dence can be placed on a critic, who, as far as the documents before us may be relied upon, does not appear ever to have read one book of authority in either the Arabic, Persic, or Turkish languages. Again, if this reading actually occurs, is it not an erroneous one, which may have originated from some ignorant transcriber, an error common to all Oriental MSS? Until the Doctor shall have answered these questions, and shewn that wö

kuds Mobárika, is applied by good Mohammedan writers to Mecca, which, I affirm, he cannot do, the remark under consideration must be treated as the mere monster of a heated imagination; no less unworthy of the cause he has taken in hand, than it is of the feelings by which he has professed himself to have been actuated.

One remark more on this head and we have done. It must have appeared from what has been said, that of the instances here adduced, not one merits the character of Mistranslation, the title with which this division of our appeal set out. The utmost that can be said is, that other words might have been substituted for them, of the propriety of which a difference of opinion might, after all, exist: in the text as it now stands, neither the sense nor spirit of the original is injured, nor is any principle of criticism violated, if we except that of Dr. Henderson, which he calls sacred taste.

CHAP. III.

on dr. HENDERSON'S SECOND CLASS OF ERRONEOUS TRANSLATIONS, CONTAINING USELESS SYNONYMES, &c.

WE E now come to the second division, (p. 28), on "The useless employment of synonymes where one word would sufficiently express the force of the original." We may remark, that, as no proof is hereafter offered, all this takes for granted the thing to be proved, and is a mere petitio principi. Let us now consider a few of the specimens which have been adduced, "Aikatoσvvn" says he, is 66 Δικαιοσύνη” rendered, Matt. v. 6, 10, by sg. Matt. v.

مسجد وحمد 25 .glorify and praise. xi مجد وثنا 16

and Rom. iv. 20, the same." The reader will naturally suppose, from the manner in which this statement is made, that the word dikatoσvŋ has, in all these passages, been thus variously translated: but no, Dr. Henderson never meant this, however natural such supposition might be; he only meant, that this word Skaloσvvŋ might have been translated by one word instead of two, in the passage first cited; and, in the others, that any one of the words adduced would have sufficiently expressed the sense of the original, and nothing more. On these expressions, viz., which he translates by righteousness and piety, it will be necessary to

offer some remarks, as they have been taken up again in pages 31, 32, and 33, and there said to convey very erroneous notions on certain points in divinity. As the Doctor has attached considerable importance to these words by placing them under three heads of his Appeal, it will be proper in the first place to ascertain, from authority that can be relied upon, what their real import is. In the Soorah, a Dictionary of great authority among the Mohammedans, we have the following explanation of the first of these words:

يقال

بر بالكسر فرمان برداري کردن مادر و پدر را خالقه ويتبرره اي يطيعه وبر .. وفلان يبر بزرث والدي (that is, Bir, (written فلان في يمينه أي صدق

,

with the vowel , means obedience to parents : (and as a verb), Barirto wálidi, I have obeyed my parent. Such an one Yabirro, or Yatabarriro obeys his Creator: also, such an one Barra is faithful in his oath: that is, speaks truly. The

&c. Burr, or Barr, the participle of which is Mabroor, (means) both truth, and obedience, and 'is the same with, justification: also truth in making an oath. Golius, sub voce, has "Bene fecit pium et morigerum se gessit erga parentes, etiam erga Deum. Verax et justus fuit in jurejurando, datumque præstitit, justum verumque fuit ipsum jusjurandum. And, under the second

conjugation, Vocavit seu declaravit justum, justificavit, Matt. xii. 27, &c. There can be no objection, therefore, to this word, as applied in Matt. v. 6, and 10. The other word, viz. takwa, is, according to the Soorah, equivalent to, which is interpreted by the Boorhani Kátia, a Persian Dictionary of the highest authority, as signifying, caution, the abstaining from any thing illicit or injurious, and in the language

-withdraw اجتناب از ما سوي الله ,of the Soofees

ing from every thing but (the service of) God. The import of both words is, therefore, very nearly the same. Now, every one, who has made any progress in the Oriental languages, very well knows, that words are frequently reduplicated for the sole purpose of giving emphasis to the thing related; that others having precisely, or nearly the same import, are added for the same reason: that whenever letters are doubled or repeated in

,

اسم المبالغة any word, such word is then termed

a noun of excess examples of all of which are found in great numbers in the Hebrew Bible.*

* On this question the authority of Glassius will perhaps be allowed to be sufficient. In his Phil. Sac. Vol. I. p. 641. Ed. Dathe, we have, "Pleonasmus seu abundantia verborum aut sententiarum ita dicitur, non quod otiosa sint aut inutilia, quæ repetuntur vel abundant..... Hoc vero videtur tantum in ea lingua, in quam verba Hebræa verti debent, quod hæc pleonasmos lingua Hebræa ignorat. Quid vero? num propterea lingua ipsa reprehendenda, contemnenda est? num ista ad

contemtum

The addition of the words

takwa, therefore, in this instance, as well as of the words, thaná,

,Kasdroat قساوت Goojsia کوجس ,hamd حمد and

Mustahakk, házir, &c. have no other effect in all the passages adduced, than that of giving emphasis to the expressions in which they have been found. Dr. Henderson says, in a note at the foot of the page, that this "is what the Greeks of Constantinople call coffee-house Turkish, and is perfectly incompatible with the dignity of the Holy Scriptures." Whatever we may think of the Greeks of Constantinople, I have no idea that their authority can be appealed to in questions of this kind: and, if the style itself is incompatible with the dignity of the Holy Scriptures, how does it come to pass, that the Hebrew Bible abounds with it? That the best books to be found in the East, whether written in the Arabic, Persian, or Turkish languages, are all composed in this style, is a fact of which, I believe, no one, if we except Dr. Henderson, has ever entertained a doubt: a proof that the sacred taste of the Orientals differs very widely from that of the Doctor. But, as no religious truth has been injured, in these cases, we may dismiss Class the second without any further ceremony.

contemtum scriptorum sacrorum atque adeo verbi divini trahenda? Atqui nemo nisi insignem linguarum inscitiam prodere velit, ita judicabit.