27 



erudition and talents. Fourmontius I have not feen ; but Garofalo's 

 " confiderazioni intorno a la poefia degli Ebrei" &c., was certainly en- 

 titled to more refpeft. The book was printed at Rome in the year 

 1707, and in 1710 Le Clerc takes occafion to pay an high compliment 

 to the author's great learning and ingenuity, (fee BMotlxque choifie. 

 Tom. 20. Art. Livres Hi/lorlqiies, Sec.) Obferving, that Garofalo, Cnce 

 the publication of his book, had declared to feveral of his friends, that 

 he, (Garofalo) when he wrote his " Confiderations," had not read or 

 heard of the "Eflai*,; or known that Le Clerc had fuppofed rhime to 

 be the charafter of the Hebrew poetry, which the Frenchman confiders 

 as a ftrong argument, fupported as he was by fo illuflrious a man, that 

 himfelf had not been miftaken. And on examining Garofalo's volume, 

 it aftually appears, that the learned author had in a number of inftances 

 agitated the queftion of rhime, in the very fame manner that Le Clerc 

 had done before. Another happy argument in favor of the " Eflai," 

 but Garofalo goes one ftep further ; and aflbrts, that not only the two 

 hymns of Mofes, and the fongs of Deborah, and Hannah with the pfalms 

 3» 4, 29, 31, and 33, but that the Threni, the fong of fongs, and the 

 prayers or fongs of Jonah and Habakkuk, are likewife in rhime. And 

 all thefe he fupports with fuperior addrefs and ability. « Vedra pofcia 

 " dichiarata la natura dell' antica Poefia degli Ebrei, la quale non gia 

 " confifte in verfi mifurati, come altri s'ha dato di leggieri a credere, ma 

 benfi in una certa cadenza harmoniofa, efpreffa in riraa." Indeed 

 a friend, whofe great learning is entitled to the higheft refpeft, informs 

 me, that the late erudite rabbi Openheimer of Prague had affured him 

 a part of the third chapter of the Tbreni was compofed in a fmall elegiac 

 ftanza of rLhne, of the Pindaric nature, and irregular, denominated 

 Schlofchih: but whether Openheimer ever publiflied the obfervation, 

 I have not heard. Doftor Lowth, however, fays that the whole of the 

 Threni, excepting the lall chapter, are of the alphabetic order, to which, 

 as we have feen, he denies the rhime. 



What Le Clerc and Garofalo, with their learned affociates, have faid, 

 does not appear to be fliaken by any thing the learned profeflbr has 



(D 2) written I 



