demn us, which purged both ways twice a mont perturbation; and we foolishly contemn the 1 God, and ample field of medicines which so

that action.

17. A conceit there is, that the devil commo with a cloven hoof: 4 wherein, although it see ridiculous, there may be somewhat of truth; an thereof at first might be his frequent appearing of a goat, which answers that description. opinion of ancient Christians concerning the Panites, fauns, and satyrs; and in this form w that appeared unto Antony in the wilderness is also confirmed from expositions of Holy Se whereas it is said, "Thou shalt not offer unto original word is seghnirim, that is, rough and because in that shape the devil most often ap expounded by the Rabbins, and Tremellius plained; and as the word Ascimah, the god of some conceived. Nor did he only assume this s times, but commonly in latter times, especially of his worship, if there be any truth in the c witches, and as in many stories it stands confirm nus. And therefore a goat is not improper hieroglyphick of the devil, as Pierius hath expre might it be the emblem of sin, as it was in the and so likewise of wicked and sinful men, acco expression of Scripture in the method of the la tion; when our Saviour shall separate the she goats, that is, the sons of the Lamb from the chi devil.

4 hoof.] 'Tis remarkable that of all creatures the de cloven-footed, wherein to appeare, as satyrs, and goatis the swine whereon to worke his malice: and the calves w worshiped as at Dan and Bethel. For which cause the cald those calves (raised by Jeroboam for worship) devils: 15. And that he chose his priests of the lowest of the pe suitable. For where their god was a calfe, 'twas not im butcher should be the preiste.-Wr.

CHAPTER XXIV.

Of Popular Customs, Opinions, &c.; of the Prediction of the Year ensuing from the Insects in Oak Apples; that Children would naturally speak Hebrew; of refraining to kill Swallows; of Lights burning dim at the Apparition of Spirits; of the wearing of Coral; of Moses' Rod in the Discovery of Mines; of discovering doubtful matters by Book or Staff.

1. THAT temperamental dignotions, and conjecture of prevalent humours, may be collected from spots in our nails, we are not averse to concede; but yet not ready to admit sundry divinations vulgularly raised upon them. Nor do we observe it verified in others, what Cardan* discovered as a property in himself; to have found therein some signs of most events that ever happened unto him. Or that there is much considerable in that doctrine of cheiromancy, that spots in the top of the nails do signify things past; in the middle, things present; and at the bottom, events to come. white specks presage our felicity; blue ones our misfortunes. That those in the nail of the thumb have significations of honour; those in the forefinger, of riches; and so respectively in other fingers (according to planetical relations, from whence they receive their names), as Tricassus + hath taken up, and Picciolus well rejecteth.5

That

We shall not proceed to query what truth there is in palmistry, or divination from those lines in our hands, of high denomination. Although if any thing be therein, it seems not confinable unto man; but other creatures are also considerable; as is the forefoot of the mole, and especially of the monkey, wherein we have observed the table-line, that of life and of the liver.

2. That children committed unto the school of nature, without institution, would naturally speak the primitive language of the world, was the opinion of ancient heathens, and

5

* De Varietate Rerum.

De Inspectione Manús.

spots, &c.] This saying has remained to the present day. Such superstitions will only cease when the ignorance of the lower orders, through whom they find their way into the nursery, shall have given place to the general diffusion of knowledge-especially of religious knowledge.

continued since by Christians; who will have it our Hebrew tongue, as being the language of Adam. That this were true, were much to be desired, not only for the easy attainment of that useful tongue, but to determine the true and primitive Hebrew. For whether the present Hebrew be the unconfounded language of Babel, and that which, remaining in Heber, was continued by Abraham and his posterity;6 or 6 For whether the present Hebrew, &c.] On the subject of this passage, patient and learned ingenuity has been exercised in successive ages to afford us-only hypothesis and conjectures. And though it must be admitted that nothing more satisfactory can, in the nature of things, be expected, yet is it certain, that in order to constitute a thorough competency to propose even these, nothing less would suffice than the most profound acquaintance with history and geography from their remotest traces; and an erudition competent to the analysis and classification, not only of the languages of antiquity, but of those living tongues and dialects which now cover the earth, and to which modern discoveries are daily making additions. On the question, whether the confusion of tongues left one section or family of the existing population in possession of the pure and unadulterated antediluvian language, I cannot perceive the materials for constructing even a conjecture. As to the theory here proposed, on which Abraham might understand those nations among whom he sojourned, by his own means of philological approximation, I cannot help feeling that it is almost like claiming for the patriarch an exemption from the operation of the confusion of tongues. Among the most recent works on this general class of questions, is Mr. Beke's Origines Biblica, a work in which some novel hypotheses have called down on their author the criticism of those who differ from him; while at the same time the tribute of praise has not been denied to the ability he has displayed, and especially to that spirit of reverence for scriptural authority which pervades his work.

