps beyond the limits of verbal criticism, and enters upon a new province. He considers the command given to the Israelites to extirpate the inhabitants of Canaan, as not contained in the original. It seems strange that there should have been such a general agreement on this subject among all the translators of the Old Testament. Some strange fatality must have attended the undertaking; that at all times, and in all places, and by all men, this error should have been committed, and this misrepresentation of the divine character, without any apparent temptation, sent forth into the world. If then the established clergy were to perform the part assigned them by our author, they would still leave the great majority of mankind laboring under the mistake arising from the supposition, that in the places referred to, they were reading the word of God, and not, according to our author, the inventions of men. But if our author is dissatisfied with such things, he will find occasion of perpetual hostility against our authorised version. He ought to require the correction of such passages as the following. "Go ye after him through the city, and smite; let not your eye spare, neither have ye pity. Slay utterly old and young, both maids, and little children, and women." Ezekiel, ix. 5. Our author's objection, let it be observed, is to the character of any being who could issue such an order as that ascribed, in our translation, to the God of the Israelites. Whether he works by angels, or by men, by rational or irrational beings, by animated or inanimate instruments, he still continues the same. How then can our author reconcile himself to the character of the God of nature? I take it for granted from his avowed attachment to the scriptures, that he does not ascribe any thing to chance. I would wish then to know how the God who commands an earthquake to swallow up the inhabitants of a city, without distinction of age, or sex, is to be distinguished from the God, who issues the same order, and assigns the execution of it to human beings? But, in truth, our translation abounds so much in objectionable matter of this kind, that to make the alterations and purgations recommended by our author, would be a work of more labor, than he is himself, perhaps, aware of. And does he seriously propose to measure the proficiency made by the established clergy, in the study of Hebrew, by their discernment of this asserted discrepancy between the original Hebrew, and our authorised version? If this be his sober judgment on the subject, I cannot but say, without any intention

Inconsistencies cannot be reconciled. Our author means, that what he calls, inconsistencies, should be removed (by an amendment,) from the present transJation,

of offending, that there is reason to apprehend he has misspent the twenty years he has employed in the study of Hebrew. The truth is, that this objectionable matter is as certainly to be found in the Hebrew, as it is in the English; and if the existence. of such things furnish the Deists with a fair ground of triumph, we must submit: for without new modelling the original itself, no man can, without false translations, make it speak any language but that which appears to our author so liable to objections. Let him, however, make the trial himself, by producing some specimens of his proposed improvements, and we shall be better able to judge, how far his censures on the clergy are well founded, or otherwise. In the mean time I would beg leave to offer a few remarks on Mr. B's criticism on Job, 31st chap. 15th and 18th verses. I do not know but he may be right in présuming that his observations" may be acceptable both to the learned, and to the unlearned," but to one occupying a kind of middle place between the two extremes, I must say, that they have not proved perfectly satisfactory. Let us first consider the 15th verse:

הלא בבטן עשני עשהו ויכוננו ברחם אחד

It is evident that the passage as it stands in our translation is very good sense, and agrees with the rest of the subject. The only objection Mr. B. makes is," that one question is asked twice.' And to avoid such a repetition, he proposes an alteration, by the adoption of which, the passage will stand thus, " Did not he who formed me within, form him? and did not one fashion us in the womb?" Now, it appears to me, that little more need be said of this alteration, than that such a mode of rendering is unusual, and unnatural; and that, if the objection which it is intended to obviate, be admitted, we should have occasion to revise and correct most of the poetical books of the Old Testament. To refer to all the places, where the same thing is said twice in the same verse, with some slight modification of sense, or change in the phraseology, would be to fill the Journal with quotations. If I may be allowed to offer an opinion, as to the true rendering, it is to be found in the paper published in No. V. signed W. V. It is thus I have been in the habit of translating the passage for myself, with only a slight difference which I take the liberty of proposing, as perhaps more literal than the other. "Did not his maker make me in the belly? yea, he fashioned us in one womb," or " did he not even fashion us in one womb?" not identically the same, but sufficiently so for the argument. The first clause of the verse intimates their being the work of one creator; and the second their belonging to the same race of beings; their being both men. All this seems natural, but I doubt whether we have any right to suppose that Job was attending to such nice distinctions as those implied in the alteration recommended by Mr. B.

The 18th v. is confessedly, as it stands in the Hebrew, a difficult one but I confess I cannot approve of the translation proposed either by Mr. B. or by your correspondent W. V. Perhaps it may answer a good purpose, if we examine it, as it stands in the original, and as it is rendered in the ancient versions. Hebrew.

כי מנעורי גדלני כאב ומבטן אמי אנחה

Septuagint.

ὅτι ἐκ νεοτῆτός μου ἐξέτρεφον ὡς πατὴρ, καὶ ἐκ γάστρος μητρός μου

ωδήγησα.
Syriac.

Vulgate.

Quia ab infantiâ meâ crevit mecum miseratio, et de utero matris meæ egressa est mecum.

Not one of these versions gives the same sense as another, that of the vulgate appears more natural than the translation suggested by your correspondent W. V. as derived from the Syriac, but I should think we ought to look for the original state of the Hebrew text, rather to the Septuagint, than to any other version; as having been made at a period so much nearer to the time when the Hebrew itself was written. By consulting that version, I am inclined to think that the original text stood thus, at the time the Septuagint was composed.

