off in pursuit of an animal, which my Persians said, from the glimpse they had of it, was an antelope. I instantly put spurs to my horse and followed the chase. After an unrelaxed gallop of full three miles, we came up with the dog, who was then within a short stretch of the creature he pursued; and to my surprise, and at first vexation, I saw it to be an ass. But, on a moment's reflection, judging from its fleetness it must be a wild one, a species little known in Europe, but which the Persians prize above all other animals as an object of chase, I determined to approach as near to it as the very swift Arab I was on would carry me. But the single instant of checking my horse to consider, had given our game such a head of us, that, notwithstanding all our speed, we could not recover our ground on him. I however happened to be considerably before my companions; when, at a certain distance, the animal in its turn made a pause, and allowed me to approach within pistol shot of him. He then darted off again with the quickness of thought; capering, kicking, and sporting in his flight, as if he were not blown in the least, and the chase were his pastime. The prodigious swiftness and peculiar manner with which he fled across the plain, coincided exactly with the description that Xenophon gives of the same animal in Arabia (vid Anabasis, b.1). But above all, he reminded me of

the striking portrait drawn by the author of the book of Job. I was informed by the Mehmander, who had been in the desert when making a pilgrimage to the shrine of Ali, that the wild ass of Irak Arabi differs in nothing from the one I had just seen. He had observed them often, for a short time, in the possession of the Arabs, who told him the creature was perfectly untameable. It is called Gour by the Persians, and is usually seen in herds, though often single, straying away, as the one I first saw, in the wantonness of liberty.-Sir R. Ker Porter's Travels in Persia.

Game abounds in the neighbourhood of Thebes, but they have a remarkable prejudice, which as it also characterized the antient inhabitants of Greece, and is still universal, ought to be mentioned, They will neither eat a hare nor touch it after it has been killed; and so powerful is their aversion from this animal, that no Albanian servant can be prevailed upon to take the skin from a hare, or even to remain in the house where it is dressed. Clarke's Travels, Part II. s. iii. p. 75.

MALABARIC NEW TESTAMENT. To the Editor of the Remembrancer.

SIR,

PERHAPS the following notice of an edition of the New Testament in the Malabaric character, printed in the beginning of the last century, may not be uninteresting to some of your readers.

In the month of November, 1705, Bartholomew Ziegenbalgh, and Henry Plutschau, two young divines, educated at the University of Halle, in Germany, were sent forth by the king of Denmark on the laudable design of propagating the Gospel among the inhabitants of the Malabar and Coromandel coasts in the East Indies, and ar

rived at the town of Tranquebar, a Danish settlement, in July of the following year. Here having established themselves they proceeded to erect a church; founded two charity-schools, preached, catechized, and otherwise instructed the children of the natives: and Ziegenbalgh having gradually made himself master of the Tamul or Damulic language, turned his earnest attention to the task of translating the New Testament into that tongue. In January, 1710, he had almost finished the four Gospels; but as the art of printing was unknown in those parts, and the missionaries were not yet provided with a press, his translation could not be circuJated among the natives as he desired.

Towards the end of the year 1712, a printing press, and a fount of Malabaric types were received from Germany, and in 1713 the press was set to work. A catechism and some small tracts were first printed by way of specimen, and in the next year the four Gospels and the Acts appeared in an handsome quarto volume, bearing the title, Quatuor Evangelia et Acta Apostolorum ex Originali Textu in linguam Damulicam versa, in usum gentis Malabaricæ. Opera et studio Barth. Ziegenbalg, et Jo. Ern. Grundler, serenissimi Daniæ Regis Friderici IV. ad Indos Orientales Missionariorum.-Tranqueba ræ in littore Coromandelino, Typis Malabaricis impressit, G. Adler,

1714."

The title alone is in Latin, the rest of the volume in the Malabaric character.

In a letter addressed to the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, dated September 27, 1714, and printed in the third part of a work, entitled "The Propagation of the Gospel in the East," the missionaries observe, "The scarcity of paper has hindered us from pursuing the impression to the end of the Epistles. The Malabar types, which were sent from Ger

many, proved so very large, that they consumed abundance of paper : to remove this inconvenience our letter-founder has, about two months since, cast another type of a smaller size, wherewith we design to print the remaining part of the New Testament." P. 117.

This remaining part was in fact printed off soon afterwards with the new type, and in 1719 the whole appeared together, under the title, "Novum Jesu Christi Testamentum ex Originali Textu in usum gentis Malabarica in linguam Damulicam, vulgo Malabarica dictam, versum, operâ et studio Bartholomæi Ziegenbalg, et Joh. Ernesti Grundler, serenissimi Daniæ Regis Frederici IV. ad Indos Orien tales Missionariorum. Tranquebariæ in littore Coromandelino, typis Darnulicis Missionis Danica, 1719."

But the account given above, in the words of the missionaries themselves, is entirely silent regarding a very curious fact; namely, that the metal, from which these smaller types were cast, was furnished by the leaden covers of some Cheshire cheeses, sent over by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge; and thus, by the wonderful directions of Providence, a thing which had merely been intended for the service and luxury of the body, was made the means of communicating to thousands the most healthful nutriment of the soul.

