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maid is preferved at length: a little ironical archnefs is, however, too confpicuous; and the ancient virgin will, probably, look at it with no little diftruft, refpecting the intentions of the author.

The lat volume concludes with a dream, and a fermon. The author fuppofes that he is appointed paftor to a fecluded fociety of the fifterhood. He rejoices in the lot, and introduces the fermon, which, in his fleeping ftate, he delivered to this venerable audience. But,

It is not Homer nods, but we that dream.

We may, indeed, alledge, that few waking difcourfes are more ftrong, animated, and pathetic. This fermon will not fail, if compared with the moft forcible and excellent, with the most tender and affecting scenes which the pen of Sterne ever traced. The text relates to Jephtha's daughter, who went with her companions, and bewailed her virginity." We shall felect the following paffage, which is, in our opinion, highly interefting and pathetic."

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Shall we fay to this folitary virgin, bewail not your condition; for, if you are a good Chriftian, you should be happy?" no! we will not addrefs her thus; and thame on those ill-inftructed minifters of Chrift, who infult the wretched with fuch abrupt and unfeeling admonition! it is our duty to penetrate, with infinuating tenderness, into the painful receffes of a fuffering fpirit. Let us gently fearch into the natural train of thought, which depreffes the unfortunate virgin, and purfue that line of confolation, which the prefent turn of her own wind may effectually fuggeft!- By what is the depreffed? by the contrast, which memory prefents to her, between the gay feftivity of her early days, and the neglect and folitude to which the is now reduced; by the comparifon, which imagination fuggefis to her, between her own defolate condition, and the different defliny of thofe female companions of her youth, who were fo fortunate as to marry. Let us follow this clue, and it may enable us to lead the dejected fufferer from the labyrinth of perplexed and gloomy thoughts into light and peace! Let as first indulge and humour the melancholy of her fpirit! let us allow the feeming feverity of her lot! let us fay to her, you have, indeed, been unjustly overlooked by men, who have pitched upon companions lefs attractive, and have shared. their wealth and splendour with partners far lefs deferving. but, before you elimate their fuppofed felicity, examine the real state of thofe affociates of your youth, whom marriage has placed in a condition fo different from your own! let us try the firt. She is a woman of rank, of opulence, of gaiety; but her innocence was undermined by the fuppofed conflituents of her vifionary happiness; and your heart is too pure to envy even pleafures debafed by infamy or loaded with remorse.'.

*

Let us proceed to a fecond.-Behold a woman whom nature and education has rendered a lovely compound of vivacity and virtue! fhe was wedded to the man of her choica,

with the fanction of her delighted parents. The figure, the reputation, and the fortune of her husband, made her the envy of all her fair fingle friends: but alas! could they have read her destiny, she would have excited only compaffion; for the foon found, that the pleafing manners, the enchanting talents, and the bright femblance of integrity, in the man whom the tondly thought all perfection, covered a mind corrupted by licentious pleasure, and a heart that could only counterfeit, for a very short period, all the generous characteristics of genuine love. His paffion was extinguished by a few weeks poffeffion; and the then experienced, in return for real and anxious affection, mortifying neglect, contemptuous farcafm, and perpetual infidelity. His vices foon produced their natural effect, the ruin of his fortune, his temper, and his health. Haunted by every painful recollection, he now vainly tries to drown, in deeper intemperance, all ideas of his mifery; while the innocent and ftill lovely victim of his various crimes, furrounded by indigent and deferted children, looks up to thofe, her former companions, who have remained unmarried, as the moft enviable of human beings.

But to let us pafs on to a third, and a much happier example of married life. Here, indeed, as you truly observe, here we find every circumftance of character and condition, that is juftly entitled to the name of fortunate. In this perfon we may behold the beloved wife of an affectionate and a fenfible hufband; the healthy and opulent mother of a numerous and lovely offspring. She has a heart and spirit to relish happiness, and he is furrounded by every thing that is likely to give and to increase it. Her condition is, in truth, oppofite to that of the elderly, indigent, and folitary maiden.-But let us take a nearer view of this fortunate perfonage! let us vifit the manfion of felicity!-where is the gaiety that fhould farround it? good Heavens! what evil has befallen it all is diforder and diftrefs. mifchance has happened to one of the young and favourite branches of this flourishing houfe.-it is the cry of the distracted mother over her darling, torn from her by a calamitous death.-let us retire! for her we cannot comfort!-her grief can be alleviated only by that Almighty power, who has permitted it to be indicted. But we have received our leffon in the piercing found of her diftrefs. A fingle thriek of the mother, on the expiration of her child, ought to drown for ever all the petty murmuring of maidenly difcontent.'

