gentleman, her father, had not returned to us, and told me, he insisted on my staying to dine with him; for he loved to take a glass after dinner with a facetious companion, and would be obliged to me for my company. "At present," continued he,

you will excuse me, sir, as business engages me till we dine; but my daughter will chat the hours away with you, and show you the curiosities of her library and grot. HARRIET will supply my place."

This was a delightful invitation indeed, and after returning my hearty thanks to the old gentleman for the favour he did me, I addressed myself to Miss NOEL, when her father was gone, and we were walking back to the library in the garden, and told her ingenuously, that though I could not be positive as to the situation of my soul, whether I was in love with her or not, as I never had experienced the passion before, nor knew what it was to admire a woman, having lived till that morning in a state of indifference to her sex, yet I found very strange emotions within me, and I was sure I could not leave her without the most lively and afflicting inquietude. "You will pardon, I hope, madam, this effusion of my heart, and suffer me to demonstrate by a thousand and a thousand actions, that I honour you in a manner unutterable, and, from this time, can imagine no happiness but with you.' Sir," this inimitable maid replied, "you are an entire stranger to me, and to declare a passion on a few hours' acquaintance, must be either to try my weakness, or because you think a young woman is incapable of relishing any thing but such stuff, when alone in conversation with a gentleman. I beg then I may hear no more of this; and as I am sure you can talk upon many more rational subjects, request your favour to give me your opinion on some articles in this Hebrew Bible you see lying open on the table in this room. My father, sir, among other things, has taken great pains to instruct me, for several years that I have lived with him in a kind of solitary state, since the death of my mother, whom I lost when I was very young, and has taught me to read and understand this inspired Hebrew book; and says we must ascribe primævity and sacred prerogatives to this language. For my part, I have some doubts as to this matter, which I dare not mention to my father. Tell me, if you please, what you think of the thing?

"Miss NOEL," I answered, "since it is your command that I should be silent as to that flame your glorious eyes and understanding have lighted up in my soul, like some superior nature, before whom I am nothing, silent I will be, and tell you what I fancy on a subject I am certain you understand much better than I do. My knowledge of the Hebrew is but small, though I have learned to read and understand the Old Testament in the anteBabel language.

'My opinion on your question is, that the Biblical Hebrew wa the language of Paradise, and continued to be spoken by all nen down to, and at the time of Moses writing the Pentateuch, and long after. Abraham, though bred in Chaldea, could converse freely with the Egyptians, the Sodomites, and the King of Gerar; nor do we find that any variety of speech interrupted the commerce of his son Isaac with the several nations around, or that it ever stopped Jacob in his travels. Nay, the Israelites, in their journeys through the deserts of Arabia, after they had been some hundred years in Egypt, though joined by a mixed multitude, and meeting with divers kinds of people, had not corrupted their language, and were easily understood, because it was then the universal one. The simplicity and distinctness of the Hebrew tongue preserved its purity so long and so universally. It could not well be degenerate till the knowledge of nature was lost, as its words consist but of two or three letters, and are perfectly well suited to convey sensible and strong ideas. It was at the captivity,t in the space of seventy years, that the Jews by temporising with the ignorant victors, so far neglected the usage of their own tongue, that none but the scribes or learned men could understand Moses's books."

"This, I confess," said Miss NOEL, "is a plausible account of the primævity and pre-eminence of the sacred Hebrew, but I think it is not necessary the account should be allowed as fact. As to its being the language in Paradise, this is not very probable, as a compass of eighteen hundred years must have changed the first language very greatly by an increase of words and new inflections, applications, and constructions of them. The first few inhabitants of the earth were occupied in few things, and wanted not a variety of words; but when their descendants invented arts and improved sciences, they were obliged to coin new words and technical terms, and by extending and transferring their words to new subjects, and using them figuratively, were forced to multiply the senses of those already in use. The language was thus gradually cultivated, and every age improved it. All living languages are liable to such change. I therefore conclude, that the language which served the first pair would not do for succeeding generations. It became vastly more copious and extensive, when the numbers of mankind were great, and their language must serve conversation and the ends of life, and answer all the purposes of intelligence and correspondence. New words and new terms of speech, from time to time, were necessary, to give true ideas of the things, actions, offices, places,

↑ The captivity here spoken of began at Nebuzaradan's taking and burning the city and temple of jerusalem, and sending Zedekiah, the last king, in chains, to Nebuchadnezzar, who ordered his children to be butchered before his face, his eyes to be put out, and then thrown into a dungeon, where he died. This happened before our Lord, 588 years; after the flood, 1766; of the world, 3416.

