thought him blameable for carrying it to an excess. By the bulls of Pius V. and Clement the VIIIth, they are banished from the papal dominions, except Rome, Ancona, and Avignon. Pope Innocent the XIth, gave them several marks of his favour. The general kindness of the Roman Pontiffs to them is admitted by the Jews themselves. The Jewish writers divide the west into two sovereignties, or rather into the two principal religions that reign in it, namely the Roman Catholic and the Protestant; extolling the kind protec. tion and favour they receive from the former, and complaining the unkind treatment they meet with from the latter. " Popish Rome," says Barrios, " hath always protected them, ever since its general Titus destroyed Jerusalem."

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Of the state of the Jews during the Middle Ages we have curious and interesting accounts by Benjamin of Tudela in Navarre, and Rabbi Pitachah; two learned Jews, who, in the twelfth century, visited the principal cities of the east, where the Jews had synagogues, and returned through Hungary, Germany, Italy, and France. A wish to magnify the importance of their brethren, is discernible in the writings of both; and, for their extreme credulity, both are justly censured. But, after every reasonable deduction is made on these accounts, from the credibility of their narratives, much will remain to interest even an intelligent and cautious reader. At different times, the Jews have been banished from France, from Germany, from Spain, from Bohemia, and from Hungary. We have particular accounts of the miseries of those, who were banished from the last of these kingdoms. They were banished from England in the reign of Edward the Ist, but were permitted to return by Oliver Cromwell. Numbers of them are settled in Persia, in the Turkish empire, in Fez, Morocco, Barbary, in many parts of the East Indies, in some part of Germany, in some of the Italian States, in Poland, in Prussia, and the Hanse towns. Their condition is most flourishing in England and Holland; but Poland is the principal seat of their literature. They have no accurate deduction of their descent or genealogy. They suppose, that, in general, they are of the tribes of Benjamin and Judah, with some among them, of the tribe of Levi; but the Spanish and Portuguese Jews claim this descent, exclusively for themselves, and, in consequence of it, will not by marriage, or otherwise, incorporate with the Jews of other nations. They have separate synagogues; and if a Portuguese Jew should, even in England or Holland, marry a German Jewess, he would immediately be expelled the synagogue, deprived of every civil and ecclesiastical right, and ejected from the body of the nation. They found their pretensions on a supposition, which prevails among them, that, many of the principal families removed, or were sent into Spain, at the time of the captivity of Babylon. See the Reflections Critiques, added to the second letter, in the incomparable collection, intitled, Lettres de quelques Juifs Portugais Allemands et Polonais, à M. de Voltaire. It is certain, that, a large body of Jews is established in China; the best account of them is in Brotier's Tacitus, 3 vol. 567. All Jews feel the dignity of their origin, recollect their former pre-eminence, with conscious elevation of character, and bear, with indignation,

indignation, their present state of degradation and political subserviency. But, they comfort themselves with the hope, that their hour of triumph is at hand, when the long expected Messiah will come, will gather them from the corners of the earth, will settle them in the land of their fathers, and subject all the nations of the earth to his throne.'

The relation, extracted from a work entitled the Phenix, printed in 1707, of a convention of Jews at Ageda, has all the air of a pious romance: some German journalist might inquire into the fact.

The author's account of the chief printed editions of the scriptures has appeared to us better composed than that of the chief manuscripts. To Mill's assiduous collection of various readings, to Bengel's graduated estimate of contending phrases, to Wetstein's conscious force and deep search through all the ramifications of evangelical literature, and to Griesbach's tasteful selection of interesting commentary, appropriate justice is rendered. The Anglo-Saxon Heptateuch published by Thwaites, at Oxford, in 1698, is not enumerated among our native translations of the Bible. The severe abbreviation of its style must no doubt be ascribed to the translator, and the castrations to the editor; who supposes his manuscript to have been of the thirteenth century. The modern partial translations are also passed over by Mr. Butler; not, we hope, because he imputes either lack of learning or lack of courage to the interpreters. The subsisting distribution into chapters and verses is justly censured. It would be instructive to accompany the New Testament with an Apocrypha, containing the gospel of James, the epistle of Clemens, the shepherd of Hermas, and similar early writings.