On the whole, we have feldom feen fuch varied fcenes of entertainment, in any one work: let no one exclaim against the ancient virgins, as gloomy, four, and unfocial; for if he fhould ever feel in their fociety an effect benumbing as that of the torpedo, and gloomy as that occafioned by the interior aspect of the cave of Trophonius, let him turn to their historian and panegyrift, and he will be again reftored to mirth, thearfulness, and fociety.

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Animadverfiones Philologica in nonnulla Corani Loca. Accedunt. Illuftrationes in V. T. ex Arabifmo, necnon Perfifmo deprompta. Pro Specimine edidit R. Antonius Vievra, LL. B. ac L. L. Hifp. et Ital. P. Reg. in Col. S. Ș. et Ind. Trin. Dublin. 4to. 1. 1s. in Boards. Robinson.

SINCE

our more intimate connections with the Eaft commenced, the Oriental languages are no longer the ornament of the fcholar only, nor are they confined to the illuftration of the facred writings they direct the politician, by explaining the languages of treaties; they open the treasures of eastern learning, and are effential even in the counting-houfe. Of thefe languages, the Arabic is the principium & fons ;' and, of the Arabic, the Coran is the pureft and moft copious fource, The extent of territory occupied by the followers of Mohammed, the zeal of the Muffulmen, which leads them, on the most common occafions, to employ the phrases of their facred writings, and the real elegance of the work dictated, in a great degree, by their prophet, render it the most useful book for the direction of the learner's ftudies, and the fairest object for the criticisms of the commentator. Our author, who wishes to affift a measure in agitation in the university of Dublin, viz. the establishment of a professorship of Oriental Íanguages, has published the Animadverfiones,' and some Etymological Enquiries, as fpecimens of the great utility of the eastern, particularly the Arabian and Perfian languages, This volume may be confidered, in its prefent ftate, as imperfect indeed it is announced only as a fpecimen; but it dif plays the acutenefs, the judgment, and the erudition of the author. The Oriental languages are now become a necessary part in a fyflem of education, and every inftitution should comprehend this branch of philology: M. Vieyra feems well qualified to affift fo beneficial a defign.

The remarks on the Coran are the firft in this work; and we shall give fome fpecimens of our author's execution in this branch. We shall felect thofe paffages which are more generally interefting, and more eafily understood. As the Dedication and Preface belong rather to the etymological part of the work, we fhall give fome account of them, previous to our obfervations on it. All the Animadverfiones are indeed philological; and, in many refpects, etymological.

•COM. 58. Urbem. Ex voce hac Arab. quæ eft in textu, kariat fc. i. e. urbs, pagus, villa, derivantur voces quirites, i. e. cives, necnon quirinus, i. e. rex urbis ; quamvis utriufque vocis etymon Romanos fcriptores latuerit, ut ait cl. Gebelin. Hinc pariter dignofcitur prima pars Punicæ vocis, fc, Cartag urbem

Car

Carthaginenfem fignificantis. Verum non una eft opinio de altera voce ag fc. totam vocem Cartag cum priore kart conftituente. Antequam vero opinionem meam proferam fequentia libet in anteceffum afferre. In numis Carthaginenfibus videre eft equi caput generofæ indolis, egregie infculptum, et juxta Palma arbor eft, cum dactylis in ramis. Cæterum hoc equi caput in numis Carthaginenfibus infculptum videtur in memoriam illius, quod e terra eruerant, cum prima urbis fundamenta jacerent; idque poftea in omen verfum. Juftinus ex Trogo, 1. xviii. ait: Ibi quoque caput equi repertum, bellicofum fortemque populum fignificans, urbi aufpicatam fedem dedid. Hinc Virgil, 1 Æn.

"Locus in urbe fuit media, lætiffimus umbra,
Quo primum jactati undis, et turbine pæni
Effodere loco fignum, quod regia Juno
Monftrarat, caput acris equi.""

Cum Virgilio concinit Sil. Ital. 1, 1,

"Oftentant caput effoffa tellure repertum

Bellatoris equi, atque omen clamore falutant."

