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as is the practice at the present day. The same writer, as cited by Renaudot,† says, that in the monastery of St. Macarius, Arabic was never employed. At last, even the priests became so ignorant as to be able merely to read the letters: and the patriarch Michael was unable to read either Coptic or Arabic.

It is difficult to ascertain the exact time when the Coptic ceased to be understood in Egypt. It is plain, from a passage of Severus, bishop of Aschmounein, in the preface to the History of the Alexandrian Patriarchs, that in the tenth century it ceased to be spoken: but it seems that the higher classes and the learned still studied it, and that a knowledge of it was as common in Egypt as an acquaintance with Latin is now in Europe.

Renaudot has contended,§ that in the century succeeding the Arabian conquest, Coptic was disused in the major part of Egypt: but this is refuted by the facts mentioned above; and books in it are extant, written long after that period. Such is the martyrology || of one John, who was put to death under the reign of El-Kamel, son of El-Adel, a prince of the Ayoubite dynasty; which is unaccompanied even by an Arabic version. Besides, the Coptic MSS. are filled with marginal notes in Coptic, which, though ill spelled and sometimes ungrammatical, were certainly written by persons who knew something of the language.

A Syriac MS. brought from Egypt by Assemani, was written in the year of Christ 1484, by one John Ezechiel, a Copt by nation, who was learned in the Arabic, Syriac, and Egyptian languages. I

These facts, however, refer chiefly to Lower Egypt, since in the Thebais, Coptic was in use at a much later period. Abou Selah makes mention ** of a custom established in the

Sonnini Voyage dans la Haute et la Basse Egypte, Tom. II. p. 189, The liturgies printed by the Roman Propaganda are always accompanied by an Arabic version.

+ Dissert. de Copt. Alexand. liturgiis, p. C. Comment. ad lit. p. 207. These dissertations are printed in his Collectio Liturgiarum Orientalium. Paris. 1716. 2 vols. 4to.

↑ Hist. Patriarch. Alexand. p.514.

§ Comment. ad Liturg. Copt. p. 204.

MS. Copt. Vat. 69. f. 40.

Assemani Bibliotheca Orientalis Clementino Vaticana. Tom. I. p. 563. Romæ, 1719.

** MS. Arab. 138. f. 102.

town of Asna, which subsisted in his time: the Christians assisted at the nuptials of the Mossulmen, and, walking before the new-married couple, recited formules in CoptoSahidic.

Beyond the sixteenth century it is impossible to trace the state of the language. Vansleb saw a Copt, eighty years old and almost deaf, who understood it. Maillet + had learned that it was still spoken in some parts of the Sahid; and Forskalknew at Cairo a Copt who was well acquainted with it. Farther we have no means of tracing it.

In the third chapter we have a critical history of the study of the language in Europe, and of the books which have been published concerning it. From this we shall make no extracts; and can only remark in general, that it is the most pleasing specimen of literary history which we have lately seen it displays sound critical judgment, and is entirely free from all national prejudices, as well as from an envious desire of detracting from the merit of contemporary scholars. M. Q. appears sufficiently acquainted with English literary history, and (which in Oriental literature is most essential) with the writers of the German school.

The fourth section contains some very learned and acute remarks on the general grammar of the Coptic tongue. To the greater part of our readers, an extract from this part of his volume would be very dry and uninteresting. It may, therefore, be sufficient to recommend his observations on this subject to the notice of Coptic students.§-M. Q. then proceeds to give a list of the principal Coptic MSS. which exist in the different European libraries; and of the works in which catalogues of them may be found. We could have wished, that he had mentioned the MSS. of the Coptic versions of the Bible with which he is acquainted, because the knowledge of them is extremely useful. We also hoped that he would have noticed the numeration by which they were known in the libraries from whence the French stole them, when they were removed to the Imperial library at Paris. But, such as it is, it is extremely useful, as it points out the

* Relation de l'E'gypte, p. 363.

+ Commercium Literarium Picquesii. p. 336. † Ap. Niebuhr, Description de l'Arabie, p. 79. § Recherches, p. 110-115.

Recherches, p. 115-146.

probable situation of many MSS., which would be very useful to any one who would undertake an Ecclesiastical History of Egypt, which could not be adequately performed by any man unacquainted with Coptic and Arabic.

In the fifth chapter we find a very learned and luminous dissertation upon the Basmuric or Baschmuric dialect. It is levelled against the hypothesis of Georgi, who, not satisfied with what Münter had said relative to the fragments published in his Commentatio de Indole Versionis N. T. Sahidica,t had endeavoured to shew that the Basmuric was the same dialect with that spoken in the Ammonian Oasis, and which, according to Herodotus, equally partook of the Egyptian and Ethiopian languages. Secondly, that the Arabic grammarians called this dialect the Baschmuric or Basmuric, because it was used among the people called

or by the Arabic historians. Thirdly, that these people had nothing in common with the province of Baschmur, of which we read in Abu'l-feda. Fourthly, that the Arabic word is derived from the Coptic пс&нр regio trans, because they inhabited the country beyond the Nile: and that their territory consisted of Oasis major and O. minor; bounded on one side by Nubia and Abyssinia, and on the other by the Oasis Ammonis.-In opposition to this, our author maintains: §-first, that we cannot suppose the fragment in question to belong to the dialect mentioned by Herodotus, because he says it contained Æthiopian words, whereas the passages published by Münter are in a pure dialect of Coptic, and have no affinity with Ethiopic; and that the language spoken for many centuries by the inhabitants of the Ammonian Oasis is a barbarous dialect, possessing no affinity to the Egyptian. Secondly, that Athanasius the grammarian expressly says, that the Basmuric dialect was used in the province of Baschmur :-Thirdly, that

