vulgar tongue, so that in a short time various versions of the several books sprang into existence, precisely in the same way as, in the early ages of the church, when the Latin language flourished in the West, many translations of the Greek books of the New Testament were made into Latin, as Augustine reports: "Whenever a Greek Codex came into the hands of any one in early times, who had ever so small a portion of knowledge of either tongue, he straightway attempted a translation." Just so do I conceive it to have happened in Judea, when the Greek prevailed to such an extent after the age of the Maccabees, that a number of Greek translations were made by private hands. Then were executed in Greek, versions of the books of Judith, Tobias, Job, Chronicles, and many others which we now have, the certainty of their execution by private individuals being proved by our utter ignorance of the names and circumstances of their authorship. From the period, however, in which the Chaldee tongue began to fall into disuse, and the people ceased to understand it as well as the Hebrew, as amid such a host of Greek versions many would be wanting in the qualities of fidelity and neatness, the greater Sanhedrim I conceive would take care to collect into one volume for the use of the commons, the most approved translations of the several books, or rather perhaps would stamp with their approbation some collection already made by some private person, appoint it to be read in the Synagogues, and thus it would naturally receive the sanction of Christ, and fall into use with the apostles and the Catholic Church. But as this greater Sanhedrim (by whose approbation it was received, or by whose permission it was used in public) consisted of 70 or 72 elders, hence it came to pass that this particular collection came to be known as that of the 70 elders, as Simon has very happily conjectured. Here then is the origin of the fable of the 70 interpreters, namely that this translation came forth under the sanction of the college of 70, and thus made its way into common use. But long after this 1 Augustinus, de Doctr. Christ. lib. 2, cap. 2, n. 16. event, some short time posterior to Christ, (a period but too fertile in spurious writings,) some few, finding that the history of this collection had never been made public, made this bold invasion upon truth, and to increase the glory of his nation forged the tale of Aristeas. Enough has been said to explain the time, place, and circumstances of this celebrated translation, and to show the ground on which the Pseudo-Aristeas built his fanciful story. VI. You are now, gentle reader, in possession of what has occurred to me in the shape of observation and argument in support of my novel opinion up to this period. If any thing should appear to thee imperfectly wrought out, and scarcely in harmony with the rigid requirements of criticism, whatever fails to commend itself to thee in approval of this exercitation, pardon: bethinking thee of the poverty of our human genius, as well expressed by Tully: Nihil esse simul et inventum et perfectum. LICENSES. Illustriss. ac Reverendiss. Dominus D. Salvator Filucci Can. hujus Metropolitanæ Eccl. S. Th. Prof. et Curiæ Archiep. Exam. Synodalis revideat, et in scriptis referat. Datum die 27, Decembris, 1766. PHIL. EP. ALLIFANVS, VIC. GEN. EMINENTISSIME PRINCEPS, Eminentiæ tuæ jussu "Dominici Diodati Exercitationem," quæ est "De Christo Græce loquente," cum ea, quæ par erat diligentia evolverim; tum nihil, quod aut bonis moribus, aut catholicæ fidei absonum reperi. Quin gratulandum huic juveni est, quem licet non sit ex Ecclesiasticorum ordine, cum juris scientia socias fecisse sanctorum voluminum scientiam, atque orientalium linguarum peritiam, atque ad communem Christianorum utilitatem, ac quæstum tot sæculorum intercapedine ignotam hanc sacræ historiæ potissimam, ac principem partem sane quam erudito commentario, et evidentissimorum monumentorum ac rationum ope aperuisse, ingentemque nomini suo famam conquisivisse. Quare quantocius usuræ publicæ libellum hunc faciendi libenter danda est potestas. Neapoli, die 15 Februarii, 1767. Februarii, 1767. SALVATOR CANONICUS FILUCCI. Attenta relatione Domini Revisoris imprimatur. Datum die 19 mensis PHIL. EP. ALLIFANVS, VIC. GEN. JOSEPH SPARANVS, CAN. DEP. Adm. Rev. D. Januarius Giordano in hæc Regia Studiorum Universitate Professor revideat, et in scriptis referat. Datum Neapoli, die 1 Augusti, 1766 NIC. EPISC. PUT. CAP. MAJOR. ILLUSTRISS. ET REVERENDISS. DOм. Perlegi librum, cujus epigraphe est "De Christo Hellenista Exercitate Auctore Dominico Diodati;" atque ex ejus lectione summam animo voluptatem cepi. Nihil in eo reperi, quod vel bonis moribus, vel Augusti Regis Nostri sacro-sancto juri noceat. Præterea acre ingenium, ingentem eruditionem, styli elegantiam, et Latinæ, Græcæ, Hebraicæque, &c. linguæ scientiam ostendit hic Auctor supra ætatem suam, et supra opinionem omnium; novamque de Christo Hellenista sententiam exquisitis argumentis tuetur, atque confirmat. Equidem nova sententia multos excitare solet adversarios; sed hoc commodum rei literariæ accidit, ut collatis cognitisque utriusque partis argumentis veritas facile eruatur atque affulgeat. Quare hunc librum, ex quo magna utilitas processura est, publicis typis edi posse puto, si idem tibi arriserit. Neapoli XI. Kal. Jan. an. 