15 



ftandard fliall the mofl; able Hebreobgifl: determine that of a filent 

 and unvowelled language, a. body without a foul ?* a loft and uncha- 

 raftered tongue ! for the poetry of a modern rabbi juft as much re- 

 fcmbles that of the facred pen-men, as the Cambridge fiddle of Jofliua 

 Barnes refembles the lyre of Anacreon.f Much praife, however, is due 

 to thofe pious and learned men, both the Jewifli and the Chriftian 

 doftors, who have laboured in the thorny vineyard, and cleared away 

 any part of the brambles that perplexed its poetry. 



On the rhimes, contained in the lafli quotation from Captain Cook, 

 I would offer one or two fhort obfervations. In the fecond couplet 

 we have the word ya repeated as a rhime ; whereas to an occidental 

 ear the combination of the letters prefents but one found, and that the 

 fame. The rhime therefore to us Europeans appears not himoiQteleuti& 

 but homoteleutic. It does not however follow, that the natives, who 

 fpeak the language, do not accent or pronounce the word differently 

 from what we do : and confequently, the laft couplet in which the 

 rhime is not obvious to us, may yet be homoioteleutic. And the fame 

 argument addreffes itfeif to the Hebrew poetry, about whofe cadence 

 and ftruflure we know fo little. This obfervation receives new ftrength 

 from the remarks of Fathers Magaillan and Kircher on the Chinefe 

 language, viz. that the fame word, by a change of tone and afpira- 

 ration fliall fignify from fifteen to twenty different things ; the firft in- 

 ftances the word fo, which he fhews by certain marks has no lefs than 

 eleven various meanings ; and the latter has thefe words, " hasc diftio 

 " monofyllaba ya, ex fe indifferens eft, fed pro diverfitate vocalium qui- 

 " bus defignatur, differentes fignificationes exprimit, uti fequitur. 



Yd 



* " No fingle letter," fays Simeon Ben Jocha'i, in his Zohar, as I find it tranflated, 

 " hath power to fignify one thing more than another, without the points ; and all the 

 " letters without the points, are a ioJy without a foul. With the points, the body ftands." 



f When Barnes publi/hed his Philautic edition of Anacreon, the Cambridge wits 

 faid, that it was not Joftiua Barnes's edition of Anacreon, but Anacreon't edition of 

 Jofliua Barnes. 



