more respectable and better digested performance, printed with more correctness, and entitled to more praise, because the author has walked all the way, step by step, in the path of good old Avenarius and others? And does not the Lexicon of Gesenius, or of Professor Gibbs, "contain all the words of the Hebrew language, arranged in their alphabetical order”? But more of this in the sequel.

How this author comes to be so much more full and copious than his brethren of the same Fach we shall see in the sequel. At present we pass on to other matters.

Gesenius comes in, as might be expected from such a scholar as our author, for a portion of his unqualified reprobation. He speaks of his "peculiar and absurd notions" [in philology be it remembered], and "the injurious tendency of his writings." He declares, that "his Lexicon does not contain one half of the words in the Hebrew language," and avows that his own work is "designed to counteract his German Neology."

We had supposed, that a lexicon is not the appropriate place for polemics in theology. Not so Mr. Roy. He avows, distinctly, that his work is designed to counteract Gesenius. Now as Gesenius has but little indeed, in his Lexicon, which savours of his theology, Mr. Roy would find but moderate employment in looking to his errors, and need not have written such a large book, for the sake of counteracting Gesenius's influence.

Another reason given by Mr. Roy for publishing his work, is, that "the definitions [of Hebrew words] are rendered into another language, and so are completely useless to hundreds of students." He designs to say, as we suppose, that the meanings of Hebrew words are, in many lexicons, given in the Latin language, and therefore are not accessible to those who are not acquainted with this language. But he goes on further still and says, that even to those who do understand Latin, "such lexicons are comparatively useless, as it is often difficult to find a correspondent word in Latin, that will fully convey the sense of the Hebrew."

Now we do not mean to call the fact here stated in question; viz. that the Latin language does not, and in some cases cannot, express all the meaning of the Hebrew. But the implication which Mr. Roy must necessarily intend to make by this statement, in the connexion in which it stands, is, that

what the Latin language cannot do, the English can; i. e. what the writers of Hebrew-Latin dictionaries have not done and could not do, he has done in his Hebrew-English dictionary. But, even conceding that he has done his work well, it would not establish the implication which he intended to make. There are some points, in respect to which the English tongue certainly approaches nearer to the Hebrew than the Latin. On the other hand, there are other things in which the Latin idiom can express the peculiar power of the Hebrew more briefly and energetically than the English. There are others still, which neither Latin nor English can express; and all that remains for the translator is, periphrasis, or approximation to an expression of the meaning of the original by circumlocutory explanation. Every Hebrew student must surely know all this. It is a matter which falls within his daily experience and observation. Yet Mr. Roy's statement would imply, that what the Latin cannot do, the English can; and that, in his Lexicon, no failures to express fully and exactly the original Hebrew are to be met with.

The author, a little farther on, expresses his hope of a favorable reception of his work on the part of the public, on the ground, that "it is the first and only original English and Hebrew lexicon ever published in the United States." We had supposed, however, that the Lexicon of Mr. Gibbs, not to mention others, although professing to be compiled from the works of Gesenius, still contained as much fruit of his own. proper study and investigation as most works of the like kind. are wont to do at the present day, certainly very much more than Mr. Roy's. But the modesty of the author prevented him from stating all which he had done. Mr. Roy does not seem to be under any bondage from such ties as those of authors like Mr. Gibbs ;

Our author next proceeds to state sixteen grounds on which his Lexicon deserves the preference above all others which have been published. We shall follow him, step by step, in regard to his principal grounds, and subject them to examination. Our readers, however, must not be alarmed at such a promise on our part. We engage to be as brief as any justice to the subject will permit, and on most of the heads to occupy but very little of the reader's time. We commence with Mr. Roy's leading particular:

(1) "It is more correct and complete in its definitions, and

contains several thousand more words, than Hebrew lexicons in general." p. vi.

As these are fundamental qualities of a good lexicon, we shall find indulgence here, we hope, to be somewhat particular in our examination.

It will be seen, at once, however, by every reader who understands the nature of this subject, that we can do nothing more, in a review like the present, than to select a few specimens, and then leave him to judge by analogy.

We begin then with the first verbal root which occurs, viz. 7. In Kal this has two meanings, to lose one's self, or to become lost, with particular reference to losing one's self by wandering out of the right path, or in a desert place, etc. As connected with this a secondary and more frequent sense is, to perish, pereo, intereo. A third meaning, somewhat less certain, is, to become unhappy or wretched; and this must be considered rather as a tropical than a literal sense of the word.

These several meanings exhaust the senses of the word in its first conjugation. Some slight variations these receive, from the objects with which the verb stands connected in different passages.