A pleasant anecdote interwoven in this portion of the discussion deserves to be recollected. Cardinal Albert of Mentz sent to Erasmus, in return for a copy of his Greek Testament, a golden cup, with this commendation: "Ait vocari poculum amoris, ex quo, qui biberint, protinus benevolentiâ mutua conglutinari."-" Utinam, says Erasmus, theologi Lovanienses ex eo mecum potassent." To us also be it allowed to wish, that Christians of every persuasion might from such a cup drink the wine of their communion; -that, ceasing to insist on points which are dwindling into insignificance, they would begin an emulation of benevolence, and a rivalship of utility;-and that, laying aside the provoking nicknames of dissension, they would contentedly glide into one Catholic church, and unite to purify their common faith from an alloying amalgam of Judaism and Platonism.

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REV. OCT. 1798.

MONTHLY

MONTHLY CATALOGUE, For OCTOBER, 1798.

EDUCATION, &c.

Art. 15. Geographia Antique Principia, or The Elements of Ancient Geography. By Richard Perkins, jun. 8vo. Is. 6d. Printed at Glocester. Sold by Johnson, London.

WE either do not accede to or do not understand the position of this author, in the preface, that our knowlege of the elementary parts of science is purely historical; and that therefore the benefits resulting from the acquisition, being of an individual nature, have no influence directly favourable to the interests of general literature.' However, we think that the author's plan is a good one, and that his pamphlet will be useful to those who are reading history, and who may not be provided with a set of maps, that exhibit both the antient and modern names of countries, rivers, &c. It will also be useful even to those who are in possession of D'Anville's maps (common edition, 11. 18.).

Art. 16. An English Key to Xenophon's Memorabilia of Socrates; literally translating the Passages which appear difficult to young Beginners, and explaining their Grammatical Construction. Intended as an Introduction to construing the Greek Classics into English without the Use of Latin. For the Use of Schools. 8vo. pp. 280 5s. bound. Matthews.

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The design of this work is (according to its author) 'to facilitate the acquisition of the Greek language, by freeing it from the indeterminate signification given to many Greek words by a Latin translation, and (as far as the idiom will permit) to give the Greek verba, a fixed sense.' In prosecution of this purpose, the words are rendered immediately from the Greek into the English. The author farther adds that some pains have been taken to shew that when a word has once been used, the signification then given was a general one.' We cannot praise this method. In strict language, a word cannot be said to have a general signification. The proper plan appears to be that which the author has in some instances adopted: -viz. in the first chapter, οι γραψαμένοι Σωκρατεν' (the accusers of Socrates) the original meaning of the word γραφω is to write: but, by alluding to the custom of the accuser's writing down the charge, the accused person's name, and the violated law, &c. it is made to mean, metaphorically, to accuse. If the several significations of words were given according to the above method in our lexicons and dietionaries, young students would sooner acquire more precise notions concerning the nature of language. At present, notwithstanding all that some of our lexicons say to the contrary, to "accuse" is as much a translation of as to write, to "marry," as much a translation of duco as to "lead,"

In regard of the text adopted in this volume, the fifth edition of the Memorabilia, as given by Simpson and published at Oxford, is followed.

AFFAIRS OF IRELAND.

Art. 17. Confiderations on the Situation to which Ireland is reduced by the Government of Lord Camden. The Sixth Edition. To which is added a Copy of the State Paper!!! 8vo. pp. 34. Dublin. 1798.