القبتي البشموري المستعمل ببلاد البشمور

Fragment. Evang. S. Johannis, p. 487.

↑ Havniæ, 1789. 4to. p. 75. Münter believed these fragments to be only corrupt Sahidic. Georgi supposed them to belong to the Basmuric dialect.

Histor. II. 42. tom. I. p. 154. ed. Reizii et Schäferi. 8vo. Lips. 1807. Έοντες Αιγυπτίων και Αιθιοπων άποικοι, και φωνην μεταξύ αμφοτέρων νομίζοντες, § Recherches, p. 150.

though it cannot be doubted that this dialect was used among the people called and ; it is not equally certain that they inhabited the country assigned to them by Georgi, who founded his conjecture on a passage of Renaudot's History of the Patriarchs, in which R. has mistaken the sense of the Arabic original. This passage M. Q. translates at great length from the original MS. and compares it with other Arabic histories. He afterwards says, that those Basmurites must have lived not in the Thebais, nor in the Oases, but in Lower Egypt; and, in fact, the historians always represent Lower Egypt as the theatre of the war between Khalif Mamoun and the revolted Basmurites.

This is an abridgment and simplification of our author's argument. He has since been ably opposed by Engelbreth, in the Preface to his Fragmenta Basmurico-Coptica, V et N. Testamenti, of which we gave some account in one of our early Numbers. We are inclined, upon a review of the subject, to side with Engelbreth, to whose work we must beg leave to refer those who wish to examine the question farther.

M. Q. has printed in this volume a fragment of Jeremiah, beginning Lamentations iv. 22, together with his epistle to the Jews of Babylon. This fragment is in the same dialect as those published by Engelbreth. It is taken from an ancient MS. discovered by the author among the Sahidic MSS. in the imperial library at Paris. He has made a very accurate Latin version, and has added many critical notes, It occupies in his work eighteen pages. He afterwards adds a curious note, taken from a Coptic MS., which once be longed to the Vatican: our author marks it 68.

It only remains for us to say, that we have not for a great while seen any treatise on Oriental literature which has given us so much pleasure and instruction. We, therefore, ear. nestly recommend it to our readers.

It is, perhaps, not disposed in the lucid order which we could wish should it arrive at a second edition, the author would do well to divide the first chapter into two: in the first part, to examine how far the connection extends between the ancient Egyptian and modern Coptic; in the second, to detail the history of the language under the Greek and Roman empires: the addition of an index rerum is indis

*P. 226.

Recherches, p. 163.

Havniæ, 1811. 4to. p. xi-xviii.

pensible and since the writer has emended many Arabic authors, he might with propriety add an index auctorum emendatorum. A fac-simile of the MS. from which the fragments were extracted would be also useful.

M. Q. has received many valuable hints from Professor S. de Sacy, to whom with great propriety he dedicates the volume. He announces in the preface his intention of publishing several volumes on Egyptian Geography and Antiquities; and, which will immortalize his name, a Coptic lexicon, collected from the invaluable treasure of MSS. in the royal library at Paris. This work we shall hail with rapture, whenever it may appear, and shall gladly communicate a notice of it to our readers.

ART. IX.-Nine Sermons, on the Nature of the Evidence, by which the fact of our Lord's Resurrection is established; and on various other Subjects. To which is prefixed, a Dissertation on the Prophecies of the Messiah dispersed among the Heathen. By SAMUEL HORSELEY, late Lord Bishop of St. Asaph. 8vo. pp. 363. Longman. 1815.

Ir is with a considerable degree of diffidence, that the editor of this elegant volume introduces the "Dissertation" to the public attention-"an unfinished essay, evidently not intended by the author for the press."-" Incomplete, however, as it confessedly is, his literary friends have advised him to publish it, as containing the bishop's thoughts on a most important subject." Though the subject be more curious than important, this disquisition has certainly been read with greater avidity than any of the "nine sermons," which make up the remainder of the volume. "The expectation of an extraordinary personage (says the bishop) who should arise in Judæa, and be the instrument of great improvements in the condition of mankind, was almost universal at the time of our Saviour's birth: and the ground of this expec tation was probably some traditional obscure remembrance of the original promises. But the point, at which Dr. Horseley labours, is to discover by what means this remembrance was perpetuated in the later and darker ages of idolatry, when the name of Jehovah was forgotten, except in one nation,

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