returned by the servants, we see the different improvements, which different men makes of the gifts of heaven; and, in the recompenses bestowed, we have their proportional rewards. But these depends entirely on the numbers mentioned, and are the same whatever be the value of the money. I shall now, in reducing them to our standard, follow the rates assigned on the margin of the English Bible. Ducats, so often mentioned by Le Cene, are no better known to the generality of our people than talents or minæ are. Whether the rate of conversion I have adopted be just or not, is of no consequence; I shall therefore take it for granted that it is just. The different opinions of the comparative value of their money and ours, nowise affect the argument. The objections are against the reduction from the one species to the other, not against the rule of reducing.

The foregoing verses so rendered will run thus: He called his ten servants, and delivered them thirty-one pounds five shillings sterling, and said, Occupy till I come. The first came, saying, Lord, thy three pounds two shillings and sixpence have gained thirty-one pounds five shillings. And he said to him, Well, thou good servant, because thou hast been faithful in a very little, have thou authority over ten cities. And the second came, saying, Lord thy three pounds two shillings and sixpence have gained fifteen pounds twelve shillings and sixpence. And he said likewise to him, Be thou also over five cities. In regard to the parable of the talents, (Matt. xxv. 14,) it is needless, after the specimen now given, to be particular. I shall therefore give only part of one verse thus expressed in the common version; "To one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one;" which, in Le Cene's manner would be, To one he gave nine hundred thirtyseven pounds ten shillings sterling: To another, three hundred seventy-five pounds: And to another, one hundred eighty-seven pounds ten shillings.' In both examples, what is of real importance, the comparative degrees of improvement and proportional rewards, which in the original and in the common version are discovered at a glance, are, if not lost, so much obscured by the complicated terms employed in the version, that it requires an arithmetical operation to discover them. In the example of the king who called his servants to account, (Matt. xviii. 23.) this manner is, if possible, still more awkward by reason of the largeness of the sums. One of them is represented as owing to the king one million eight hundred seventy-five thousand pounds, and his fellow-servant as indebted to him three pounds two shillings and sixpence. There is some importance in the comparative value of the denarius and the talent, as it appears evidently one purpose of our Lord, in this parable, to show how insignificant the greatest claims we can make on our fellow-creatures, are compared with those which divine justice can make on us. And though this be strongly marked when the two sums are reduced

to one denomination, this advantage does not counterbalance the badness of the expression, so grossly unnatural, unscriptural, and in every sense improper. In conveying religious and moral instruction, to embarrass a reader or hearer with fractions and complex numbers, is in a spirit and manner completely the reverse of our Lord's.

8. I will not further try the patience of my readers with what has been proposed in the same taste with respect to the measures, both liquid and dry, mentioned in Scripture, in the exhibition of their respective capacities by the number of eggs they could contain. I am afraid I have descended into too many particulars already, and shall therefore only add in general, that in this way the beautiful and perspicuous simplicity of holy writ is exchanged for a frivolous minuteness, which descends to the lowest denomination of parts, more in the style of a penurious money-broker than in that of a judicious moralist, not to say a divine teacher. Perspicuity is therefore injured, not promoted by it; and to those important lessons an appearance, or rather a disguise, is given, which seems calculated to ruin their effect. The author has never reflected on what I think sufficiently obvious, that when a piece of money is named, the name is understood to denote something more than the weight of the silver or the gold. In the earliest ages, when it was only by weight that the money of the same metal was distinguished, if the weight was the same, or nearly so, the names used in different languages served equally well. It was therefore both natural and proper in the Seventy to render the Hebrew checher, in Greek Taλavrov, and Sp shekel, δίδραχμα : for the Alexandrian δίδραχμα, which was double the Attic referred to in the New Testament, was half an ounce. But though such terms might, with propriety, be used promiscuously, when the different denominations of money expressed solely their different weights, as was the case in the earlier ages of the Jewish commonwealth, it is not so now. The name signifies a coin of a particular form and size, stamp and inscription. The Hebrew shekel, the Greek stater, and the British half-crown, being each about half an ounce of silver, are nearly equivalent. But the names are not synonymous. If one had promised to show you a stater, or a shekel, would you think he had discharged his promise by producing half-a-crown?

9. Words therefore which are by use exclusively appropriated to the coins and measures of modern nations, can never be used with propriety in the translation of an ancient author. I have mentioned three ways which a translator may take, and pointed out the different circumstances by which the preference among those methods may, in any instance, be determined. When the sense of the passage does, in any degree, depend on the value of the coin or the capacity of the measure, the original term ought to be retained, and, if needful, explained in a note. This is the

way constantly used in the translation of books where mention is made of foreign coins or measures. What is more common than to find mention made in such works of Dutch guilders, French livres, or Portuguese moidores? I acknowledge at the same time, the inconveniency of loading a version of Scripture with strange and uncouth names. But still this is preferable to expressions, which, how smooth soever they be, do in any respect misrepresent the author, and mislead the reader. Our ears are accustomed to the foreign names which are found in the common version of the Old Testament, such as shekel, bath, ephah; though, where the same coins and measures are evidently spoken of in the New, our translators have not liked to introduce them, and have sometimes, less properly, employed modern names which do not correspond in meaning.