17

and times peculiar to the Hebrews. Even Hutchinson allows there was some coinage, some new words framed. We find in the latter prophets words not to be met with in the Pentateuch : and from thence we may suppose, that Moses used words unknown to Nimrod and Heber and that the men at Shinaar * had words which the people before the flood were strangers to. Even in the seventeenth century, there must have been a great alteration in the language of Adam; and when the venerable Patriarch and his family came into a new world, that was in a different state from the earth before the deluge, and saw a vast variety of things without precedent in the old world, the alterations in nature and diet, must introduce a multitude of new terms in things of common experience and usage; as, after that amazing revolution in the natural world, not only the clouds and meteors were different, and the souls that were saved had a new and astonishing view of the ruin and repair of the system; but Noah did then begin to be an husbandman; he planted a vineyard; he invented wine; and to him the first grant was given of eating flesh. All these things required as it were a new language, and the terms with mankind increased. The Noahical language must be quite another thing after the great events of the flood. Had Methuselah, who conversed many years with Adam; who received from his mouth the history of the creation and fall, and who lived six hundred years with Noah, to communicate to him all the knowledge he got from Adam; had this ante-diluvian wise man been raised from the dead to converse with the post-diluvian fathers, or even with Noah, the year he died, that is three hundred and fifty years after the flood; is it not credible from what I have said, that he would have heard a language very different from that tongue he used in his conversations with Adam even in the nine hundred and thirtieth year of the first man? † I imagine, Methuselah would

* Shinaar comprehends the plain of Chaldea or Babylonia in Asia; and the "men of Shinaar" were the first colony that Noah sent out from Ararat, the mountains of Armenia, where the Ark rested after the flood, to settle in the grand plains of Babylonia, twelve hundred miles from Ararat. This was in the days of Peleg, two hundred and forty years after the flood, when the eight had increased to sixty thousand; which made a remove of part of them necessary.

The extraordinary longevity of the ante-diluvians is accounted utterly incredible by many moderns; but it did not appear so unnatural to the early ages of Paganism. Let no one, says Josephus, upon comparing the lives of the antients with our lives, and with the few years which we now live, think that what we have said of them is false. I have for witness to what I have said, all those who have written antiquities, both among the Greeks and Barbarians. For even Manetho, who wrote the Egyptian History; and Berosus, who collected the Chaldean Monuments; and Mochus and Hostiæus; and besides these, Hierony mus the Egyptian, and those who composed the Phænician history, agree to what I bere say. Hesiod also, and Hecutus, and Hallanicus, and Acusilaus; and besides these, Ephorus and Nicolaus of Damascus, relate that the ancients lived a thousand years.

The antient Latin authors likewise confirm the sacred history in this branch and Varro in particular, made an enquiry, What the reason was that the antients lived a thousand years?

The author had here promised "a continuation of this note in the Appendix," but it may be proper to notice, that the first volume of this work was printed in 1756, and the second

not have been able to have talked with Noah, at the time I have mentioned, of the circumstances that then made the case of mankind, and of the things of common experience and usage. He must have been unable to converse at his first appearance?"