Though this pamphlet appears to have been written in a spirit which we cannot applaud, because an exterminating severity is not in our opinion consistent either with sound policy or humanity, it would be unjust to deny it the praise of being distinguished by strong traits of literary talent, and some degree of humour. These strictures,the offspring of that party which has been dominant in Ireland for some years, and which has marked its growth by an accumulation of several laws, and measures still more severe than even those laws would justify,-charge the administration of Lord Camden with weakness, because he did not go far enough in blood; and the administration of Lord Cornwallis with folly, because he attempted rather to reconcile than to destroy. It is not, however, the administration of Lord Cornwallis, nor that of his immediate predecessor, only, that this advocate for fire and sword charges with timid caution and weak concession. He traces these evils up to the commencement of the present reign, and attributes all the discontent and outrage which have existed in Ireland within that period, to the mildness with which that country has been governed, and the relaxations of the penal code which at that time excluded its Catholic inhabitants-that is, three-fourths of its population, from almost all the benefits of society. A short but pointed history of our progress,' says he, 'may be read in the preambles to the 3d of Geo. III. c. 19. [the White-boy act] and to the act commonly called the Insurrection Act. By the preambles to those acts, it appears that our first step was irregular riot, and our last systematic rebellion. The space between these extremities is filled up by acts of conciliation, conceded, first to the pitch-fork and the chalking-knife, and latterly to the firelock and the pike.'

Having pronounced this summary judgment on the administration of government in Ireland for the last forty years, he proceeds to consider it with respect to the present rebellion. Of the rebellion itself, he gives the following picture:

It is not a rebellion of ancient affection, glowing even in its ashes. It is not a rebellion of those, whose knowledge having extended their views, shewed them consequences fatal to future liberty, from gradual and present abuses. It is not a rebellion of those, whose extent of property might make them feel in their own persons the particular weight of an oppressive government. But it is a rebellion of the peasant, supported by some presbyterian shopkeepers, and led and corrupted by some popish priests. It is a rebellion of the weaver, having re-set in his loom a new web of the constitution, on a new pattern-of the blacksmith hammering out a new system of govern

ment red-hot from his bellows. But it is not a rebellion of the peasant, detached merely from his allegiance and his ordinary obedience to the laws. It is a rebellion of the peasant detached from every virtue of the heart. It is not an attack upon the particular government of this particular country. It is an attack upon every tie of social life that ever existed in any government in the world. It is a course of do mestic treachery, of cruel murder, and cowardly assassination."

To meet a rebellion thus detestable and wicked, the measures adopted by Lord Camden were, legal prosecution in the first instance, and military operations in the second. These latter the author details in a vein of irony which will probably rather divert the reader, than convince him that Lord Camden was guilty of hesitation and inertness. It is not, however, against the hesitation and the inertness of Lord Camden that the writer principally levels his ridicule and his censure. It is the proclamation of his successor, Lord Cornwallis, offering pardon to the repentant rebels, which has called forth this pamphlet. This proclamation [here reprinted, as a State-paper] was published on the 29th of June; and having stated in the preamble the power of his Majesty's Generals and the forces under their command, entirely to destroy all those who had risen in rebellion, &c. declares it to be the wish of government to receive into peace and pardon all persons then assembled against the peace, who should surrender themselves and their arms, desert their leaders, and take an oath of allegiance, abjuring all engagement contrary thereto, within fourteen days from the date; and to such persons as thus surrender themselves, it promises that certificates of protection shall be granted. It is with this proclamation -a measure which, while it did honour to the feelings of Lord Cornwallis as a man, and evinced his wisdom as a politician, by producing an almost instantaneous effect in restoring peace to the country-it is with this measure that this man of mercy quarrels. He cavils first at the declaration in the preamble, which, he says, putting a dilemma, is either true or false; and true it cannot be, or how could such disturbances have existed (and he enumerates them) subsequently to the time of making that declaration.- Of the protections and the abjuration of treasonable oaths, which the proclamation made one of the conditions of pardon, he writes thus:

• The next remarkable feature in the production alluded to, is the promise of protection which it pledges to the assassins in rebellion assembled. It promises, (upon certain conditions,) that "they will receive a certificate which will entitle them to PROTECTION."

• Whether the certificate in the state paper mentioned, would or would not be a protection from the pains and forfeitures consequent on rebellion, appearing to me to be a question of law, I did not venture to determine it myself, but resorted for advice to a friend of mine, who is a corporal in the Attornies corps. The corporal assured me that, in his opinion, "the aforesaid instrument, called a certificate, was no manner of protection whatsoever; and, that if any rebel should produce a certificate signed by all the general officers on the staff," (of whom the corporal shewed me a list, which, at first, I mistook for the muster-roll of his company,) " such rebel would, notwithstanding such certificate, be liable to be tried for, and convicted

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