epistles which, for the scholar, give so much interest to the dissertation of M. Heyer, on which the present Article has been founded. The Latin language, it is well known, was in that age, the medium of intercourse between the men of learning of different nations, and was almost as familiar to them as their own vernacular tongue. The following letter bears witness to the continued friendship, which these participants in so many common labors and dangers in the work of Christ cherished towards each other, after the cessation of their personal intercourse.

Eruditionis et pietatis eximiae viro, D. suo colendissimo D.J. Calvino, ecclesiae Genevensis fidelissimo pastori.

Ignosce mihi colendissime praeceptor, si cum multa scribenda nune forent, tam paucis utor: nam sola excusatio tam diuturni silentii, paucis contenta non esset, nec status verum nostrarum narratio laconismum patereter. Quibus (ut par esset) exponendis, neque otium nunc datur, neque negotium sustinet: quemadmodum ab isto, qui haec tibi laturus sit, plenius cognosces. Non me excuso, quod tanto temporis intervallo, nullas prorsus ad te (cum non ego solum sed tota Anglia tantopere debet) literas dedi. Solum hoc abs tua humanitate impetrare contendo, ne ulla beneficiorum istic acceptorum oblivione factum putes, sic enim me ipsum vita hac indignissimum judicarem: neve quod ulla unquam defuerit prompta voluntas huic officio praestando, modo vel internunciorum oportunitas, vel locorum, in quibus ut plurimum versatus fui, commoditas votis respondissent. Res nostrae variae multaeque sunt, de quibus audire (si daretur) non esset prorsus injucundum: sed omnia hujus honestissimi pariterque pii juvenis narrationi refero, ut ab eo, cum visum fuerit et vacaverit audias. Est enim apud vos mansurus doctrinae et verae pietatis adipiscendae gratia: qui et hic spectator et actor tragediae, ut plurimum, interfuit. Quo nemo rei initium, progressum vel finem, quem nunc Dei clementia nacta sit, melius aut verius exponet. Ab eo quoque religionis formam, continuationis spem, ministrorum penuriam, ceteraque impedimenta et hostes cognosces: in quibus evitandis malis, consilium tuum tempestivum ac saluberrimum desideratur: Ne quod divina clementia partum sit, nostra socordia merito amittamus. Quod ad me attinet, est quod Deo gratias ingentes agam, cujus beneficio, bonorum animi in me propensi sunt, nec est, cur aliqua in re conquerer. Tantum in hac ministrorum paucitate expecto, donec omnia (quod religionem) melius disponantur et stabiliantur postea reversus in patriam meam, si Deo videbitur. Nam nunc (ut audio) incipiunt nostri gnatones in Anglia persenticere, quod parum profuit illorum adulatio et invidia: qui ut aliis nocerent, superstitionem, repugnante conscientia, mixerunt, religionem violarent, tandemque in odium bonorum omnium, justo Dei judicio, incurrerunt. Adeo ut nullus

veritatis zelus, nulla pietatis exempla, nulla denique pessimorum hominum supplicia, ullibi compareant. Impietas, superbia, avaritia, luxus, omnes ut plurimum occupant, et passim omnibus in locis grassantur; porro sentiunt quem promoverunt, et in coelos usque extulerunt, faeminae gubernationis fructum. Deus pro sua infinita misericordia, iram suam, quam sumus commeriti et procuramus quotidie, procul a nobis avertat. Whittingamo nostro, cui silentium ob libertatem loquendi impositum fuit, linguam relaxarunt, idque absque ulla conditione, quod nullam voluerit admittere. Cum nostris qui apud vos fuerunt, durius agitur: sed nostrae probationis tempus est, aequum namque videri debet, ut aliquam crucis portionem sustineamus, qui tam longa conscientiarum tranquilitate, nobiscum terque quaterque beatis, in vestra beata civitate Dei, fruebamur: cujus memoria omnem mihi molestiam non levat modo, sed aufert penitus. Frater noster Johannes Knoxoeus, scio ad te scribet, itaque de eo prolixius agere supervacaneum judico. Uxore sua piissima privatus ipse non satis validus corpore, animo tamen robustus, laboribus nunquam caedit. Tempestivus erat illius in Scotiam adventus, et non minus necessaria, nunc praesentia ; cui precor annorum numerum, in patriae suae commodum et ecclesiae progressum augeri. Est etiam alius Johannes Wollocus diligens minister, et strenuus veritatis propugnator. Juvenes praeterea nonnulli bonae spei manum operae admovent. Sed istis commemorandis finem imponam, atque hunc juvenem D. Jacobum Kyrkcaldy, nobili Scotorum genere prognatum, religionis studiosissimum, et optimis moribus praeditum, tuae pietati commendo, simulque obsecro et obtestor, ut illi de hospite bono ac fideli, quocum permaneat, prospicias: sive ex ministris, sive ex praelectoribus, quos, scio, ejus familiaritatis nunquam poenitebit. Nominabam illi Dominum Danionem et Dominum Baesa, inter, caeteros, quibuscum se optime fore non dubito. Sed tuo judicio acquiescet per omnia, et pro omnibus, quae accepturus sit, satisfaciet. Ministros omnes queso ut meo nomine salutes potissimum D. Viretum et Dom. Farellum: Omnibus autem, tibi vero potissimum, totique Senatui vestro, me, quoad vixero debitorem contestor. Deus Opt. M. te tuosque omnes in ecclesiae solatium, quam diutissime conservet

S. Andre, 13 februarii, anno Domini 1561.

E Scotia.