The first of these senses, however, our author does not give, unless he means that the reader shall suppose it to be implied in No. 2, went astray, departed from God. Now, as we read this "definition," (to use Mr. Roy's phrase,) we can receive no other impression from it, than that 2 means, to go astray from God, to depart from God. But the word is applied in the Scriptures, to sheep wandering away from their pasture or owner, Ps. cxix. 176, Jer. 1. 6, Ezek. xxxiv. 4, 16. Are we then to suppose that the sheep have departed from God? Or are we, as Gesenius has done, to understand that wander is generic in its meaning, and may be taken in a literal or a tropical sense, as the exigency of the case may demand?

The secondary meaning, to perish, our author places first, thus showing that he does not understand how to distinguish the natural order of meanings according to their obvious philological sequency.

But we have a third meaning, as given by Mr. Roy; viz. to become vain, empty, desolate, destitute. Now it is possible, we admit, to make out of the meaning perish, something kindred to becoming desolate or destitute; but in what tolerable VOL. XLVI. No. 99.

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way we can make out the meaning of becoming vain or empty for 7, it would, as we believe, be somewhat difficult to show.

Thus is the verb 7 despatched, excepting with some account of a few of its formative suffixes; of which notice will be taken under another head. The meanings thus given by Mr. Roy are followed by a reference to some eleven passages of Scripture, in which Kal, Piël, and Hiphil, are all intermingled without any distinction; although the Piel of this verb has a causative sense, viz. to cause to wander, to cause to perish; and Hiphil has an active transitive sense, (for Kal has only an intransitive one,) viz. he destroyed, etc. All this, too, when the author tells us, in No. 11. of his Preface, that he "has taken particular care to distinguish the active, passive, and causative sense of verbs, and the distinctions necessary to be observed in their conjugations." But here we see them all intermingled, as examples of the sense which he has assigned to the verb in Kal, without any notice at all to the learner, that any distinction is to be made between them.

Nor is this all. He presents us with three classes of meanings to the verb. According to his own showing, however, he should have made at least four, or perhaps five; for his "definitions" are so loose, that we confess ourselves to be at a loss how we should classify them. His texts to support or exemplify these meanings, are, on the other hand, all commingled, so that no one can even guess which meaning is designed to be confirmed by any particular text, until he opens his Bible and hunts it out, and then judges for himself in the best manner he may be able. A more chaotic mass, therefore, cannot be even imagined, than we have here. Kal, Piël, and Hiphil, all ranged under the Kal meanings; all the different meanings professedly exemplified by a mass of texts thrown together promiscuously without the least distinction; and the poor learner left, like a real 7, to wend his way through a thicket from which all sun-light is excluded, not only without a path, but without a star or a compass to guide him.

Nor is this all. The author tells us in his Preface, that "the various passages are referred to, where each word occurs in the Bible. This will, therefore, serve as a Concordance, and save considerable expense."

The argumentum ad crumenam is sometimes a weighty

argument, with a part of our community. The author has here made his appeal to it. Let us see with what reason.

Out

The word 2, (with pause-accent), and, with prefixed, 2, (which Mr. Roy has not put down in his lexicon,) occurs, according to Buxtorf's Hebrew Concordance, thirtytwo times in the Hebrew Scriptures, in the third person singular, Præter of Kal. Mr. Roy has given us seven references in Kal for this word. These comprehend not only the Præter, but the Future, the Infinitive, and the Participle. If we go now to Buxtorf for all these forms, we find some hundreds of instances of this nature. But as Mr. Roy will doubtless say, that he has elsewhere given the derived forms of Kal, we will limit ourselves here to the third person Præter. of his seven references in Kal, the three first are palpable errors; viz. Num. xvii. 12, Ps. ix. 67 (the whole Psalm has twenty-one verses), Deut. xxxii. 28. Of the remaining four, two (Job iii. 3, xx. 7) are of the future tense, one is in the Infinitive mode, and the other a Participle. So then, out of thirty-two cases in which the word 7 occurs in the third person Præter Kal, in the Hebrew Scriptures, we have not one single exemplification or proof in Mr. Roy's work. The learner might conclude, therefore, that Mr. Roy has got up a mere imaginary Kal Præter form, and that the good book does not at all exhibit it.

Add to all this, that the references in question are designed as a proof that the author has rightly assigned the various meanings of the word, and the reader has the case fairly before him. A more complete exhibition of want of discrimination, carelessness, and unpardonable negligence, we may challenge the whole circle of lexicography to produce. And yet this is the book, which has the only claim to perfect and complete "definitions" of words, and which, as the reader is solemnly assured, is to supersede all necessity of a Hebrew Concordance.

We can assure the reader, that this is a fair sample of the work, so far as verbs are concerned. We took 1 because it is the first actual verbal root that occurs in a Hebrew dictionary, and because we wished it to be apparent, that we did not busy ourselves in searching eagerly after the author's errors or failures. If any one, however, is dissatisfied with the exhibition of a single case, we can only ask him to open Mr. Roy's book, and search for himself. We say to him,