madness was real or feigned. Books have been written on this point, and some strong arguments may be adduced on either side. Indeed, a great Shakespearian actor believed that his madness was partly actual and partly pretended. Our own impression is that he commenced with simulating, and ended with the reality. "Seneca,

the rhetorician, tells us of one Gallus, a rhetorician, who imagined that the transports of madness, well represented in dialogue, would charm his audience, and took so much pains to play the madman in jest, that he became so in earnest." All are familiar with the internal evidences cited to prove the hypothesis of real madness, of which Hamlet's procrastination seems to us the most convincing. But the principal reason for our belief, and one that we have not seen adduced, is that on no other hypothesis can any adequate motive be assigned for the play. A pretended madness, assumed to gratify revenge, is a crude and commonplace idea on which to base the farreaching consequences, and out of which to develop the sublime philosophy, which stamp this the greatest of dramas. Such a plot would be exactly in the spirit of other dramatists-Webster, Marlowe, Massinger-but it is not Shakespearian. Besides, thus considered, the work would lose all traces of that exquisite discrimination for which Shakespeare is remarkable. Elsewhere he has treated of insanity of different degrees and nature, as in Lear, proceeding from filial ingratitude, in Malvolio from vanity, in Othello from jealousy. After these analyses, there would be nothing novel or forcible in the representation of mental disorder arising from grief at the death of a parent, and nothing elevated in the depicting of madness assumed as a cover for revenge. Then, again, in this very play we have the madness of Ophelia, arising from disappointed love. There is no reason to suppose that the dramatist intended to contrast real with pretended madness, for he makes no sufficient discrimination between them, and it cannot be that he intended in the same play to give two examples of madness, springing from similar causes. Moreover, we have had in Shakespeare an unquestioned instance of assumed madness in the character of Edgar, in King Lear. But if we regard Hamlet as one who, starting out to assume madness, gradually falls a victim to real melancholy, as one who, simulating a fever, may excite himself into an actual feverish condition, this drama takes on a new and startling significance. It then occupies a fresh field even among Shakespeare's manifold and wondrous creations, and furnishes us with an intellectual analysis of insanity, flowing from a spring hitherto unknown to literature.

SUGGESTED EMENDATIONS OF THE AUTHORIZED ENGLISH VERSION OF THE OLD TESTAMENT. By Elias Riggs, D.D., LL.D., Missionary of the A. B. C. F. M., at Constantinople. Andover: W. F. Draper. 1873.

THIS

HIS little book is one of the many that has been called forth by the present English and American movement for Scripture revision. There has grown up, with a largely increased knowledge of the Hebrew tongue, a feeling that our present version, although most admirable, and, in the main, quite correct, might be improved by a fresh and careful comparison with the original language. We have at this time greater facilities for determining the exact meaning of words and phrases, than was enjoyed by the bishops and scholars of King James's reign; owing to the vastly greater attention that has been given to the study of Hebrew, and the light derived from the comparative philology of the other Semitic dialects. Dr. Riggs is, as stated on his title-page, a missionary in the East of the American Board, and his book is, as he tells us in the preface, "not the result of a systematic revision of the English version, . . . but of comparisons made in the course of translating the Scriptures, into the Armenian and Bulgarian languages." He therefore brings to the work an experimental knowledge of Eastern tongues, which is of the highest value, as giving a life to his linguistic acquisitions, that years of closet study could not bestow. And it may be added,

that by his excellent "Manual of the Chaldee Language," published more than forty years ago, he had long since won reputation as a Semitic scholar.

The book is not put forth as exhausting the subject, and the emendations suggested are in the main etymological; though some few syntactical points are discussed. In his preface, he suggests the modernizing of obsolete words, such as magnifical for magnificent (I. Chron. xxii. 5), sith for since (Ezek. xxxv. 6), ear for plough, (I. Sam. viii. 12, et passim). He also suggests, that words which have changed their meaning, such as lewdness, and the adjective quick, should be changed into their modern equivalents. He would "substitute the neuter pronoun its for his and her, when they refer to inanimate objects; also who for which, where it refers to persons," and "would employ the name Jehovah, instead of THE LORD, wherever used distinctively as a proper name." The last of the suggestions in his preface proposes to make the spelling of the proper names uniform. These points will, we imagine, be attended to by the revisers; and though it will be with great regret that we shall see the old words disappear, still it may be a necessity for a popular understanding of the Bible. So, too, is the pronominal change. It will be a loss to have the personifications disappear, which the use of the masculine and feminine pronouns created. But since the English tongue has almost entirely lost the idea of gender, except in provincial and colloquial expressions, it is perhaps better that they should be dispensed with. The substitution of the Divine name, or rather that combination of 7 (yhjoh) and N (adonai), which has, since the times of the Reformation, been used to express it, will add clearness to many passages; and, although it departs from the reverend usage of all other versions, will, we presume, be adopted. Uniformity in proper names is, of course, to be desired, although they differ as much in the Hebrew as in the English, and where our translators have followed the Hebrew in spelling the same name differently, when borne by different persons, there can be no advantage in a change.

