already been effected is a prodigious effort, whole cabinets have been packed together without more knowledge of their contents than that they belonged to a certain office of the Old Republic, and are supposed to relate to a certain portion of its functionsthat the explorer should be able to discover in these dark unfathomed caves' each pearl of history, just at the moment when he needs it for his string, is of course impossible. And such interruptions of the chronological order as may hereafter occur must be remedied by a general index.

We confidently predict that the present volume will be found not less interesting by the general reader than by the student of history, and will be considered a complete justification of the judgment of those patrons and friends of literature who recommended the Government to turn its attention to the materials which are to be found in the collections of Venice.

ART. IV.-A Dictionary of the Bible, comprising its Antiquities, Biography, Geography, and Natural History. Edited by William Smith, LL.D. In 3 vols., pp. 4046. With two Appendices, pp. cxvi. London, 1863.

DR. WILLIAM SMITH'S name is familiar to every scholar.

His works on Greek and Roman Antiquities, Mythology, Biography, and Geography are models of original research and successful compilation. It is true that in these works he entered on no new and untried field, but found ample materials ready to his hand in the labours of our own, and still more in those of the great German scholars. We can well remember, too, as a thing of yesterday, how the secrets of the Hieroglyphics were at last unsealed; how the Monuments spoke with articulate voice, and told of the glory and the victories of the ancient Pharaohs, until the great Ramessida were almost as well known to us as our earlier kings; and how the palaces and the achievements of Tiglath-Pileser, and Sargon, and Sennacherib, and Esarhaddon, and the mighty conqueror Nebuchadnezzar, rose from under the earth, and their ancestral halls and historical sculptures were once more laid open to the light of day.

It is not only in science and mechanics that this age has made such giant progress. The names of the Rawlinsons and Layard and Oppert, of Young, Champollion, Wilkinson, Lepsius, Bunsen, Rosellini, De Rongé, Brugsch, Birch, Hincks, and Mariette, would have conferred distinction on any age; and though much remains in doubt or in darkness, there is still hope for the yet unsettled dynasties of Egypt; and materials are already accumu

lated

lated in the British Museum sufficient to reconstruct the history and the social life of Assyria, with a precision which is not to be obtained for our own annals, even of a thousand years ago. Now, a work like Rawlinson's Herodotus,' or, still more completely, one of Dr. Smith's great dictionaries, tells the scholar, without a costly and toilsome hunt into the Journals, Periodicals, and Transactions of the day-German, French, Italian, and English-all that has been done with solid and certain results; all that is merely speculative and uncertain; and all that remains still for him and his brotherhood to do.

It will be seen at once what fresh and lifelike interest is thus imparted to Biblical researches. The very cream and flower of the startling discoveries in Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia, consist in their connection with the narratives of the Bible. But though we read with eager and legitimate curiosity all that can yet be known of the Exodus; of the synchronisms of Shishak and Rehoboam; of Asa and Zerah; of Merodach Baladan and of Hezekiah, and the tribute exacted from him by Sennacherib, recorded alike in the annals of Judah and Assyria; and of that final grouping which ushered in the first destruction of Jeru salem, when the last name of note on the long roll of Egypt's dynasties, the powerful and ambitious Necho,-and the young and saintly Josiah, who seemed destined to revive the glories of the house of David,-and the giant Eidolon of Nebuchadnezzar,-pass across the scene; yet these and many other passages of the sacred story, that stir the soul to its depths, fade into insignificance in the presence of questions of graver and higher moment, on which depend our faith, our comfort and consolation on earth, our hopes for eternity. It was a grave responsibility that Dr. Smith assumed when he undertook to edit a Dictionary of the Bible. 'It is intended,' according to his own definition in the Preface, 'to elucidate the antiquities, biography, geography, and natural history of the Old Testament, New Testament, and Apocrypha; but not to explain systems of theology, or discuss points of controversial divinity.' This determination however, in itself most judicious and advisable, opens no via media of escape from the many grave and embarrassing discussions which rise up on every side; from difficulties on vital points for which no satisfactory solution can yet be found; or from a criticism, destructive in spirit and tendency, though often courteous, sentimental, and even appreciative in tone, which assails the inspiration of the Scripture, denies its leading facts, gives the books of Moses and the Prophets to men of comparatively modern times, for whom it can neither find a name nor a date, and, rejecting absolutely the supernatural, rejects with it the divinity, incarnation and resurrection of Christ.

It

It was, therefore, not without misgiving that we turned to Dr. Smith's great Dictionary, for it seemed as if he had willingly subjected himself to the ordeal of walking with bare feet over burning ploughshares.

Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible' had long become antiquated; and Winer's 'Biblisches Real-wörterbuch,' first published in 1827, though bristling with facts and references, was at once so dull and so bitterly hostile to the Bible, that it was fitter for a beacon than a guide, and could be only offensive to the English mind. Nearly thirty years later the first edition of Dr. Kitto's Dictionary appeared. This was a great improvement on its predecessors, and contained many original and valuable articles. from the latest sources, by English and foreign divines; but, singularly enough, the only names of note selected from the Church of England, were those of Baden Powell and Francis Newman. It is now appearing in a new form, under the editorship of Dr. Alexander; but as it is yet only half finished, we must reserve our criticism of it for a future occasion.

