In Canada all sort of mercantile business is overdone; so that there is little scope for capitalists. Mr. Howison suggests it as a convenient asylum for half-pay officers with families; but he adds, that little is to be made by farming, unless by those who engage in it practically, the high wages of labour absorbing the whole profit. Unless, therefore, the officer were to labour himself, and to be assisted by his children, our author does not think that it would be a very profitable speculation. According to this view of the matter, which we have no doubt is correct, all emigrants to those unoccupied countries must be reduced to the station, and undergo the hardships of day-labourers; and when we add to this, the want of domestic service of which our author complains, it is evident that no one, above the rank of a labourer, ought voluntarily to quit the well ordered community of this country to encounter a state of manners adverse to all his feelings and habits.

ART. V.-An Arabic Vocabulary and Index for Richardson's Arabic Grammar; in which the Words are explained according to the Parts of Speech, and the Derivatives are traced to their Originals in the Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac Langua ges. With Tables of Oriental Alphabets, Points, and Affixes. By JAMES NOBLE, Teacher of Languages in Edinburgh. 4to. pp. xviii. and 118. Edin. 1820.

INCREDIBLE to strangers as the statement may appear, and lamentable as we certainly feel it to be, there can be no question that this is "the very first work in Arabic ever printed in Scotland" This fact Mr. Noble has, with great propriety, brought prominently forward in the dedication of his volume to the "very Reverend the Principal, and the Professors of" our alma mater the University of Edinburgh ;" and though we are perfectly certain that he had no intention to disparage the literary character of that distinguished seminary, and the other Scotish universities, we cannot help regarding the remark as implying one of the severest reflections.

We should not, it is true, and we do not, forget the obligations, even in this interesting branch of learning, under which we lie to some of our countrymen. Unquestionably, however, much less has been done by them than might naturally and justly have been expected. The learned dissertation of Professor James Robertson of

Edinburgh, de Antiquitate et Utilitate Linguæ Arabicæ, printed here in 1750, together with his frequent comparison of Hebrew constructions, idioms, &c. with those of the Arabic, in his elaborate Grammatica Hebræa, and his occasional illustration of the meaning of Hebrew words from their Arabic synonymes, or probable roots, in his valuable Clavis Pentateuchi, we admit sufficiently to demonstrate what he was capable of achieving in this department, had not his productions met at the time with far less encouragement than they merited, and his modesty and selfdiffidence been carried to what we conceive a culpable extreme. From the late Dr. Murray's enthusiasm for every thing connected with the literature of the East, from the indefatigable industry and peculiar profoundness of his researches into all the affinities of its languages, and from the almost universality of his scholarship, and the comprehensiveness and enlargement of his views, much was justly anticipated; and we look, therefore, with pleasing expectation, to the appearance of the posthumous work, on the Origin and Progress of the European languages, which he was engaged in preparing, and the publication of which, so long and so unaccountably delayed, we are happy to find is now announced as speedily to take place. Nor must we omit the name of Leyden, so dear to all the friends of learning and genius, and embalmed in the recollection of his many associates in the study of Oriental literature throughout the Indian peninsula, as one to whom it might be truly said, that, in ardency of pursuit, and splendour of acquirements, perpauci similes, superior nullus. It were great injustice to the merit of some more private characters, not to acknowledge also, that ever since the various departments of the civil service in India were thrown open to the ambition of our youth, there have always been respectable individuals, besides the Oriental professors, who were fully capable of teaching the elements both of the Persic and the Arabic languages *. But notwithstanding all

*To the above list might be added another very interesting language, viz. the HIN, DOOSTANEE, which, we understand, is beginning to be cultivated with some success in this city. The utility to be derived from it, by those who look for any situation of respectability in India, cannot be called in question; and it must be gratifying to all concerned, to find that the opportunity of receiving instructions in it, so long a desideratum among Scotish youth, is now afforded by more than one individual in Edinburgh. Dr. John Borthwick Gilchrist, a gentleman whose uncommon exertions, it is well known, have gone far to smooth the way to the attainment of proficiency in this and other branches of Oriental literature, has, with a laudable zeal for the honour of his native city, most kindly furnished every facility to several individuals in Edinburgh, and to Mr. Noble in particular, for accomplishing this desirable object. We have only to say farther on this subject at present, that from the industry which Mr. Noble has already exhibited, we think Dr. Gilchrist, and the other friends of Oriental litera, ture, may look with confidence to his exertions in the cause.

these admissions, we have still to recur to the painful fact, that, till the appearance of the volume before us, no work in Arabic had ever issued from the Scotish press. We cannot, indeed, and we shall not suppose, that Mr. Noble's example will have no effect in rousing the spirit of his literary cotemporaries, to the ardent and diligent prosecution of studies, in which many of our countrymen in England have attained the highest distinction. He has shown what can be accomplished by the simple industrious exertion of good talents, unaided by any means but those which every student may without any great difficulty command. Selfinstructed in Hebrew,-and easily adding to his acquirements a knowledge of the cognate dialects, the Chaldee and Syriac,―he was equally surprised and delighted to find, on turning his attention to the Arabic, that his intimate acquaintance with these tongues rendered his study of it, so far as it could be pursued by means of Richardson's Grammar, rather a pleasing relaxation than a task requiring much labour, or attended with any peculiar difficulties. Le soon, however, discovered, that unless by pupils who had, like himself, made considerable proficiency in the knowledge of Hebrew, this acquisition, in consequence chief-. ly of the multifarious illustrations from Arabic writers with which that work is loaded, was thought intolerably irksome and tedious; and perceiving at once the advantage that would be derived from the possession of a Vocabulary similar to that compiled by Richardson for Sir William Jones' Persic Grammar, he commenced the present labour. With advantages, therefore, superior to what their predecessors enjoyed, and for which they are indebted solely to our author, it is surely not too much to expect, that as one, and a very formidable obstacle to their acquisition of at least the elements of Arabic is thus removed, many of our ingenuous youth will be stimulated to tread the now more accessible and inviting path of Oriental learning.