As this anecdote seems to be scarcely known, and is not recorded by Chaufepié in his life of Ziegenbalgh, nor by La Croze in his "Histoire du Christianisme des Indes," I have ventured to communicate it to your readers upon the authority of the following manuscript letter, addressed by the secretary of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, to

La Croze does indeed mention the

variety of type, but appears to know nothing of the manner in which it was manufactured,-See his work, p. 559.

takes which ignorance may commit and credulity propagate are limited and unimportant, compared with those to which currency may be given by a translator competent to his task in every other respect but working at it by the light of his own peculiar opinions. It seems that his wisdom and honesty would best be shewn by a constant endeavour not to suffer the tinge of his own sentiments to be communicated to the original; and that to ensure fidelity in his version, he must endeavour as far as is possible to divest himself of every such bias as may pervert his impartiality, or interfere with his judgment. But this is a mode of proceeding unsuited to the disposition of the present age; it requires the exertion of calmness, patience, and dispassionate enquiry; qualities which have almost ceased to be considered as indispensible to a theologian. In the "Improved," or Unitarian " Version of the New Testament," an attempt was made, and in Mr. Belsham's recent “ Translation of St. Paul's Epistles" the same attempt is renewed, to establish other laws of interpretation. "Being persuaded" says Mr. Belsham,that the simple humanity of Jesus Christ is the clear and indisputable doctrine of the New Testament, the author makes no hesitation in avowing that he translates passages, which admit equally of two senses, in that which is most favourable to this plain and important doctrine." But upon what foundation can such a conviction in any individual rest, unless it be upon a perception of the true sense of Scripture derived either from our own acquaintance with the original, or from a correct translation executed by others who possess that acquaintance? It is surely taking things in an inverted order to assume a certain doctrine as "clear and indisputable," and then to practise upon all those passages which are adverse to it until they are made, if not to support, at least not to oppose the favourite tenet. Yet with

out the assumption of such a licence, the system of Mr. Belsham could not sustain itself for a single instant; and in spite of the confidence with which he employs it, there yet remain many intractable passages which in the commentary upon his New or Select Version he is compelled either to pass over in silence, or to offer very insufficient reasons for his innovation. In fact the introduction of the word " equally” into the passage just quoted, is a mere begging of the question. Religious truth unquestionably is not demonstrable like the theorems of physical science; and texts may be found which previous to the necessary enquiry allow room for hesitation as to their import. But since of all the senses which are attributed to them one only can be true, it is a critical question, to be decided by competent judges, upon fixed critical principles, which of them shall be preferred. This point it is as much within the province of criticism unbiassed by partiality to determine, as, in forming a genuine text, it is to decide upon a disputed reading; to weigh the evidence for each variety; and to fix upon that to which the laws of sacred criticism require the preference to be given. Concerning by far the greater number of those passages which the Unitarians seek to represent as of dubious construction we maintain that although by ingenuity and contrivance a sense has been attributed to them which the words by possibility and without relation to the context may be made to bear, yet that there are certain tests which may be applied, and which, without reference to disputed tenets, ought to be applied for the purpose of deciding to which side the balance of evidence inclines. If no such appeal is to be allowed, since every man will claim an equal right to exercise his own judgment in making the Scriptures conform to any hypothesis which he may assume, we shall never arrive at the natural limit of the system until

each individual has his distinct and peculiar translation. The instance of Theodore Beza shews how dangerous it is for a translator to give way to such a bias. We see in him a man of unquestionably honest intentions and of profound skill in languages, yet from a conviction that partial election and indefectible grace are “ the clear and indisputable doctrines of the New Testament," wresting words and sen. tences from their plain grammatical meaning to bring them, as he conceived, to a nearer conformity with the general sentiments of the Apostles. Beza most probably thought it" impossible" as Mr. Belsham does "that the Apostle should contradict himself," and was willing to lend a helping hand to preserve him from any danger of the kind; he believed that he also so well understood his general scope and design," as to be in no danger of " giving a turn to the translation which the original did not warrant." Yet he would un. doubtedly have succeeded in furnishing a more correct representation of the Word of God, if in forming his translation he had been contented to act as a critic and a grammarian instead of melting down the text into the mould of his own theological opinions. Mr. Belsham, it is true, admits that "translators are to be censured when through the bias of system they are induced to give a turn to the translation which the original does not warrant.” But in spite of the seeming candour of this conces sion, the bias of system, it must still be maintained, acts most prejudicially upon the mind of a translator when it causes him to represent as ambiguous passages which in reality are not ambiguous; when it disables him from deciding impartially between the opposing arguments by which different versions of the same passage may be supported; when it leads him in short to invent a system of philology,

which, if universally applied, would render language no longer a safe and intelligible medium of communication, but the source of endless error and misrepresentation.

To select but one or two instances from the work now under consideration, can Mr. Belsham seriously maintain that the passage ́ (Heb. i. 2.) δι ̓ οὗ και τους αιώνας εποίησεν, "admits equally of two senses?" In the remarks, which, with the Editor's permission I design hereafter to offer upon this passage, I shall shew how little support the principles of Greek composition afford him in attributing to do with a genitive the sense of the impulsive cause, and in rendering this passage "with a view to whom he even constituted the former dispensations." But independently of this consideration we have a resource, an unexceptionable criterion for determining the point thus brought into

dispute betwen us and the Unitarians; that is, the power of reference to other passages of similar import. If by a desperate perversion of language it should be sought to involve the Apostle's meaning in obscurity, a direct and immediate mode of clearing the sense suggests itself by appealing to John i. 10. where we read, ὁ κόσμος δι' αυτό εγενετο. Will the Unitarians maintain that here also we are to render d'avTY "with a view to him?" No; but to evade the force of this pinching passage a sense is assigned by them to the word yet, which, it may without fear of contradiction be asserted, is no where else to be met with in the entire compass of Greek literature. By interpreting the words, "the world was enlightened by him," the connexion which we affirm to exist between these two passages is supposed to be effectually broken, and the ambiguity of the quotation from the Epistle to the Hebrews to be established beyond dispute. As a natural and necessary consequence it may then be translated just as