i8 



to be feen, that neither the (harpfighted Lowth, nor the acute Calmet, nor 

 the profound Pfalmanaazar, nor the judicious Bedford, with other diftin- 

 guiflied Hebrew fcholars, (hould be able to perceive them. One would 

 fuppofe that fomething divine indeed and (acred, had been lodged in the 

 tongue, whofe myfleries may not be unlocked ; that like the tables of tef- 

 timony, it had literally been written " with the finger of God." (Exod. c. 

 31.) or as Fleury, in his Maurs des IfraeUtes has fublimely expreffed it, 

 that the Hebrew poetry was the languarge of fpirits, who (land not in 

 need of words to communicate their ideas. (Chap. 20.) 



When I obferved that the rabbles had learned their rhimes of the Ara- 

 bians, it was in purfuance with the words of Dr. Lowth, cited above : but 

 while Le Clerk, from whom the doflor borrowed the obfervation, has af- 

 cribed them alfo to the fame fource, Vitringa has proved beyond, all 

 contradiftion, that the Arabians originally fpoke the Hebrew ; and thus, 

 inftead of referring the rabbinical rhimes to the Arabian poetry, they 

 might, with as little difficulty, have been traced to another fountain. The 

 Arabian, fays Vitringa, is but a dialeft of the Hebrew ; " Dialeftum 

 " Arabicum adeo turn temporis (fcil. Jobi) non diftulifle a Ebrea." 

 (F/Vr. ohf. sacr.) and Lowth himfelf has faid, in exprefs terms, " omnes 

 " Abraham! pofteros, Ifraelitas, Idumseos, Arabas, tum Ketura?os, turn 

 " Iflimaelitas, communi lingua diu ufos fuiffe veri efl; fimiJlimura." 

 (Prael. 32.") But the Doftor's argument, that, becaufe the rabbinical 

 rhimes are, as he tells us, borrowed from the Arabians, rhime, there- 

 fore, cannot enter the facred text, (for if his words have not that mean- 

 ing, they have no meaning at all) is to me no more conclufive, than 

 if the fame argument had been employed to prove that thefe rhimes 

 had arifen out of the o^ollJTt^itTa of the fecond pfalm. The one, in my 

 humble opinion, is juft as conclufive as the other. When the rabbles 

 began to write verfe, they might find, without recurring to the Ara- 

 "bian poets, or the Hebrew bards, or even the chriftian monks them- 



felvcsj 