We are aware, however, that, by some, the merit and usefulness of Mr. Noble's work may be depreciated, on the ground of his having selected Richardson's Grammar as the subject of illustration and analysis, its reputation having been of late greatly on the decline, and the most eminent orientalists being now disposed to regard it as in many respects equally defective and erroneous. The slightest perusal of it, indeed, is sufficient for discovering its almost total want of every quality approaching to either a philosophical or a complete elucidation of the principles of Arabic grammar; and since we obtained possession of M. de Sacy's and Mr. Lumsden's Grammars, Richardson's has certainly sunk still lower in our estimation. But, admitting all this, unless there had been a prospect of Richardson's

grammar being superseded in general use, by a more compressed and purchasable work than either De Sacy's or Lumsden's,an event, the accomplishment of which, from the obvious difficulties that would necessarily attend even the ablest attempt to realize it, is, we fear, still at an almost incalculable distance-we cannot allow ourselves to think, that our author has misemployed his time, or thrown away his labour, in doing all that, in the cir cumstances of the case, seemed to be in his power, to facilitate the acquisition of the Arabic tongue. And that his work, viewed simply as a Vocabulary, is calculated essentially to promote this important object, every competent judge, we are confident, will readily admit. He has not only given a particular and full explana tion in English of all the Arabic words to be found in the work to which his publication is a Vocabulary, but has carefully traced the verbal nouns, and other derivatives, to their respective Arabic roots, marking likewise, in the cases in which particular parts of verbs occur, the precise forms and tenses, &c. of the verbs to which they belong. As, in this respect, an accurate and faithful analysis of all the Arabic sentences in Richardson's Grammar, we can, therefore, speak of it in terms of unqualified approbation; to which we can with the utmost freedom add, that, by using it, “the trouble," and what is of no small importance, the expense, too," of "having recourse to larger dictionaries, will be rendered unne66 cessary, till the student has made some progress in the ele"ments of the language."

Having hitherto viewed this work merely as a Vocabulary, a more difficult subject remains to be discussed. Were we to engage, indeed, in all the topics of controversy which Mr. Noble's publication presents, we should be under the necessity of writing a volume instead of a review, and even after this we should doubt our having set at rest the questions to which they relate. It is true, that in the title he only proposes to trace those Arabic words, which he conceives not to be indigenous, to their originals in the Hebrew, Chaldee, and Syriac languages; and had he confined himself to this, we should have had only one subject of any essential moment to discuss, viz. whether the Hebrew be the parent of the Arabic, or the Arabic of the Hebrew, there being, so far as we know, no dispute concerning the origin either of the Chaldee or the Syriac. But in addition to this, he speaks of the Persian language as if he conceived it to be a relative or descendant of the Hebrew, somewhat in the same sense that the Chaldee, Samaritan, Ethiopic, Syriac, and Arabic are; decidedly pronounces the old Phenician or Samaritan alphabet to be the most ancient in the world, and that which gave birth to every other; and asserts, on the single

authority of Dr. Murray, though adding a tabular illustration of his opinion, that the present vowel points in all the dialects related to the Hebrew are mere corruptions of the Greek vowel characters, originally written in a small hand, and placed laterally above or below the letters, first introduced by the Syrians in the beginning of the fourth century, speedily imitated by the Jews of Tiberias, and adopted by the Arabs soon after the publication of the Koran. Happily for both ourselves and our readers, not omitting Mr. Noble himself, we have no disposition at present to take part in any such contest. We shall therefore dismiss them, as really of very little importance to be decided on the one side or the other; thinking it, at the same time, but justice to Mr. Noble to say, that we are not disposed to differ with him, respecting the superior antiquity of the Phenician alphabet. Neither do we intend to question the probability of the Hebrew being rather the parent than the descendant of the Arabic, though arguments of no small cogency and force might easily be advanced in opposition to its maternity... But we cannot so readily pass the oversight which he has so unaccountably committed, in giving us reason to suppose that he considers the Persic as having any thing of the same relation to the Hebrew which the Arabic undeniably possesses*. We should have perfectly understood him, and he would perhaps have been quite correct, if he had said, that many of the words in this language, as now spoken and written, are derived from the Hebrew, through its cognate the Arabic; and that its alphabet, as he has himself distinctly shewn, was borrowed from the Arabs, being in fact, with the addition of two letters, identically the same, in the form, order, and numeral power of its characters. But when he states, that "the Persic is “in some respects, a relative or descendant of the Hebrew, and, "therefore, more or less intimately connected with it in its gram"mar, vocabulary, and idiom," he has certainly expressed himself in a very unguarded manner. Richardson, no doubt, tells us, in the preface to his Arabic grammar, "that, exclusive of the Arabic "sentences which occur in almost every Persian book, threefourths, perhaps, of the compound words of that tongue are "either adopted or derived from the Arabic." But does he so much as insinuate that the one language is derived from the other? On the contrary, he admits, that the "genius" of the one is completely different from that of the other. Sir William Jones, too, while he particularly notices the same fact, and informs his readers, that to understand not only the general purport, but even the graces and ornaments of a Persian composi

• Introduction, p. ix.