Vellera per sudum ; mox arva nemusque virescens Quin cursûs inceptum adeò servare tenorem Quippe exardenti lustrare latentia nautæ Quin verò immemori tandem lux inclyta seclo neque arnis 4 Nascitur intereà rerum felicior ordo, 3 · The obstacles, which at that period prevented the prosecution of British discoveries in America, seem to have been the inactivity and parsimony of Henry VII-Foreign wars, Reformation. 2 Queen Elizabeth. 4 James I. granted two charters, under the sanction of which, Virginia was re-established, and New England founded. 1 3 Hospitium profugæ pietatis, et, unde bipenni Salve igitur, gens nostra, adeò fausto omine rursus Nec tamen has inter sedes feliciaque arva na“ metalli 4 6 2 1 The English Puritans, who had at first taken refuge in Holland, afterwards settled in New England, under the sanction of one of the above charters. Discovery of the direct passage to America, by Gosnold, in 1602. 3 Madeira. 4 A milk pressed from the wall-nut is a favorite beverage among the Indians.« Purchas his Pilgrimes.” 5 Cochineal. 2 Fuste manus, cultroque, et lævi è cortice parma, Tempore non alio maria Atlantæa ? Colonus Parte aliâ intereà fines auxêre Coloni; Suadet enim diuturna quies, atque otia rebus Addita ; sic quondam Regina Terra-Mariæ, Sic geminum, Carolina, tibi, Rege auspice, regnum Crevit, et Eboracum, extremisque Georgia campis, Et Nova cultori cessit Jerseia Britanno. Id verò intereà, quòd parvas Anglicus hospes Dilectis olim titulis signaverit urbes, Ne vanum reputa; quoniam sæpe illa tuenti Mænia continud veteris prædulce recursat Hinc desiderium Patriæ, et divinitùs orta Mnemosyne solitos animo revocabit amores. Talis in Epiro quondam capta Hectoris Uxor Gaudebat simulata fovens nova Pergama veris : * Robertson's Hist. America, Post. Vol. p. 204. ? The emigration of William Penn, Quippe obversa oculos quoties simulacra lacessunt, His adeò auspiciis multos stabilita per annos At verò scelerum tantorum exquirere causas HENRICUS LATHAM. E Coll. Æn. Nas. Junii 10. 1812. On the Hebrew Numerals, and different Modes of Notation. Extracted from Mr. Hewlett's Bible. NO. II. “ Even all they that were numbered were six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty.”—[Numbers, Chap. i. v. 46. It has been remarked, that all the sums, as they stand in this chapter, (except one) end in even hundreds, or with two ciphers. This is next to an impossibility, and commentators have said, that Moses only gave round numbers ; but if there was really a numbering of the people, (which will not be denied) it was as easy to express the right number as the wrong. It should be remembered, also, that accuracy was in a great measure required, in order to the just administration of certain laws respecting the Levites, the first-born, the offering to the Lord,' &c. Exod. xxx. 14. ; but to talk of this, and to omit, in the summation of a series of numbers, all that were under 100, will be deemed preposterous. Such a notation does not at all agree with the exactness observed in Gen. v. nor with the numbers in Ezra, ch. ii. and Nehemiah, ch. vii. where the reader will not find sums ending with a cipher oftener than with any other figure. A more general cause of the alteration and confusion of the numbers in the Bible was the adoption of numerals, instead of writing sums in words at length. This practice, we know, was very ancient ; and many of those numeral letters were so similar, that they might easily a have been mistaken for each other.See Dr. Kennicott, vol. i. P. 209. 212. 215. Thus, the 3 (2) may be easily taken for the 3 (20), the ) (3) for 3 (50), the 7 (4) for 7 (200), or for the 7 (500, the D (60) for the (600), the T (8) for the m (400), &c. Besides, as Buxtorf observes (Thesaur. Gram.) in the notation used by the Masoretes, "X, the aleph, with two small dashes over it, instead of an unit, stood for a thousand, and y's, which in the ordinary mode of numeration, is 71, they thus made 1070. Farther, by placing a dot, or a virgule, over any common numeral, they increased it in a ten-fold proportion. Now, we know that a propensity to the marvellous is natural to man; and no one can open any of the Talmudic writings, without being convinced that it was never indulged by any people to greater excess than by the Jews. Whenever the Rabbins were in the least doubt, therefore, or whenever they might suppose there was a dot, or a dash over a letter, which would multiply it by ten, they were likely to insert the larger number in preference to the less. Besides, the ancient Hebrew MSS. were written in characters that very much resembled the old Samaritan; and there were some of these which were easily confounded, though, from inspecting our printed copies of the Bible, we should not now perceive any resemblance. Indeed, so very different are the characters of some of the MSS. now in existence from those in the printed copies, that Dr. Kennicott says, there is in the Bodleian library a MS. of the book of Job, which few Hebrew scholars can read, though written in the Hebrew character. But it deserves particular notice, that there was a mode of notation used in Palestine, about the time of Christ, the knowledge of which had been lost for many ages. It was at last restored by the labors of the late learned Mr. Swinton, from an attentive examination of the Palmyrene inscriptions, and some old Sidonian coins. From the valuable communications which he made to the Royal Society (see vols. 48 and 50.) we learn some important facts : -1. That the Palmyrene dialect was, in almost every respect, like the Syriac. 2. That there is a surprising affinity between the Chaldee letters and the Palmyrene. 3. That the Chaldee characters were used at Tadmor, and in all the neighbouring parts of Syria, during the first, second, and third centuries of the Christian Æra. And 4. That the Palmyrene inscriptions may be considered as manuscripts in the Chaldee, or Hebrew character, from fifteen to seventeen hundred years old. But, in comparing the Palmyrene alphabet with the present Hebrew, it appears that the gimel is extremely different. The vau, that im. portant numeral, has, at least, four distinct forms; and so likewise has the yod. One form of the samech is precisely the same as the final mem. The pe is exactly one form of the vau. The resch is, in general, either like the oin, or the tzad. One form of the oin is very like one of the samech; and the thau and nun are extremely similar. Now, though the sense may, in general language, serve to determine which letter is intended, yet what sagacity could discriminate them with any certainty, when used, above a thousand years after, merely as numerals ? a |
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