Palma vero indicare videtur regionem, e qua profecti venerant, Phoeniciam nempe, palmis abundantem. Puto igitur vocem Cart-ag compofitam effe ex Ar. Kariat et ag, quarum prima fignificat urbem, fecunda vero equum. Igitur ex capite equi inventi in illo loco nomen defumfit urbs Carthaginenfis ; quemadmodum ex aurifodinis nomen accepit Fella, feu Fezza, quod nomen Arabice aurum fignificat. Notandum infuper primigeniam vim vocis ag quæ equum fignificat, fitam effe in magnitudine, Ex hac porro primitiva notione derivantur.

Lat. Equ-us, equ-es, equ-ifo, aga-fo, &c. &c.

Goth. Ák-ken, equus.

Hibern. Eac.' Vid, cl. Vallancey Gram, Hiber, p. 131.
Hifp. Hac-a Afturco. Puerilia funt quæ de origine hujus
Hifp. vocis affert Aldrete, p. 46.

Lufit. Fac-a. Idem ac Hifp. baca.

Angl. Hac-ney Nag.

Ital. Haque-nea, five Chinea,

Gal. Haque-nee.

Denique ex primigenia notione magnitudinis, quæ ineft primitivæ huic voci derivari exiftimo

Angl. Ox

Germ.

Och

Suev. Ok

Pannon. Okon

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Et, ni fallor, Angl. huge, ingens.'

We fhall felect another paffage, on account of the remarkable affinity between the criticisms on the Coran and the New Teftament, in a very fimilar paffage.

CAP.

'CAP. vii. Com. 41. Camelus per foramen acus. Vertendum potius puto: rudens per foramen acus, Arab. vox, quam Marac. vertit, camelus, eft ambigua, poteftque camelum, aut rudentem fignificare, pro diverfitate vocalium. Nam cum prima phatata, ac fecunda giefmata, eft Camelus; fed cum prima dammata, ac fecunda phatata, eft rudens. Porro ex hac Arab, pofteriori voce oriuntur

Hifp. Gumena.

Ital.

Gomcna.

Gall. Gomeine.

}

Rudens,

De Rudente porro hic agi, non vero de Camelo, fuadet analogia major inter rudentem et filum, quod folet per foramen acus induci. Unde eft, quod Alcamus explicat hanc vocem hic per rudentem navis.

Furtum funt hæc verba, ait Maraccius, ex Matth. xix, Verum meminiffe oportebat vocem camilon in Evang. Matth. exponi per craffum rudentem, quo nautæ utuntur ad jaciendas anchoras, apud Theophylactum, Euthym. et Phavorin. Frustra interim fufpicatur Drufius, eos non fcripfiffe Camilon, fed Cabilon, ut Græca vox conveniat cum Belgica Cabel. Nam opus non erat græcam vocem cudere, unde Belgica oriretur; cum Hebræi, Arabes, &c. funem nauticum chebel, vel chabal vocent, ex qua voce primitiva oriuntur

Belg. Cabel.
Ang. Cable.
Hifp. Cable.

Lufit. Calabre,

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Our learned readers know that the word xaunλos, in the twenty-fourth verfe of the nineteenth chapter of St. Mathew, has, by fome commentators, been read nauíños. Parfon Adams' remark is more generally known. "It is easier for a bell-rope," which for some reasons, fays he, that I am unacquainted with, our tranflators have rendered" camel," &c. Kauaos occurs in Ariftophanes, and fome other authors, where it means a rope; but we know not that xaunos has ever the fame fignification. The change is, however, very minute, though perhaps unneceffary. In the Arabic it requires the tranfpofition of one vowel, and the change of another.

In many respects, different parts of the Old Teftament may, in our author's opinion, be corrected, from a knowledge of the Arabic and Perfian languages. Of this kind the following is a fpecimen, better adapted to illuftrate the connection than the remarks defignedly adduced for this purpose.

Satanas. Ex Arab. voce quæ eft in textu derivatur Perficum vocabulum Shitan Diabolus, qui etiam alia voce Perfica, azmude, fc. indicatur, ex qua Auxit Latina Afmedaus, necnon Græca Afmodaios, quæ in verf. Job. iii. legitur. Porro de hujus nominis etymologia variæ extant conjecturæ. Quod fi, vel

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