כי מנעורי גדלתי כאב ומבטן אמי אנחה

The only changes here supposed are, the introduction of in the place of in the third word; and the omission of in the last. If this should be objected to as too great a liberty, I can only say, that every one who has undertaken to amend the translation, has ventured to alter, at least, one word, and that, without such good authority as is here produced. The sense will then be : For from my youth, I have brought him up, as a father, and from the womb of my mother I have led him." Job means, I apprehend, to affirm in strong language his early regard to the wants of the destitute.

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To the translation proposed by your correspondent W. V. there appears an objection arising from the circumstance of Job's prosperity; which appears not to have been interrupted, till the period at which the book called by his name informs us at once of his existence and of his downfall.

With respect to the translation proposed by Mr. B. unless the word be altered, it seems to me quite inadmissible, for the word in question is surely not the first person singular passive of

.נחה the verb

The sense given by the vulgate is a good one; but I much

1

On the Pronunciation of Latin Words.

91

doubt if N, considered as one word, can bear the meaning attributed to it, in that version.

Upon the whole, I am led to believe, that the verse in question stood as I have endeavoured to correct it from the Septuagint; but, whether in this conjecture I am right or wrong, every reader must judge for himself.

Dublin, Dec. 17. 1811.

T. Y.

ON THE PRONUNCIATION OF LATIN WORDS.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE CLASSICAL JOURNAL.

SIR, I HAVE long wished to communicate with you on the subject of pronunciation, and should be glad if any of your readers would throw some light upon it. I allude more especially to the manner of pronouncing the antepenultima of certain words in the Latin language. Scholars are much divided on the question: and though a uniformity in this particular may perhaps be reckoned among the minor desiderata of literature, still it is confessedly desirable, and it is so (if for no better reason) to prevent invidious sneers and absurd altercations. The syllables, on which I desire information, are those which prosodians call long by authority, for on the pronunciation of the short antepenultima the agreement seems to be more general. I believe the greater number of scholars pronounce most of these syllables, whether long or short by authority, as if they were long by position, as it is called. For instance, no distinction is made in pronunciation between the words nomine and homine, both of them being more commonly spoken as if they were written, nommine, hommine. Again, other words that have this syllable short, are pronounced as if it were long, as imperium, deterior, &c. Though this does not obtain universally in the case of similar words, as deterere, &c. as if it were intended to show that the whole system of pronunciation is merely a matter of caprice, whether founded in ignorance or wisdom, I will not pretend to say. On this plan, the only discoverable consistency is, that the pronunciation of words is entirely independent of their quantity: and for such a determination perhaps some reasons will be adduced. It is said, first, that you do not at all change the quantity of the syllable, whether you call it nomine or nommine, it being in reality long in both cases, the quantity depending solely upon the time of utterance. To this it may be replied, why should you desire to pronounce a syllable, when long by authority, as if it were long by position? and though it is pos

a

sible to dwell as long upon the syllable in either case, the time is not conveniently or distinctly marked by a collision of the same two letters, as it is by the open pronunciation of a long vowel, e. g. the idea of length in the first syllable is not so striking from the sound nom-mine, as nō-mine; and for this reason the former pronunciation is better adapted to short syllables. This, I apprehend, holds particularly in the reading of poetry: let us take the line "oderunt peccare mali formidine pœnæ," where the sound formi-dine is surely much fuller and longer than that of formiddine. And further, why we should say in the nominative formi-do, and in the ablative formiddine, I cannot tell. But secondly, it is objected that in case of short penultimas a similar pronunciation is not retained when the word is increased: e. g. we say bō-nus, bonnitas; gracilis (not gracillis) gracillibus. To this it might be fairly answered, that our being unable to make a proper distinction, or to preserve a consistency in all cases can afford no reason for our refusing to do so, when it is in our power. Since the accent is commonly laid upon the antepenultima, that very circumstance obliges us to make the pronunciation of the syllable longer than it otherwise would be; and though such words as gracilibus are certainly pronounced as if there were two concurring consonants in the middle, still that pronunciation is more rapid and short than any other would be, the accent remaining the same. man were a stranger to the custom of pronunciation, I have no doubt that the word subtilitas would convey to him the notion of a longer antepenultima than subtillitas would. Again, it is urged that in dissyllables no distinction is made; homo and nomen being spoken as if the quantity of each penultima were the same: why then should we require a distinction in other cases? To this a reply might be made as before, that if it is not easy to distinguish in every instance, there is no reason why we should not, when it is practicable. But with regard to these words of two syllables, of which the first is short by authority, the common pronunciation might be altered in two ways: first, by retaining the usual sound, but dwelling upon it only half the time: I could illustrate this by the use of musical terms: if our dwelling upon the first syllable of nomen be marked by a crotchet, the first of homo might be sounded as a quaver; the same open sound of the vowel being retained in both cases. But secondly, uniformity would be better consulted by our pronouncing the first syllables of such words just as we should if there were three syllables; and this, perhaps, would do more towards establishing a general and consistent rule for pronunciation than any other means whatever. Upon this plan then the words homo, bonus, would be pronounced hommo, bonnus, thus being made to agree with the sound of the first syllable of