We have given the body of Dr. Riggs' book a studious examination, especially in those passages where scholars disagree; and his emendations are, on the whole, characterized by carefulness and judgment. There are some to which we cannot assent, which will be considered below; but the main point that strikes the reader is the comparatively unimportant nature of the changes recommended in all but a few places. The book would be a good one to put into the hands of those who, with no knowledge of the Hebrew, and

little of the English version of the Scriptures, are clamoring for a revision, which they suppose will remove from the Bible the passages which they deem obnoxious. There is not one of the emendations suggested in this book, that makes any material difference, theologically speaking. They tend to render our knowledge of Biblical geography and natural history more accurate; as, for example, in Isaiah, xiii. 21, 22, where for owls he would read ostriches; for wild beasts of the islands, hyenas; and for dragons, jackals. They are desirable, and indeed necessary, because the Word of God should be exactly rendered, if practicable, even down to the minutest particulars. But when we find a book of emendations almost entirely filled with changes of no more importance than these, we cannot feel that we are led very far astray, even should we continue to use King James's version where it was at first appointed to be used,-in churches. But we must not neglect the "mint, anise, and cummin," although the "weightier matters" need comparatively little revision. Dr. Riggs would substitute for the words of Cain, as written in the authorized version of the text of Gen. iv..13, "My punishment is greater than I can bear,” the marginal reading," My iniquity is too great to be forgiven;" preferring to take the primary meaning of 'āvōn, and the secondary meaning of nāsā, as given in the lexicons, rather than a vice versa translation. But Cain does not seem to have been troubled about the act viewed as sin. He groaned under its punishment, not under its moral turpitude. We would ask, "Does not 'āvōn, even when it means iniquity, convey the idea of the recompense that to the Hebrew mind always accompanied transgression ? and is not the meaning of the passage better, brought out (not to

1Those who are familiar with Bibles printed in England, will remember a phrase on the title-page, "Appointed to be read in Churches." There is less exclusiveness and more charity in this, than the prejudiced would be apt to ascribe to Churchmen. The old king did not wish to suppress the Geneva Bible, if his subjects desired to read it in their homes. He only appointed his own Bible for public use. In this he set the Puritans an example which they took good care not to follow. When power came into their own hands, they proscribed the use of the Prayer Book, even in private. And they enacted a law about orthodoxy, which proclaimed a death penalty— a law which, if freely executed in the City of Boston, would tire down old Torquemada himself. It would furnish an intolerable amount of business for even that prince of all inquisitors. And yet, where on earth have the Puritans been more belauded than in the capital of Massachusetts! The laws alluded to may be found in "Boone's Book of Churches and Sects," pp. 408-11. Boone was once editor of the celebrated "British Critic."

speak of the great difficulty of rendering the construct Inf. Kal., as a passive) by rendering "My guiltiness" (guilt combining the two ideas of sin and punishment) "is greater than I can bear?" This rendering has the advantage of not forcing the grammatical construction, which either of the others must do. In Gen. xxvii. 40, speaking of Esau, he translates the verb dudh, which the authorized version renders "have the dominion," by the words "wander wildly away." The simple meaning of the word is "rove about" (Jer. xxi. 31; Hos. xii. 1), the figure being taken from the wild ass to which Esau is compared. Is not Hengstenberg's reading to be preferred here?" It will come to pass, that when thou shakest (tossest) thou wilt break the yoke from thy neck." Esau is viewed as a wild, untamed creature, brought forcibly under yoke, and it is foretold that he shall, when he is restive under it, throw it off from his shoulders. The substitution of the words ask for borrow, and gave for lent in Ex. iii. 22, and xxii. 36, is very desirable. It will save Bible-class teachers the necessity of proving that the Israelites were not a nation of pilferers.1

The names of the birds and of the lizards, in Lev. xi., will always remain a puzzle, as will the names of the different kinds of locusts in Joel, ii. The difficulty would hardly be met, by substituting the Hebrew names, as Dr. Riggs suggests. The emendation in Numbers, xix. 2, "Oh! that we had died," for the authorized version, "Would God that we had died," has indeed the merit of greater literalness, but would be certainly a loss of force, and it strikes us as rather an unnecessary change. In Numbers, xxi. 14, Vaheb in suphah (marg.), which is utterly unintelligible, is no improvement on the accepted version, "What He did in the Red Sea," which is the reading of the Targum of Oukelos, and of the Vul gate, and of Kimchi, taking ethv'habh as an Aramean Hithpael form, instead of eth vāhebh, as usually read. But nearly all good commentators now translate, "He takes" (vaheb) in storm-so Hengstenberg and others. For the meaning of suphah, compare Nahum, i. 3, Job, xxi. 18, Isaiah, xvii. 13, Hosea, viii. 7.

1

He omits noticing, in Numbers, xxii. 41, and xxiii. 13, the manner

1 We prefer pilferers to thieves, even supposing them to have taken the goods of the Egyptians, contrary to the technicalities of right and law. And having lived in a land of bondage, we are inclined to accept the logic of slaves, who said they never stole, unless from neighbors or strangers. Their masters claimed them as goods and chattels; and they had as much right to take things belonging to him for their necessities, as his barn (if it could act for itself) would have a right to take his shingles to keep the rain off.

ciii.-3