Sect. I.] Hebrew Lilcralurc, O-if) 



Capellus seems to have been the first who made a 

 successful attempt to divest Hebrew grauunar of 

 its superfluous precepts, and perplexing append- 

 ages. Since his time the system of siniphfic:ition 

 has been carried still further .by IMascIef, and 

 many others, both the advocates and opposcrs of 

 the points. 



At an early period of tlie century professor 

 Dantz, of Germany, published a Hebrtw and 

 Chaldaic grammar, in which he almost entiirly 

 departed from the methods before in use. Instead 

 of perplexing the learner with numberless 7mNuli(r^ 

 Avhich are apt at the beginning to disgust and dis- 

 courage, he presented the elements of the lan- 

 guage in a simple, easy, and attractive form. 

 The Dantzian method soon became general, was 

 adopted as the ground work hi innumerable sub- 

 sequent grammars, and is yet the prevailing one 

 in the schools and universities of Germany. Tlie 

 Hebrew grammars produced in Great Britain and 

 Ireland, during the last age, were numerous, and 

 a ^t\v of them highly valuable. Out of a long list 

 which might be made, those of Parkhurst, Robert- 

 son, Gray, Wilson, Bayly, and Fitzgerald, arc 

 entitled to particular distinction *. 



In the eighteenth century, for the first time, 



* In the formation of some of these grammars the Voint,s aud 

 Accents are employed j in others they are rejected ; while, in a 

 third class, a middle course is pursued between a total rejection 

 jmd an unlimited admission of them. The Inst is particularly tlic 

 case with the grammar of Dr. Fitzgerald, professor of Hebrew iu 

 the university of Dublin, published in i;c}<). He retains the 

 vowel points, and such of the accents as are most distingui:,hable 

 and useful. All tlie other accents, of which the number is cou- 

 siderable, he has discarded. 



