urge in my own defence, that, on very obscure and difficult subjects, it has always appeared to me sufficient to propose a probable explication: nor can I esteem that to be correction, which only substitutes one conjecture for another. In other respects this Edition has received considerable improvements. In the first place, I am greatly indebted to the friendly communications of the learned Dr. Kennicott, for the variations of the different copies in several passages of the Old Testament which I have quoted. I have distinguished his notes by inverted commas, and by the letter K. subjoined. The Manuscripts are numbered according to the Catalogue annexed to that learned author's Dissertation on the Hebrew Text'. I have, more In the third Edition, the Manuscript Copies are not cited according to these numbers, which are necessarily changed in the Bible published by Dr. K.; but it is only mentioned in how many Manuscripts the different reading Some different readings also are cited at large. occurs. over, added some observations of the learned Dr. Hunt, Professor of the Hebrew and Arabic languages, which he kindly communicated at my request. These, also, I have distinguished by inverted commas, and the letter H. subjoined. After this Edition was committed to the press, I was favoured with a sight of the Gottingen Edition, published under the inspection of the learned and ingenious Professor of Philosophy in that University, John David Michaelis, and greatly improved and illustrated by him. To this were added his notes and additions, in which he has, with great candour, supplied my defects, and corrected my errors. These, with the preface entire, and with a few additions to the notes, communicated to me by the author (who would have added more, but that he was prevented by the increasing business of the University), I have printed in a separate volume, lest my readers should be deprived of these very learned and excellent illustrations: and I chose to do it in a separate state, that the purchasers of the first Edition might partake equally of the benefit. Whatever some of these notes may contain repugnant to my own sentiments, I have thought it better to submit them in this form to the judgment of the reader, than, by retracing my former ground, to divert his attention into a controversy, unpleasant, and probably fruitless. CONTENTS TO THE FIRST VOLUME. sure; instruction being the end, and pleasure the mean— Illustrated by examples from the different species of poetry -The Didactic - The Epic Tragedy Lyric― the lighter kinds of poetry, which are calculated as well for the amusement of our leisure as for the ornament and The dignity of the subject, and its suitableness to the de- sign of the institution-That poetry which proceeds from divine inspiration is not beyond the province of criticism-Criticism will enable us to account for the origin of the art, as well as to form a just eștimation of its dignity; that the opinion of the divine origin of be avoided―The general distribution of the subject into The necessity of inquiring into the nature of the Hebrew verse-The Hebrew poetry proved to be metrical from the alphabetical poems, and from the equality and correspondence of the sentiments; also from the poetical diction-Some of the most obvious properties of the verse-The rhythm and mode of scanning totally lost; proved from facts-The poetical conformation of the sentences-The Greek and Latin poetry materially different from the Hebrew from the very nature of the languages-Hence a peculiar property in the prose ver- |