326 



Hypotheses. 



Dr. Moore very properly distinguishes — as do the Hebrew writ- 

 ings — between the Beni-Israel of the ten tribes, and the Yihudim, or 

 Jews of Judah and Benjamin. The book also contains some ju- 

 dicious observations on the foretold restoration to Palestine, as appli- 

 cable not to the whole, but only to a part of the Beni-Israel ; and 

 concerning the tribe of Ephraim as the representatives of those who 

 shall not return, but will probably, some day, renounce their idols. 

 On the other hand, so far as I can see, his notion of finding Israelites 

 among the Saxons in England, turns on an etymological quibble of 

 Sharon Turner, in his History of the Anglo-Saxons : who could find 

 no better derivation of the word Saxons than SaJcai or Sacae-suni. 

 This latter word in Sanscrit means a Son : but Mr. Turner, taking 

 advantage of the Latin plural (Saxoni) turns Sacae-suni into Saxons 

 in the plural number. Dr. Moore adopts this quibbling derivation. 

 On that etymology, and on the mere supposition that when the Sacae, 

 or Scythians, invaded the countries in which the ten tribes were lo- 

 cated, these last joined the Scythians, as making head against com- 

 mon enemies, and that thenceforward both became one common people 

 — rests the grand hypothesis of the book, that the Saxons were 

 Beni Israel. Equally rapid, and unsolid, is an assumption that the 

 Beni Israel, and the B&uddhas are the same people. There is no 

 proof, but merely probability urged ; and, on the said derivation, and 

 the alleged probability depends,let it be repeated, the important con- 

 clusion that the Saxons in England were descendants of the ancient 

 Sacae, mixed up with Israelites of the ten tribes ; and another con- 

 clusion also, that because Buddha bore the name of Sakya (or 

 Sacya-sinha) and that a Sacai-era, is now common in some parts of 

 India — therefore the Bauddhas, or converted followers of Buddha, 

 were of the mingled race of the Scythians, and the Beni-Israel. The 

 whole is intended to joint in with a main discovery in the volume, 

 that the Bauddha, or lafh inscriptions are in the Hebrew language ; 

 though not in the square Chaldee character into which Dr. Moore 

 professes to transliterate the said inscriptions — an operation that 

 may call for a little further attentive examination. 



On the book first coming into my hands I at once turned to page 

 232 for the alphabet. I found this to be, in the main, Mr. J. Prinsep's 

 which in some important letters I know to be wrong ; and the dif- 



