they were in general written without any kind of study, and must have been very imperfect: on which account he has often been heard to say, "I hope none of my friends will ever publish any of the letters I have written to them, after my decease. I never wrote one, in my various and long correspondence, for the public eye; and I am sure that not one of those letters would be fit for that eye unless it passed through my own revisal.

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Many eminent men have had their literary reputation tarnished by this injudicious procedure of their friends. They generally gather every scrap of written paper that bears evidence of the hand of the deceased, and without reflection or discernment give to the public what was of no profit to any except to the bookseller. How much have Pope and Swift suffered from this! and perhaps no man more than the late truly apostolic man, the Rev. J. Fletcher, of Madeley. If ever his tree bore leaves, instead of fruit, it was in his religious correspondence; and these leafy productions, to the great discredit of his good sense, have been published, with a sinful cupidity, over the religious world. From this circumstance, a stranger to his person has said: 'Were I to judge of Mr. Fletcher by his letters, and some other little matters, published by his friends since his death; I must pronounce him a wellmeaning, weak enthusiast. Were I to judge of him by the works published by himself, I must pronounce him the first polemical writer this or any other age has produced a man mighty in the Scriptures, and full of the unction of God.'

:

But to return: Mr. Brackenbury shortly arriving at Southampton, they took a Jersey packet, and landed in St. Aubins' Bay, Oct. 26, 1786; whence they walked to Mr. B.'s house in St. Hellier's, the same evening.

THE NORMAN ISLES.

These islands lie chiefly in St. Malos' Bay, and are named Guernsey, Jersey, Alderney, Sark, Jethou, and Herme :-they are the sole remains of the Gallic possessions appertaining to the British crown. They formerly belonged to Normandy, and came with that duchy to England, at the time of the conquest of this country by William I. The inhabitants use the French language, and though under the British crown, are governed principally by their own ancient laws. But any geographical or political description of islands so well known and so near home, would be superfluous.

As most of the inhabitants of St. Helliers understand English, Mr. C. was at no loss to begin his work; and, after having preached a few times in St. Helliers, it was agreed that he should go to Guernsey, and that Mr. B. should remain for the present in Jersey. This was accordingly done, and having obtained a large warehouse at a place called Les Terres, a little out of the town, he began to preach there in English: for the inhabitants of St. Peters in Guernsey understand English as well as those of St. Helliers in Jersey. He afterwards got some private houses in different parts of the town, where he preached both night and morning, through the principal part of the year.

Being now cut off from all his religious and literary acquaintances; and having little or no travelling, except occasionally going from island to island, he began seriously to enter on the cultivation of his mind. His Greek and Latin had been long comparatively neglected, and his first

care was to take up his grammars, and commence his studies de novo. When he had recommitted to memory the necessary paradigms of the Greek verbs, he then took up the first volume of Grabe's edition of the Septuagint, which was taken from the Codex Alexandrinus, deposited in the British Museum; a MS. in uncial characters, probably of the fourth century, and which formerly belonged to the patriarchal church of Alexandria, and was sent a present from Cyril Lucaris, patriarch of Constantinople, to Charles II., by Sir Thomas Roe, then the British Ambassador at the Porte. When he began this study, he found he had nearly every thing to learn; having almost entirely, through long disuse, forgotten his Greek, though at school he had read a part of the Greek Testament, and most of those works of Lucian, which are usually read in schools.

The reason why he took up the Septuagint, was chiefly to see how it differed from the Hebrew Text, of which he had gained considerable knowledge, by the Hebrew studies already mentioned. After a little severe fagging, he conquered the principal difficulties, and found this study not only pleasing but profitable. In many respects he observed, that the Septuagint cast much light on the Hebrew text; and plainly saw, that without the help of this ancient Version, it would have been nearly impossible to have gained any proper knowledge of the Hebrew Bible; the Hebrew language being all lost, except what remains in the Pentateuch, prophetical writings, and some of the historical books of the Bible. For, the whole of the Old Testament is not in Hebrew, several parts both of Ezra and Daniel being in the Chaldee language, besides one verse in the Prophet Jeremiah, x. 11. The Septuagint version being made in a time in which the Hebrew was vernacular, about 285 years before Christ, and in which the Greek language was well known to the learned among

the Jews;-the translators of this Version, had advantages which we do not now possess; and which can never again be possessed by man; we must have recourse to them for the meaning of a multitude of Hebrew words which we can have in no other way. And as to the outcry against this Version, it appears to be made by those who do not understand the question, and are but slenderly acquainted with the circumstances of the case. The many Readings in this Version which are not now found in the Hebrew text, we should be cautious how we charge as forgeries: the translators most probably followed copies much more correct than those now extant, and which contained those Readings which we now charge on the Septuagint, as arbitrary variations from the Hebrew verity. Indeed several of these very Readings have been confirmed by the collations of Hebrew MSS., made by Dr. Kennicott, at home, and De Rossi, abroad.

He continued these studies till he had read the Septuagint through to the end of the Psalms; generally noting down the most important differences between this Version and the Hebrew text, and entered them in the margin of a 4to. Bible in three vols., which was afterwards unfortunately lost. At this time his stock of books was very small, and having no living teacher, he labored under many disadvantages. But when, in the course of his changing for the alternate supply of the societies in the Islands, he visited the Island of Jersey, he had much assistance from the public library in St. Helliers. This contained a large collection of excellent books, which was bequeathed for the use of the public by the Rev. Philip Falle, one of the ministers of the Island, and its most correct historian. Here, for the first time, he had the use of a Polyglott Bible, that of Bishop Walton. The Prolegomena to the first vol. he carefully studied, and from the

account contained there of the ancient Versions, particularly the Oriental, he soon discovered that some acquaintance with these, especially the Syriac and Chaldee, would be of great use to him in his Biblical researches.

With the history and importance of the Septuagint version, he was pretty well acquainted; and also, with those of the Vulgate. Dean Prideaux's Connections, had given him an accurate view of the Chaldee version, or Targums of Onkelos on the LAW, and Jonathan Ben Uzziel on the PROPHETS. To read the Samaritan Pentateuch, he had only to learn the Samaritan alphabet: the Hebrew text and the Samaritan being exactly the same as to language, though the latter preserves a much fuller account of the different transactions recorded by Moses; writes the words more fully, giving the essential vowels, which in multitudes of places, are supplied in the Hebrew text, only by the Masoretic points; and besides, this Text contains many important variations in the chronology. The Samaritan version, which was made from this, is in the same character, contains the same matter, but is in a different dialect, not to say language. It is Chaldee in its basis, with the admixture of many words, supposed to be of Cuthic origin.

Having met with a copy of Walton's Introductio ad Linguas Orientales, he applied himself closely to the study of the Syriac, as far as it is treated of in that little manual; and translated and wrote out the whole into English, which he afterwards enlarged much from the Schola Syriaca of Professor Leusden. By the time he had finished this work, he found himself capable of consulting any text in the Syriac version; and thus the use of the Polygott became much more extensive to him; and all the time that he could spare from the more immediate duties of his office, he spent in the public library, reading and collating the original Texts in the Polyglott, parti