What you say, madam," I replied," is not only very probable, but affords a satisfaction unexpected in a subject on which we are obliged, for want of data, to use conjectures. I yield to your superior sense the notion, that the Scriptures were written in the language of Paradise. Most certain it is, that even in respect of our own language, for example, the subjects of Henry I would find it as much out of their power to understand the English of George the First's reign, were they brought up again, as the ordinary people of our time are at a loss to make anything of the English written in the first Henry's reign. But when I have granted this, you will be pleased to inform me, how Abraham and his sons conversed and commerced with the nations, if the Hebrew was not the universal language in their time? If the miracle at Babel was a confusion of tongues, as is generally supposed, how did the holy family talk and act with such distant kings and people ? Illuminate me, thou glorious girl, in this dark article, and be my teacher in Hebrew learning, as I flatter myself you will be the guide and dirigent of all my notions and my days. Yes, charming HARRIET, my fate is in your hands. Dispose of it as you will, and make me what you please."

"You force me to smile," the illustrious Miss NOEL replied, "and oblige me to call you an odd compound of a man. Pray, sir, let me have no more of those romantic flights, and I will answer your question as well as I can; but it must be at some other time. There is more to be said on the miracle at Babel, and its effects, than I could dispatch between this and our hour of dining, and therefore, the remainder of our leisure till dinner, we will pass in a visit to my grotto, and in walking round the garden to the parlour we came from." To the grotto then we went, and to the best of my power I will give my reader a description of this splendid room.

In one of the fine rotundas I have mentioned, at one end of the green amphitheatre very lately described, the shining apartment was formed. Miss NOEL's hand had covered the floor with the most beautiful mosaic my eyes have ever beheld, and filled the arched roof with the richest fossil gems. The mosaic painting on the ground was wrought with small coloured stones or pebbles, and sharp pointed bits of glass, measured and proportioned to which the Appendix was to have been added, did not make its appearance till 1766, and then without the promised addition. What the Appendix was intended to comprise will be found more fully noticed in the introductory portion to this volume. The material connected with the dispersion at Babel, was derived by the author, from Blomberg's Life of Edmund Dickinson, M.D., 1739, 8vo, of which subsequent notice will be made. ED.]

together, so as to imitate in their assemblage the strokes and colour of the objects, which they were intended to represent, and they represented by this lady's art, the Temple of Tranquillity, described by Volusenus in his dream.

At some distance the fine temple looks like a beautiful painted picture, as do the birds, the beasts, the trees in the fields about and the river which murmurs at the bottom of the rising ground; "Amnis lucidus et vadosus in quo cernere erat verii generis pisces colludere." So wonderfully did this genius perform the piece, that fishes of many kinds seem to take their pastime in the bright stream. But above all, is the image of the philosopher, at the entrance of the temple, vastly fine. With pebbles and scraps of glass, all the beauties and graces are expressed, which the pencil of an able artist could bestow on the picture of Democritus. You see him as Diogenes Laertius has drawn him, with a philosophical joy in his countenance, that shews him superior to all events. Summum bonorum finem statuit esse lætitiam, non eam quae sit eadem voluptati, sed eam per quam animus degit perturbationis expers; and with a finger, he points to the following golden inscription on the portico of the temple :

Flagrans sit studium bene merendi de seipso,
Et seipsum perficiendi.

That is, "by a rectitude of mind and life, secure true happiness and the applause of your own heart, and let it be the labour of your every day, to come as near perfection as it is possible for human nature to get." This mosaic piece of painting is indeed an admirable thing. It has a fine effect in this grotto and is a noble monument of the masterly hand of Miss NOEL.

Nor was her fine genius less visible in the striking appearance of the extremely beautiful shells and valuable curiosities, all round the apartment. Her father spared no cost to procure her the finest things of the ocean and rivers from all parts of the world, and pebbles, stones, and ores of the greatest curiosity and worth. These were all disposed in such a manner as not only shed a glorious lustre in the room, but shewed the understanding of this young lady in natural knowledge.

In one part of the grot were collected and arranged the stony coverings of all the shell-fish in the sea, from the striated patella and its several species, to the pholades in all their species; and of those that live in the fresh streams, from the suboval limpet or umbonated patella and its species, to the triangular and deeply striated cardia. Even all the land shells were in this collection, from the pomatia to the round-mouthed turbo. The most beautiful genera of the sea-shells, intermixed with fossil corals of all the kinds; with animal substances become fossil; and with copper-ores, agates, pebbles, pieces of the finest marmora and