ADVERTISEMENT. WHEN a standard critical work, like the present, is offered to the public in a new shape, it is not an unwarrantable expectation on the part of the purchasers to be informed of the reasons of the change, and of the principles on which it has been effected. The only edition which had the benefit of the author's immediate superintendence issued from the Clarendon press, as a thick quarto volume, in the year 1784; and, in common with almost every book proceeding from an establishment celebrated for the erudition and accuracy of the correctors attached to it, that volume was a model of correctness. Having adopted it as the only safe copy to be followed, and having personally verified every Hebrew quotation which it contains, and the greater portion of those in other languages, I have scarcely discovered a single fault in the whole production. In that edition, and in one or two subsequently published in octavo, not only were the text and the notes completely separated from each other, but a large Appendix was also subjoined, the contents of which seem to have been amassed solely for the purpose of displaying the coincidence of judgment, on many difficult points, between Dr. Blayney and Archbishop Secker;-a favourite object with every ingenuous scholar, when he is enabled to confirm his own previous reasonings. or conjectures by those of some eminent man whom he may regard as his superior. Beside these disjointed materials, a copious Index was added, under the three-fold division of TEXTS, PERSONS, and THINGS or subjects generally. A second index of the same kind was framed for the Appendix.-Such was the unwieldy form * The Appendix was introduced under this title: "OBSERVATIONS AND NOTES of the late learned THOMAS SECKER, D.D., Archbishop of Canterbury, written by him in two Bibles, now deposited in the Archiepiscopal Library at Lambeth: One of which is a folio English Bible, interleaved, containing observations in English, chiefly respecting the English translation: The other is a quarto Hebrew Bible, of the edition of MICHAELIS, Halle, 1720, the margin of which abounds with critical remarks in Latin on the Hebrew text, and other curious annotations." In the first edition, "the parts enclosed between [crotchets,] and distinguished by the initials of his name, B. B.," were the author's additional remarks on some of the Archbishop's proposed emendations. But as they all now stand under their proper texts, Dr. Blayney's observations have no distinctive mark, while those of the Archbishop are inserted as regular quotations, and have his name appended. which this work at first assumed, and which has been retained in each of the succeeding impressions. But though this was matter of necessity, and not of choice, in the first edition; (as will be evident on a perusal of the PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE ;) yet the same plea cannot be claimed in justification of subsequent editors, who neglected to simplify the arrangement, and to dismiss the perplexing part of the paraphernalia. old When, therefore, the publishers of this edition intrusted the execution of it to my care, as one of a series of volumes, consisting of original translations of all the Hebrew prophets, from Isaiah to Malachi, it was a part of their instructions that I should print the notes under that portion of the text in each page to which they severally referred, in accordance with the plan adopted in the rest of the series; inserting in their proper places the dislocated contents of the Appendix, and incorporating, under the three distinct heads of index, the matter which had originally been distributed under six. In adopting these judicious suggestions, I consider it a duty which I owe the reader, to apprise him that, in the TEXT, I have most scrupulously followed Dr. Blayney's punctuation, division of the several paragraphs, and even his peculiar mode of writing certain words, such as wo, desart, cowr, inclosure, incirclings, &c. The only exception of which I am conscious, is the word bemone,a style of spelling which I do not remember to have seen in any English writer. In the NOTES, while still adhering to the Doctor's exact phraseology, I have evinced less scrupulosity in amending the punctuation, and in approximating some words more closely to the usage of our modern orthography. In his mode of pointing, as well as in some of his divisions, he seems somewhat capriciously to have been at variance with himself: For instance, the word "behold," which rather frequently occurs in the text, is sometimes followed by a comma, and, in other cases of precisely similar import, is destitute of that necessary appendage: Thus, also, in his translation of the LAMENTATIONS OF JEREMIAH, every paragraph at its commencement exhibits the usual indentation, till we arrive at chap. iii. 38, when this mark of distinction entirely ceases. In these, and in others. of his peculiarities, I have copied my author, under the impression, whether erroneous or otherwise, that he may have had some good, though very recondite, reasons for such variations in his practice. Perhaps I should have erred less in the breach, than in the observance, of the rule which I thus prescribed to myself, had I uniformly printed Hexapla, instead of Hexaplar, though the latter is his own word in all the early notes. Dr. Blayney was accustomed, whenever he conceived the sense of the original required the aid of a slight circumlocution, to insert the supplementary words between crotchets; but I have preferred the plan, pursued in the copies of our authorized version of the Holy Scriptures, of distinguishing all such words by exhibiting them in Italic characters. Should the reader discover passages of this New Translation quoted in the notes, in phraseology different from that which is employed in the text, he must not impute such variations to the carelessness of the printer. Whether they may be deemed oversights or intentional alterations on the part of the learned author, I have in every instance respected his judgment; and have refrained from producing strict uniformity by bringing the expressions in the text, and those in the notes, into an unsanctioned correspondency. In the note on Jeremiah xlix. 20, in page 333, a clause occurs about which at first I felt some misgivings: "It would be unnatural to speak of sheep or lambs dragging any other creatures about without violence." But though, in one of the octavo impressions, the editor has chosen to substitute the word "with," I have retained "without; " because, on reflection, I perceived a tolerable sense of the passage might be elicited, though it is not enunciated in a manner the most felicitous: For the act of tearing and rending, as the phrase is varied in the preceding sentence, "unnatural” as it would undoubtedly be to "sheep or lambs," could not be performed even by animals of the mildest and most pacific habits "without violence." It must be allowed, however, that the train of the author's argument in that note appears to favour the substitution of "with." A few similar unauthorized alterations, by preceding editors, I have studiously avoided, such as "opposition" for apposition, in page 77, &c. One of their additions I have adopted, which I have been careful distinctly to mark, by enclosing it within crotchets. In page 379, Dr. Blayney had written, "But I am inclined that it is not," &c.; where the sense of the passage evidently requires the insertion of the supplementary words, "to think." The quotations from Greek and Roman authors, with which Dr. Blayney illustrated and enriched the notes to his New Translation, I have faithfully preserved as printed in the first edition, with the exception of two passages. One will be found in page 88, from the Phanissa of EURIPIDES, in which I have given the improved text and arrangement of BURTON's edition by BURGESS. The other is a passage from HOMER, which occurs in page 356, where all the copies that I had the opportunity to consult read eoions, instead of θεοειδες. I conclude this needful though prolix account of the present edition by expressing a hope, that the learned reader will not discover in it any glaring inaccuracy. I have used much diligence to insure correctness; knowing by painful experience, that if works of this description be faulty, they are worse than useless, they are actually misleading. HOXTON-SQUARE, JAMES NICHOLS. A NEW arrangement of the chapters in Jeremiah having been adopted from chapter xx. to chapter xlvi., they are here to be found in the following order : |