10. We have, besides, in the New Testament, the names of some Greek and Roman coins and measures not mentioned in the Old. Now, where the words are the same, or in common use coincident with those used by the Seventy in translating the Hebrew names above-mentioned, I have thought it better to retain the Hebrew words to which our ears are familiarized by the translation of the Old, than to adopt new terms for expressing the same things. We ought not surely to make an apparent difference by means of the language, where we have reason to believe that the things meant were the same. When the word, therefore, in the New Testament, is the name of either measure or coin peculiar to Greeks or Romans, it ought to be retained; but when it is merely the term by which a Hebrew word, occurring in the Old Testament, has sometimes been rendered by the Seventy, the Hebrew name to which the common version of the Old Testament has accustomed us ought to be preferred. For this reason, I have, in such cases, employed them in the version of the Gospels. Apyvolov I have rendered shekel, when used for money, This was the standard coin of the Jews; and when the Hebrew word for silver occurs in a plural signification, as must be the case when joined with a numeral adjective, it is evidently this that is meant. It is commonly in the Septuagint rendered agyupia, and in one place in the common translation silverlings, Isa. vii. 23. In Hebrew, o cheseph and pw shekel are often used indiscriminately; and both are sometimes rendered by the same Greek word. Though talent is not a word of Hebrew extraction, the Greek raλavrov is so constantly employed by the Seventy in rendering the Hebrew checher, and is so perfectly familiar to us as the name of an ancient coin of the highest value, that there can be no doubt of the propriety of retaining it. As to the word pound in Greek uva, and in Hebrew the sense of the only passage wherein it occurs in the Gospel could hardly, in any degree, be said to depend on the value of the coin mentioned, I have also thought proper to retain the

maneh, as

name which had been employed by the English translators. Though pound is the name of a particular denomination of our own money, we all know that it admits also an indefinite application to that of other nations. This is so well understood, that, where there is any risk of mistaking, we distinguish our own by the addition of sterling. The Greek word and the English are also analogous in this respect, that they are names both of money and of weight. Both also admit some latitude in the application to the moneys and weights of different countries, whose standards do not entirely coincide.

In regard to some other words, though penny is often used indefinitely, the common meaning differs so much from that of Snvaptov in Scripture, and the plural pence is so rarely used with that latitude, that I thought it better to retain the Latin word. I have reserved the word penny as a more proper translation of aoσapiov, between which and a penny sterling the difference in value is inconsiderable. This naturally determined me to render Koopavτns farthing; for Kodpavrns (that is, quadrans) is originally a Latin word as well as Snvaptov. They correspond in etymology as well as in value.* By this I have avoided a double impropriety into which our translators have fallen. First, by rendering dnvaplov a penny, and aooapiov a farthing, they make us consider the latter as a fourth part of the former, whereas it was but one-tenth. Again, by rendering aocapiov and Kodρavrns by the same word, they represent those names as synonymous which belong to coins of very different value. In translating AETTOV I have retained the word mite, which is become proverbial for the lowest denomination of money. Disquisitions on little points, more curious than useful, I always endeavour to avoid.

11. As to measures, wherever the knowledge of the capacity was of no use for throwing light on the passage, I have judged it always sufficient to employ some general term, as measure, barrel, &c. Of this kind is the parable of the unjust steward. The degree of his villany is sufficiently discovered by the numbers. But where it is the express view of the writer to communicate some notion of the size and capacity, as in the account given of the water-pots at the marriage in Cana, or wherever such knowledge is of importance to the sense, those general words ought not to be used. Such are the reasons for the manner which I have adopted, in this work, in regard to money and measures, There is no rule that can be followed which is not attended with some inconveniences. Whether the plan here laid down be attended with the fewest, the judicious and candid reader will judge.

* Farthing, from the Saxon feorthling; that is, the fourth part,

PART II.

RITES, FESTIVALS, AND SECTS.

THE second class of words to which it is not always possible to find in another language equivalent terms, is the names of rites, festivals, and sects, religious, political, or philosophical. Of all words, the names of sects come the nearest to the condition of proper names, and are almost always considered as not admitting a translation into the language of those who are unacquainted with the sect. This holds equally of modern as of ancient sects. There are no words in other languages answering to the English terms whig and tory, or to the names of the Italian and German parties called guelph and ghibelin. It is exactly the same with philosophical sects, as magian, stoic, peripatetic, epicurean; and with the religious sects among the Jews, pharisee, sadducee, essene, karaite, rabbinist. Yet even this rule is not without exception. When the sect has been denominated from some common epithet or appellative thought to be particularly applicable to the party, the translation of the epithet or appellative serves in other languages as a name to the sect. Thus those who are called by the Greeks τεσσαρεσκαιδεκατιται, from their celebrating Easter on the fourteenth day of the month, were by the Romans called quarto-decimani, which is a translation of the word into Latin. In like manner our quakers are called in French trembleurs. Yet in this their authors are not uniform, they sometimes adopt the English word. In regard to the sects mentioned in the New Testament, I do not know that there has been any difference among translators the ancient names seem to be adopted by all.

2. As to rites and festivals, which, being nearly related, may be considered together, the case is somewhat different. The original word, when expressive of the principal action in the rite, or in the celebration of the festival, is sometimes translated and sometimes retained. In these it is proper to follow the usage of the language, even though the distinctions made may originally have been capricious. In several modern languages we have, in what regards Jewish and Christian rites, generally followed the usage of the old Latin version, though the authors of that version have not been entirely uniform in their method. Some words they have transferred from the original into their language, others they have translated. But it would not always be easy to find their reason for making this difference. Thus the word περιτομη they have translated circumcisio, which exactly corresponds in etymology; but the word Barrioμa they have retained, changing only the letters from Greek to Roman. Yet the latter was just as susceptible of a literal version into Latin as the former. Im