pre

interest, he had shown for me without knowing me ; it sented itself naturally. He had lately taken, as secretary of the embassy, M. Boyer, my friend, who introduced me to him. The reception, I met, inspired me at once with confidence and attachment. He asked me, if a journey into Italy would correspond with the object of my labors; upon my answer he hastened to speak to M. d' Argenson, and, two days after, M. Boyer came, and informed me from him, that my journey was decided upon. I ran immediately to the ambassador to thank him, and my astonishment was at its height, when he told me, he would carry me with him, that I should lodge in his house at Rome, that I should always have a carriage at my orders, and that he would facilitate the means for my travelling over the rest of Italy. Philosophy had not yet enlightened me upon the dignity of man, and I confounded myself in thanks, as if a protector did not become the protège of him, who deigns to accept his favors.

Some business, relating to the cabinet, forced me to delay my departure, and hindered me from accompanying the ambassador ; but I was compensated by the friendship of another. The President de Cotte, director of the mint, with whom I was intimately acquainted, resolved to profit by this occasion to satisfy the desire, he had long had, of seeing Italy. I was delighted; besides the intelligence and all the advantages, I derived from so pleasing an association, I could not without his succour have extricated myself from the embarrassment of so long a journey. I immediately informed the ambassador, who charged me to invite him to reside with him. We departed in the month of August 1755, and arrived at Rome the first of November.

M. de Stainville had already acquired that reputation, which has since been granted him by all Europe. He did not owe it to the magnificence, which shone in his house, and which announced the minister of a great power. owed it entirely to the superiority of his talents, to that nobleness, discoverable in all his actions; to that magic, which controled every heart, he was desirous of attaching; and to

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that firmness, which drew respect from those, whom he dis dained to subject. He had seduced Benedict XIV by the irresistible charms of his mind, and the most able of the sacred college by his frankness in negotiation. In obtaining the encyclic letter, which so strongly shook the constitution Unigenitus, he attracted the hatred of the Jesuits, who never forgave him for taking out of their hands this branch of per

secution.

Madam de Stainville, at that time hardly eighteen, obtain ed that profound veneration, which is commonly gained only by a long exercise of virtue. Every thing in her inspired an interest; her age, her countenance, the delicacy of her health, the vivacity, which animated her words and actions, the desire of pleasing, which it was easy for her tơ satisfy, the success of which she attributed to a husband, worthy of her tenderness and adoration, that extreme sensibility, which rendered her happy or unhappy at the happiness or misery of others, in fine that purity of soul, which did not permit her to suspect any evil. One was surprised to see so much intelligence with so much simplicity. She reflected at an age, when others hardly begin to think; she had read with the same pleasure and the same utility those of our authors, who are the most distinguished, either by their depth or their elegance. My love for literature procured me her indulgence as well, as that of her husband; and from that moment I devoted myself to them without forseeing the ad vantages of thus devoting myself.

[To be continued.]

LITERARY DISSERTATIONS.

No. IV.

ON THE VOWEL POINTS.

**Mutatio punctorum vocalium in lingua Hebræa, res est solicita et operosa, in qua Juventus cum multo sudore se torquet, sed cum exiguo sæpe “fructu, ita ut se expedire nesciens nauseam concipit, ac studium tandem " abjiciat." BUXTORF. epitom,

ONE NE of the first difficulties, which the learner of He, brew has to encounter, arises from the pronunciation of the language. When he has become familiarized with all the letters in the alphabet, and their arrangement into words, he is still ignorant of their power and accent. The different grammars, he consults, increase his embarrassment. In some he is taught, that the alphabet consists only of CONSONANTS; that of these, six or seven have two sounds; that the sound of one is wholly unknown; that five are sometimes pronounced, and sometimes are mute; and that, to remedy the defect of vowELS, there are little points and dashes placed over, under, or in the middle of the consonants. But he is inexpressibly puzzled by the intricacy of this contrivance, and the confusion, which arises from mingling these in writing with many more dots and scrawls, nearly resembling them in figure, size, and situation, some denoting the stops in the sentence, some the accents of the words, some the doubling of a letter, some the taking off the aspiration, and so making it stand for another sound, and some serving to give notice, that the letter so marked is to be prononnced, but that otherwise it would be mute; and lastly, one single dot serving for six, seven, or eight different uses. sees at once, that this savours but little of the simplicity and plainness, he had reason to expect in the most ancient of languages. Other grammarians offer to extricate him from