Mr. Beke first states his opinion,-in opposition to the more usual hypothesis which considers the languages of the Jews, Arabians, and other nations of similar character, to be the Semitic or Shemitish family of languages, that this origin may more probably be assigned to those of Tibet, China, and all those nations of the east and south-east of Asia, which are manifestly distinct from the Japhthitish Hindoos and Tartars; including the islands of the Indian Archipelago and the South Seas. He subsequently gives the following reasons for attributing to the usually-called Semitic languages (namely, Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic of Abyssinia), "a Mitzrite, and therefore Hamitish origin." "When the Almighty was pleased to call Abraham from his native country, the land of the Arphaxidites, or Chaldees, first into the country of Aram, and afterwards into that of Canaan, one of two things must necessarily have had place; either that the inhabitants of these latter countries spoke the same language as himself, or else that he acquired the knowledge of the foreign tongues spoken by these people during his residence in the countries in which they were vernacular. That they

rather the language of Phoenicia and Canaan, wherein he lived, some learned men I perceive do yet remain unsatisfied.

all made use of the same language cannot be imagined. Even if it be assumed that the descendants of Arphaxad, Abraham's ancestor, and the Aramites, in whose territories Terah and his family first took up their residence, spoke the same language, or, at the furthest, merely dialects of the same original Shemitish tongue, we cannot suppose that this language would have resembled those which were spoken by the Hamitish Canaanites, and Philistines, in whose countries Abraham afterwards sojourned, unless we at the same time contend that the confusion of tongues at Babel was practically inoperative; a conclusion, I apprehend, in which we should be directly opposed to the express words of Scripture: Gen. xi. 1-9.

"We have no alternative, therefore, as it would seem, but to consider (as, in fact, is the plain and obvious interpretation of the circumstances), that Abraham having travelled from his native place (a distance of above 500 miles) to the 'south country,' the land of the Philistines, where he 'sojourned many days,' he and his family would have acquired the language of the people amongst whom they thus took up their residence. But it may be objected that Abraham and his descendants, although living in a foreign country, and necessarily speaking the language of that country in their communications with its inhabitants, would also have retained the Aramitish tongue spoken in Haran, and that the intercourse between the two countries having been kept up, first by the marriage of Isaac with his cousin Rebekah, and subsequently by that of Jacob also with his cousins Leah and Rachel, and more especially from the circumstance of Jacob's having so long resided in Padan-Aram, and of all his children, with the exception of Benjamin, having been born there, the family language of Jacob, at the time of his return into the 'south country,' must indisputably have beer the Aramitish. It may be argued farther, that although for the purpose of holding communication with the Canaanities and the Philistines, it was necessary to understand their languages also, yet that the language most familiar to Jacob and his household continued to be the Aramitish, until the period when they all left Canaan to go down into Mitzraim; and hence it might be contended that no good reason exists for opposing the generally received opinion, that the Hebrew is the same Aramitish tongue which was taken by the Israelites into Mitzraim, it being only necessary to suppose that the language was preserved substantially without corruption during the whole time of their sojourning in that country.

"But even admitting this argument, which however I am far from allowing to be conclusive; how are we to explain the origin of the Arabic language? This is clearly not of Aramitish derivation. It is the language which was spoken by the countrymen of Hagar, amongst whom Ishmael was taken by her to reside, and with whom he and his descendants speedily became mixed up and completely identified. Among these people it is not possible that the slightest portion of the

Although I confess probability stands fairest for the former; nor are they without all reason, who think that at the confusion of tongues, there was no constitution of a new speech in every family, but a variation and permutation of the old; out of one common language raising several dialects, the primitive tongue remaining still entire; which they who retained, might make a shift to understand most of the rest. By virtue whereof in those primitive times and greener confuAramitish tongue of Abraham should have existed before the time of Ishmael; nor can it be conceived that the Mitzritish descendants of the latter would have acquired that language through him, even supposing (though I consider it to be far from an established fact) that the Aramitish had continued to be the only language which was spoken by Abraham's family during the whole of his residence in the south country among the Canaanites and Philistines; and supposing, also, that Ishmael acquired a perfect knowledge of that language, and of no other (which, however, is very improbable, his mother being a Mitzrite), from the circumstance of his childhood having been passed in his father's house.

"I apprehend, indeed, that the Mitzritish origin of the Arabic language is a fact which cannot be disputed; and if this fact be conceded, there remains no alternative but to admit-indeed it is a mere truism to say that the Hebrew, which is a cognate dialect with the Arabic, must be of common origin with that language, and consequently of Mitzritish derivation also... The fact of the striking coincidences which may be found in the language of the Berbers, in Northern Africa, with the languages of cognate origin with the Hebrew, is in the highest degree confirmatory of the Hamitish origin which I attribute to the whole of them; and it becomes the more particularly so, on the consideration that I derive the Berbers themselves directly from the country where I conceive the Israelites to have acquired their language."

As to the nature and degree of change which took place in the existing language at its confusion, Mr. Beke contends, "that the idea of an absolute and permanent change of dialect is more strictly in accordance with the literal meaning of the scriptural account of the confusion of tongues, than the supposition that the consequences of that miraculous occurrence were of a temporary nature only, and that the whole of the present diversities in the languages of the world are to be referred to the gradual operation of subsequent causes.'

In the foregoing sentence, and still more in the disquisition which precedes it, Mr. Beke's opinion is in opposition to a very high authority both as a natural historian and a philologist, the Rev. W. D. Conybeare, who supports (in his Elementary Course of Lectures, on the Criticism, Interpretation, and Leading Doctrines of the Bible), the more usually received opinion, that Hebrew, and the cognate languages, are of Shemitish origin.