ing the city. Therefore he called the name of it Babel; because there the Lord mingled together the tongues of all the inhabitants of the other. This you read in the Targum that was written before the days of Jesus Christ, as the Jews affirm; or, if not so early, yet it is a very antient book, and the doctor who composed it must certainly know the meaning of the word shephah better than Hutchin

It appears, upon the whole, that the argument of this famous modern is without foundation."

"It is, indeed," I answered, "but then I am not able to conceive how Abraham and his sons conversed with so many nations, or how the Hebrew that Moses wrote in was preserved. Illuminate me in these things, illustrious Harriot, and from your fine understanding, let me have the honour and happiness of receiving true Hebrew lessons. Proceed, I beseech you, and stop not till you have expounded to my understanding the true nature of Cherubim? What do you think of Hutchinson's Rub and Rubbim, and of his notions of Ezekiel's cherubic form."

"To talk of Cherubim and Elohim," resumed Miss NOEL," and say all that ought to be said, to speak to any purpose; of the three heads and four visages, the bull, the man, the lion, and the eagle,

mentioned in the prophet, requires more knowledge in Hebrew learning than I pretend to be mistress of, and must take up more time than there is now to spare. I may hereafter, however, if you should chance to come again to our house, let you know my fancies upon these grand subjects, and why I cannot accord with Hutchinson and my father, in their notion of the Cherubim's signifying the unity of the essence, the distinction of the persons, and man's being taken into the essence by his personal union with the second person, whose constant emblem was the lion. This, I confess, appears to my plain understanding very miserable stuff. I can see no text either in the Old Testament, or in the New, for a plurality of beings, co-ordinate and independent. The sacred pages declare there is one original perfect mind. The Lord shall be king over all the earth. In that day there shall be ONE LORD, Lord, and his name ONE,' says the prophet Zachariah, speaking of the prodigious revolution in the Gentile world, whence in process of time, by the gospel of Jesus Christ, the worship of one true God shall prevail all over the earth, as universally as Polytheism had done before. This I dare not observe to my father, as he is an admirer of Hutchinson, and will not bear any contradiction; but my private

judgment is, that Hutchinson on the Cherubim and Elohim or Eloim, is a mad commentator, as I show you, if we ever happen to meet again.

may

"At present, all I can do more on the Hebrew subject, is to observe that, in respect of the preservation of the Hebrew tongue, I imagine the one prevailing language before the Miracle at Babel, which one language was afterwards called Hebrew, though divided and swallowed as it were at the tower, was kept without change in the line of Shem, and continued their tongue. This cannot be disputed, I believe. I likewise imagine, it must be allowed that this Hebrew continued the vernacular tongue of the old Canaanites. It is otherwise unaccountable how the Hebrew was found to be the language of the Canaanites, when the family of Abraham came among them again, after an absence of more than two hundred years. If they had had another tongue at the confusion, was it possible for Abraham, during his temporary sojournments among them, and in the necessities of his peregrination, to persuade so many tribes to quit their dialect, and learn his language; or, if his influence had been so amazing, can it be supposed, they would not return again to their old language, after he had left them, and his family was away from them more than two

hundred years? No, sir; we cannot justly suppose such a thing. The language of the old Canaanites could not be a different one from the Hebrew. If

*

you will look into Bochart, you will find this was his opinion. That great man says, the ante-Babel language escaped the confusion two ways, viz., by the Canaanites, through God's providence preserving it in their colonies for the future use of the Hebrews, who were to possess the land; and by the patriarch Heber, as a sacred depositum for the use of his posterity, and of Abraham in particular.

The great Samuel Bochart, born at Rouen, in 1599, was the minister of the reformed church in the town of Caen, in Normandy. His principal works are his Phaleg and Canaan; works that show an amazing erudition, and ought to be well read by every gentleman; you should likewise have his Hierozoïcon, or History of Animals mentioned in the Sacred Books. It is a good supplement to his Scripture Geography. His sermons and dissertations are also very valuable. Bochart died suddenly in the Academy at Caen, on Monday, 16th May, 1667, in the sixty-eighth year of his age. Brieux wrote the following fine epitaph on him :

Scilicet hæc cuique est data sors æquissima, talis

Ut sit mors, qualis vita peracta fuit.

Musarum in gremio teneris qui vixit ab annis.

Musarum in gremio debuit ille mori.

This being the case: the Phoenician or Canaanitish tongue, being the same language that the line of Heber spoke, with this only difference, that by the latter it was retained in greater purity, being in the mouths of a few, and transmitted by instruction; it follows, that Abraham and his sons could talk with all these tribes and communities; and as to the other nations he had communication with, he might easily converse with them, as he was a Syrian by birth, and to be sure could talk the Aramitish dialect as well as Laban his brother. The Aramitish was the customary language of the line of Shem. It was their vulgar tongue. The language of the old world, that was spoken immediately before the confusion, was called Hebrew from Heber, which they reserved for sacred uses."

Here Miss NOEL ended, and my amazement was so great, and my passion had risen so high for such uncommon female intelligence, that I could not help snatching this beauty to my arms, and without thinking of what I did, impressed on her balmy lips half a dozen kisses. This was wrong, and gave very great offence, but she was too good to be implacable, and on my begging her pardon, and protesting it was not a wilful rudeness, but the magic of her glorious eyes, and the bright powers of her mind, that had