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this perplexity by substituting certain of the letters, &, ↳ and for vowels, which they call " ehevi, or matres lectionis, because by their assistance alone a vast variety of words may be easily enunciated. Yet this relieves him but in part, for there are a multitude of words, in which neither of the abevi occur, and which of course he finds it impossible to articulate. He then repairs to those writers on the elements of Hebrew, who, discarding the points, as superfluous, and even presuming to dispute the maternal authority of the chevi, consider the alphabet, like all others, as composed of vowels and consonants. Profiting by such guides, he is pleased to find, that, divested of its numerous points and accents, affixes and suffixes, the language is remarkably simple in its construction, and may be learned with the greatest ease and facility. How then, he asks, came the vowel points into use; what is their authority, and what their antiquity? This indeed is a question, to which philologists have given very contradictory answers; and, though "non "nostrum est tantas componere lites," we will endeavor to suggest a few remarks, which may be of use to the unlearned inquirer.

It cannot be supposed, that a language so regular, so extensive, and so rich, as was the Hebrew even in the time of Moses, should have been written only with consonants. Father SIMON indeed seems to intimate, that it was not originally destitute of vowels, but that they were dropped by transcribers, probably by way of abbreviation, as hasty writers now put wch for which, wt for what, yt for that, &c. Ingenious, as this suggestion may be, it will hardly satisfy ev ery critic; for different copyists would undoubtedly have a different kind of stenography, and in the variations we should discover the omitted letter or letters. It would be more reasonable to suppose, that, if the vowels were always omitted in writing, it was because every letter had its appropriate sound, while the language was a living one, which possibly was syllabic, as we now can sound consonants only * Dis. Crit. de var. edit. Bibl. c. 7, p. 44, ed. Lond. 1684.

by the help of a vowel; but, when the language ceased to be spoken, and was known only, as written, an ambiguity would naturally arise, as to the pronunciation.

Again it has been asserted, that the substitutes for vowels were invented and inserted by EZRA, who, it is known, collected and transcribed the sacred books after the return from the Babylonian captivity. In answer to this it is declared, that the most ancient copies of the Old Testament, made use of among the Jews in their synagogues, have ever been and still are without the vowel points; which could not have happened, if they had been placed there by Ezra, and consequently been of the same authority with the letters. For had they been so, they would certainly have been preserved in the synagogues with the same care, as the rest of the text.*

That the vowel points were not coeval with the original text is also evident for the following reasons.

1. The ancient translators, commonly called THE SEVENTY, could not have had a punctuated copy; for a thousand instances might be cited, in which their spelling of the proper names of men, women, and places, varies from the Masoretic.

2. They were not known in the times of ESDRAS; nor do we find the least hint of them in JOSEPHUS or PHILO, the oldest Jewish writers.

3. It appears, that JEROM, who lived 800 years after Ezra, and translated the whole Bible from the Hebrew, was to tally unacquainted with them. Had they existed in his time, he would have cited them to ascertain the spelling of words, upon the orthography and pronunciation of which he has many remarks.

4. The ancient various readings of the sacred text, called Keri Cetib, are all about the letters, but make no mention of vowel points.

5. The ancient Cabbalists draw none of their mysterics.

* CAPELLUS, Arcanum punctuationis, lib. 1, c. 4. PRIDEAUX Connect. part 4, boak 5.