1767. Obsequentissimus, tibique Addictissimus, JANUARIUS GIORDANO, SAC. CAN. ANT. REG. Die 18 mensis Februarii, 1767, Neap. Viso Rescripto Suæ Regalis Majestatis sub die 7 currentis mensis et anni. ac relatione Rev. D. Januarii Giordano, de commissione Rev. Regii Cappellani Majoris ordine præfatæ Regalis Majestatis ; Regalis Camera Sanctæ Claræ providet, decernit, atque mandat, quod imprimatur cum inserta forma presentis supplicis libelli, ac approbationis dicti Rev. Revisoris; verum in publicatione servetur Regia Pragmatica hoc suum. GAETA. DE FIORI. VARGAS MACCIVOCA. Ill. Marchio Citus Præses S. R. C. et Ill. Caput Aulæ Dux Perrelli, tempore subscriptionis impediti. Reg. fol. 127 t. CARULLI. ARTICLE VIII REPLY TO MR. WILSON'S REVIEW OF COMMON SCHOOL HISTORIES. In the July number of the Repository, there is a criticism on American Common School Histories, by a gentleman, who, being about to publish one himself, very naturally seeks to destroy public confidence in his rivals, and that the most strenuously where the most annoyance is apprehended. Mrs. Willard's Histories of the American Republic, especially the abridged one, appears to have received this distinction. These works have been commended by those who have used them, for the diffusive glow of patriotic, moral, and religious feeling which pervades them. On this point, Mr. Wilson has said nothing. The only fact of any consequence, in which he accuses Mrs. Willard of error,' is where she asserts that the territory first discovered by the Cabots was Newfoundland. Here Mrs. Willard is right, and Mr. Bancroft, whom Mr. Wilson follows, in a different statement, is in error. That Mrs. Willard's assertion is correct, is shown from the name "Prima Vesta," given to the island at the time of its discovery, and never changed; and also, by the concurrent testimony of all historians since, until within the last twenty years; when the specious writer of a "Memoir of Sebastian Cabot," in making a furious attack on Hackluyt's history, undertook to unsettle this point. But this writer has been conclusively answered, (and probably since Mr. Bancroft penned the first part of his history,) by Mr. Tytler, the well known author of the "History of Scotland." Mr. Wilson asserts that Mrs. Willard pursues in her history the synchronistic method of arrangement, which, as he says, is unsuited to the purposes of instruction. Mrs. Willard does not pursue this method, neither does she confine herself to the ethnographical, but, after a clearly defined plan, she unites both, with a view to avoid the inconveniences and combine the excellences of each. Mr. Wilson makes great account of the confusion of dates, which he says all English and American histories have fallen into, from the exchange of old style to new: and he is at a loss to account for the indifference of later writers to the subject. We e suppose the true reason of this to be, that the time when this confusion occurs, is now so distant, that they have We make no account of Mr. W.'s grave comments on the accidental exchange of the word east for west, by which he infers an attempt to show that Delaware was settled in New Jersey. regarded it as of too small importance, whether an event was ten or eleven days sooner or later, to give themselves much trouble about it. We do not undervalue chronology, for the grand connexion of events by cause and effect is linked to the order of time. Mrs. Willard, by devising a series of maps corresponding to the principal epochs of our country's early history, and by her late invention of the " American Chronographer," may justly claim to have done for American chronology what no other writer has done. But as the astronomer, in calculating the appearances of the heavens, finds that the visual angle of the distance between any two bodies, becoming less and less as they recede, is at length nothing, so in history, ten or eleven days, at a hundred years' distance, becomes, to the mental vision, an imperceptible difference in time. It matters as little whether the day kept in honor of the Pilgrims' landing, is or is not the actual anniversary, as it does whether Christmas, which is celebrated by so great a part of Christendom, is or is not the real anniversary of our Lord's nativity. If the events, with their consequences, be duly and gratefully apprehended, that is all which is essential. In Mr. Wilson's attempts at the correction of Mrs. Willard's style, we shall not follow him through the minutiae of his hypercriticism; in which, however, he has made sundry incorrect assertions, and some unfair quotations. Of the words which he cites as incorrectly used, there is not one in which the definitions given by Mr. Webster in his large dictionary do not justify Mrs. Willard. We would not assert that there is not a word in Mrs. Willard's books used in an incorrect signification, but this we do assert, that Mr. Wilson has not found one. In winding up his article, he uses expressions by which he would have it believed, that he only stated, here and there as it happened, some small part of the errors which he had detected in Mrs. Willard's books. But in the paragraph preceding we find, from observing the pages to which he refers, that he had looked regularly through the questions in small type at the foot of the pages in the small history, where he gleaned a few colloquialisms, which, though proba |