To write the great work which should be the Compendium of Biblical literature and Biblical research was above even Dr. Smith's encyclopædic attainments-was a work beyond the compass of any individual mind. Should he then put himself into the hands of any particular school, and thus, not without a fair substratum of learning, win for himself the credit of orthodoxy, popularity, and safety? Dr. Smith was too honest and conscientious a man to lend himself to such questionable policy. There were questions needing a large, bold, fearless handling, which could neither be understood, nor fairly dealt with from the point of view of any party; and he adopted, in our opinion, a far more excellent way. Undoubtedly, the public mind is roused; grave questions are before it, which cannot be settled by ecclesiastical authority; and there is no other way but to look every difficulty boldly in the face, meet all opponents, inquirers, rationalists or scoffers, on their own ground and with their own weapons, and once more vindicate God's ways to man, and the faith delivered to the saints.

Now this is what Dr. Smith has done. He has gathered under his banner a phalanx of nearly seventy men, the élite of the Anglican Church for ability, learning, judgment, and research (not a few of European reputation), with a handful of laymen not less distinguished, including Layard and Fergusson, the two Pooles, Deutsch of the British Museum, Grove, Twisleton, Hooker, Oppert, Tregelles, and Aldis Wright. With such names inscribed on the roll, along with the Archbishop of York, Bishops Ellicott, Harold Browne, Cotton, and Fitzgerald, Deans Stanley

and

and Alford, Canons Cook and Blakesley, Lord Arthur Hervey, Howson, Perowne, Rawlinson, Westcott, Plumptre, and many other learned and able men, Dr. Smith's Dictionary could not fail to take a very high place in English literature-in its own department the very highest; for no similar work in our own or in any other language is for a moment to be compared with it. It has already a world-wide reputation; and with the improvements, corrections, and alterations, which the progress of knowledge, and Dr. Smith's well-known editorial tact, watchful revision and tried skill are sure to introduce into future editions, the Christian and the scholar have here a treasure-house, on every subject connected with the Bible, full to overflowing, and minute even to the tithing of mint and cummin. The names we have mentioned will have prepared the reader to look for very considerable diversity of view and opinion, in addition to the usual inequalities of execution. One school is bitterly offended by the exclusion of Williams and Colenso, and certain of the more sceptical German writers; and accuses the unfortunate editor of trimming, cowardice, and the absence of any higher motive than the mere sordid love of gain-a striking example, surely, of the odium theologicum. Another would

weed out carefully the tares from among the corn, and leave, we fear, but a sorry residuum. And yet, though our sympathies are with the more orthodox party, we do miss the names of some men, who, in spite of what we believe to be errors, would have given us noble articles on topics committed in the Dictionary to inferior workmen.

Among so great a diversity of writers, and consequently of opinions, we have been struck by two characteristics common to almost all of them, and which reflect credit upon the judgment displayed by the editor in the selection of his contributors. The first is the clear and readable style in which the writers present the results of their laborious researches. This is no small merit in the present day, when so many writers belonging to what is affectedly called the school of the higher criticism' deluge us with neologisms in words as well as in doctrine, and employ a hybrid style which has not the merit of being either German or English. The second point common to most of the contributors is a certain moderation in the expression of these opinions, which has always characterised the best portion of the Anglican Church. It is true that there are some exceptions. Canon Cook is one of the offenders he is, to say the least, guilty of bad taste in describing so eminent a scholar as Ewald as 'remarkable for contempt of all who believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures' (vol. i. p. 1100). A still greater offender, though of an opposite school,

is

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is Dean Stanley, who travels out of his way to claim the dying speech of the protomartyr Stephen as a protest against a rigid view of the mechanical exactness of the inspired records of the Old Testament'! (vol. iii. p. 1378). Dr. Tregelles likewise in two instances employs the Dictionary' as the medium of an attack upon scholars with whom he has had previous controversies (vol. iii. pp. 1624, 1632). We are willing to make every allowance for the editor, in consideration of the difficulties with which he has had to contend in dealing with so many different writers; but we still think that he would have exercised a sounder discretion in drawing his pen through all such passages as are here alluded to, as they add nothing to the information or arguments of the articles, and are only calculated to irritate and give unnecessary offence to numerous readers.

But all honour to Dr. Smith for what he has done. He has evaded no difficulty, shrunk from no vexed question. With a courage and sagacity worthy of all praise, he gives full scope to his contributors to discuss fearlessly the deluge of Noah, the antiquity of Man, the Elohistic and Jehovistic elements in the Pentateuch, the claims of Moses to be its author, the so-called 'two' prophetic writers in Isaiah, the true date of Daniel, the origines of the synoptic Gospels, John as the author of the Gospel and Revelation, and a host of other questions decided against the Bible by the higher criticism;'-but, for all that, questions still sub judice, and with preponderating evidence on the other side, in the opinion of our most profound, sober, and thorough scholars, who know, but reject, the scepticism of the neological and German critics. Not even party spirit can deny that these writers are conversant with all the more eminent German scholars and divines, and have made constant and judicious reference to their best and latest writings. It is therefore now proved that a great Encyclopædical Dictionary can be written, embracing without reserve every topic connected with the exoteric aspect of the Bible; embodying differences and even divergences of opinion on matters of great importance; full, wherever certainty can be attained; at all times scholarlike and accurate, and with a novelty, originality, and freshness never meeting before in the same book. Nor is this all. In spite of difficulties which seemed all but insuperable, and with a congeries of sixty-eight writers, bound by no tie and fettered by no other restraints than those of learning and good sense, Dr. Smith's work may be read not only without injury, but with profit and delight, by every commonly educated Christian. It is not, and it could not be a faultless monster. There are many articles which disappoint; many which we

dissent