ART. VIII. Confirmation of the meaning of the word "Tye." TO THE EDITOR OF CENSURA LITERARIA. "He was a man Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking SHAKSPEARE, HENRY VIII. SIR, The excellent illustration of the word tyed in the above passage, by your correspondent S. may be, in some degree, supported by the following stanza from a poetical tract, mentioned by Mr. Beloe, as holding a place in the Garrick collection, entitled "A Dialogue betweene the Comen Secretary and Jelowsy, touchynnge the Unstablenes of Harlottes." "Jelowsy. "She that can no counsayll kepe, It seems plain from the orthography of the word here used for enticed, that the etymology of the verb to entice, which Dr. Johnson declares to be uncertain, is the same as that of to tie (teogan.) The syllable en is a subsequent arbitrary addition, such as is often used in forming a verb from a substantive without changing its termination, as slave, enslave, rich, enrich, &c.; and indeed many persons, of provincial education, use • Anecdotes of Literature, Vol. I. p. 389. the the word tice for entice to this day. Or, perhaps, Shakspeare actually wrote tyced in the passage in dispute: a single letter is all that the word we have wants, to become so. I have often lamented the present state of public criticism; for although there are many who undertake the office, yet there are too many reasons to be dissatisfied with all of them: it is not sufficient for public instruction to be only just informed what is the opinion of an author, or of the person, who sits in judgment upon him, whether he agrees with or differs from the author criticised; for the public wants further information, wants evidence and reasons why one opinion is preferable to some other; without this a mere combat between opinions tends to no advances in knowledge, but either leaves the public under its former uncertainty, or adds still a greater uncertainty by some new opinion being started without any evidence to support it. In two former Letters I have given examples of both these defects in modern criticism; I shall now take notice of a third defect, which is, that even when some reasons and evidence are produced in support of any opinion, they are generally such as are servilely copied and retailed from former writers, without the force of them them being duly weighed; and often also with some assertions added to them, which either are not true, or if they be true, certainly weaken and sometimes altogether destroy all the force before contained in such reasons and evidence. Of this defect I will, in like manner, notice an example which happens to lie before me: to criticise whole books, or to stem the torrent of false criticism, are Herculean labours; but it may present some useful information to others if we occasionally examine particular subjects and the remarks which have been made public concerning them. Mr. Hurwitz, master of a Jewish academy, near London, has lately, to his great credit, published a book to facilitate the study of the Hebrew language, more particularly among those of his own nation in this he had occasion to mention the antiquity of the present Hebrew letters in which the Jewish scriptures are writ; and is of opinion that they are the most ancient ones ever made use of by the Jews, notwithstanding that other learned Jews, even in the most ancient times, have been of a different opinion, and asserted that the Samaritan and Syrian letters were the original ones, in which their scriptures were writ, and that the present Hebrew letters were first introduced by Ezra. Modern Christians of learning have been equally divided in their opinions, on this subject, as the Jews themselves. Now as to which of these two opinions is entitled to most credit I do not undertake to determine: something rational has been urged on both sides, and it requires a very comprehensive view of the subject to ballance the evidence, so as to pronounce as to which preponderates on the whole. But a late writer, in his account of this book, has adopted the opposite opposite opinion to that of M. Hurwitz, and has also given his reasons for it, which I here transcribe. "The arguments of the author are not original, and he has not stated the opposite arguments in full strength. His reasonings to prove that the present Hebrew letters are of pristine antiquity we must pronounce incompetent: and he will feel our objections at once, when we ask him what he would have thought and said had these letters, and no others, appeared on the public coins of the Maccabees, Simon, &c. who were priests as well as civil rulers, and who most surely cannot be suspected either of defective knowledge or of any inclination in favour of heretics? These priests (he would have said) used the priestly or sacred letters. Let him then give this fact its full force in favour of the Samaritan type." Now here we may first observe, that if Mr. Hurwitz's arguments are not original, so neither is this of his examiner, but a hackneyed one as old as the age of Scaliger, that is, 200 years ago: and if M. Hurwitz has not stated the opposite arguments in their full strength, so neither has his examiner stated even his own argument in full strength; but, on the contrary, has had the same misfortune as has often happened to repeaters of old tales, that is, that it was a good story when he heard it, but he unfortunately spoilt the whole in repeating it: for we shall find that, as I observed before, he has himself added something which is not true; and has also added something, which, if it be true, yet weakens at least, if it does not altogether destroy, all the force of his argument. As a proof of these defects, he says, "that Samaritan, and not Hebrew, letters have appeared on the coins of the Maccabees, Simon, &c. who were priests VOL. VII. priests as well as civil rulers." Here the whole is in the plural number, and readers must necessarily conceive that coins have appeared of several other pricsts, among the Maccabees, beside Simon, for he adds, &c. "But this is not known to be true; no coin has ever been discovered with any other name upon it than Simon; some indeed have been found with no name upon them, but as they have similar types upon them with those having the name of Simon, i. e. some sacred utensil of the Jews, or a legend, in Samaritan letters, applicable only to Simon, such as the liberation of Israel, no person ever before ascribed any of these coins to any other priest among the Maccabees, except Simon only." Thus far he has added what is not true; but he has moreover added in the argument, what if it be true, helps to weaken and destroy it. For Scaliger and others, who at first made use of this argument in favour of the pristine antiquity of the Samaritan and Syrian letters, on account of their being found on coins struck by the Jewish rulers themselves, had no knowledge that the name of Simon was to be found on any of them; nothing more of the legends had been dedeciphered in their time than a Samaritan S on some, and on others an S followed at some distance by an N. Hence they concluded that these were the first letters either of Samuel or of Solomon, and that all the others were coins of some of the Jewish Kings before the seventy years of captivity: now if this had been true, their argument was a good one, that these very ancient coins with Samaritan letters proved the pristine antiquity of the Syrian before the Hebrew letters; and Scaliger even pronounced those to be insane who should think otherwise. "Visuntur hodie Sicili, qui quotidie Ierosolymis effodiuntur, et sub regibus Iuda in usu |