Tui studiosissimus Christophorus GOODMANUS.

ARTICLE II.

SEMITIC COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY.

BY DR. L. TAFEL AND PROF. R. L. TAFEL, WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY, MO.

THE labors of the comparative school of philology have thus far been limited to the Indo-European family of languages. Besides the work of J. E. Renan (Histoire et Système comparé des langues Sémitique), of which the first volume, treating of the history and genius of the Semitic languages, appeared several years ago, no systematic application of this new discipline has been made to these languages. And yet a comparison of the various Semitic idioms sheds as much light upon their respective grammars, as a comparison of the Indo-European or Arian languages elucidates theirs. In the present Article we propose to make a first contribution to Semitic comparative philology, discussing the Semitic Verb and Noun, as developed in the Hebrew grammar of Gesenius and the more recent schoolgrammar of Ewald, the Chaldee grammars of Fürst and Winer, the Syriac of Uhlemann, the Arabic of Caspari, and the Ethiopic of Dillmann. The form in which we treat our subject will be a review of the above-mentioned Hebrew grammars of Gesenius and Ewald, in the light of Semitic comparative philology.

Gesenius and Ewald have been considered, for a long time, as the leading oriental scholars of Europe, and their Hebrew grammars are more extensively used than any other. The former scholar has long been familiar to our orientalists by the translations of his Hebrew grammar and dictionary; and of his life and other works, Prof. Robinson has given a detailed account in an early number of the Bibliotheca Sacra. Prof. Ewald is not so well known; and for this reason, before entering upon a discussion of his grammar, we propose to draw a short comparison between the gram

mars of Gesenius and Ewald, and give our opinion of the latter, both as a man and a scholar.

In the preface to his Hebrew grammar for beginners, which he published upon his return to Göttingen, after a protracted stay in Tübingen in southern Germany, on pages v and vi he exclaims: "How much labor and toil, perfectly useless, has been expended during the last three hundred years, by thousands of students, in either acquiring no knowledge of Hebrew at all, or a mere smattering for the sake of showing off! Is it not time that in this respect, likewise, we in Germany should begin to think about true use?" From this extract we are to infer that before the time of Ewald there were no able text-books for the study of the Hebrew language in Germany; while yet the grammar of Gesenius, which since his death, by the care of the learned Rödiger is kept on a level with the science, fulfils all just claims to a good grammar, and by means of other grammars, too, able Hebrew scholars have been educated. In this wholesale denunciation of a lack of knowledge of the Hebrew among his countrymen, and more especially among the Swabians in southern Germany (because in their schools they had preferred Gesenius's to his own grammar), Ewald does them manifest injustice. For the last three hundred years the Hebrew has been very thoroughly studied in all parts of Germany, and especially in Würtemberg, where great care has been bestowed upon the instruction in Hebrew, both in the theological seminaries or colleges and in the university proper. The reason why the professors in these institutions preferred Gesenius's to Ewald's grammar is, because the former is very simple and intelligible, and arranged in a convenient form; while the schoolgrammar of Prof. Ewald lacks even the convenience of an index, without which no grammar, and especially no school grammar, ought ever to be published.

By his low estimation of the works of others, Prof. Ewald injured his usefulness very much in the university of Tübingen in Würtemberg, to which he received a call after his exile from Göttingen; and by his supercilious manner he VOL. XIX. No. 75.

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prevented his real merits from being duly acknowledged and appreciated. Ewald, as regards the Hebrew, we are told, is an avтodidakтOS; since he, independent of all ódnyia of other Hebrew scholars, has made his own thorough studies of the holy scriptures; and has occasionally compared the Hebrew with the other Semitic idioms and also the IndoEuropean languages which he calls Mediterranean. But by the impetuous flight of his genius, he has sometimes been carried into the realm of arbitrary hypotheses, while the cautious Gesenius has remained more on "terra firma."

Yet the school-grammar of Ewald is by no means void of merit. On page iv of his Preface, he very justly opposes the common method of commencing the study of a language with committing the rules of grammar to memory, of which the students have not the slightest conception. For by this means, he says, the eyes and ears of beginners, since time immemorial, have been frightened off, their ideas confused, and their interest in learning killed." He continues: “the various wants and mental gifts of the scholars must be taken into consideration by a wise teacher; and, according to circumstances, he may either enter into details and institute comparisons with other languages known to the student, or else confine himself to the general matters (die grossen Hauptsachen) on the surface. Nor is it necessary,” he adds, "for the professor to confine himself strictly to the order followed in the text-book, but he may as well commence the study of the details of the language by committing the paradigms to memory." This mode of proceeding reminds us of the course pursued by a German professor of eminence, who, whenever his boys, upon entering his room, brought their new grammars with them, took his penknife and cut out all except the declensions and conjugations, declaring that the rest, viz. the rules of syntax, the boys would have to make up for themselves. And he was not altogether wrong. In olden times, when the boys were not yet furnished with grammars in which the minutest rules of syntax were laid down, and when they had to deduce these rules themselves, there were more thorough masters of