royal monopoly is nearly extinguished, with the taste in which it originated. But there is a species of literary privilege somewhat analagous to it. It is this:-When publications are circulated only as a gift, they are universally,we believe, considered as private property, and in consequence shielded from the weapons of the critic. But when once produced to the public in a saleable shape, then they become lawful game, and every man who will may discharge his piece at them. Now, we dislike all monopolies, and certainly find nothing in this particular monoply which exempts it from our general condemnation. For what is more deplorable, than that any author, whose fortune sets him above the desire of filthy lucre, should be permitted to inundate the world with a load of blasphemy and licentiousness, without apprehending any check from sound and manly criticism? We had, therefore, no sooner heard of the Edipus Judaicus of Sir William Drummond, than we felt a strong impetus to break down this barrier between truth and error. In the mean time, however, Mr. D'Oyly, by taking the work in hand, and by conveying his work to us in the ordinary channel, has both dissolved the spell of which Sir William had endeavoured to avail himself, and, by a bold and able pioneering of the ground, has opened a way for our further attack upon him. The university, of which Mr. D'Oyly is the "Christian Advocate," has taken the lead in many important enterprizes; and this honest resistance to privileged infidelity will accredit both the society and her champion in the eyes of the world. It is our intention first to give a brief account of Sir William Drummond's book, of which Mr. D'Oyly supplies us with sufficient extracts; and we shall then proceed to measure his general pretensions as a writer, and his delinquencies on this particular occasion. We trust that nothing like intemperance of language or sentiment will escape us in the conduct of this critique; but we do assure

our readers, that all such forbearance is absolutely gratuitous, as scarcely any thing can exceed the coarseness and scurrility of his attack upon those guilty of the high misdemeanor of orthodoxy.

The work of Sir William Drummond consists of two parts;-of a preface, in which he attempts to invalidate the orthodox opinions upon the subject of the Jewish Scriptures; and a sort of disquisition, in which he developes his own system.

The preface, which is by far the most intelligible, and therefore the most mischievous part of the work, consists, as we have said, of a series of objections to the orthodox notions on the Jewish Scriptures. The Old Testament is charged, for instance, with representing the Supreme Being as a local, material Deity, variable in his plans, and disfigured by human passions and weaknesses; as introducing him under familiar forms, and in familiar conversations with his creatures. The orthodox interpreters of the Old Testament are said, moreover, to believe "that far the greater portion of the human race are doomed to eternal torments because our first parents ate an apple, after having been tempted by a talking serpent." Then the objections, so often hazarded and so constantly repelled, are re-produced, against the "hardening Pharoah's heart"--the "destruction of the Canaanitish nations, &c." Then the poor Christians, whom the author has hitherto been lashing for their tight-laced and literal interpretations, are charged with their prodigal and licentious interpretation of prophecy. These are the only objections of Sir W. Drummond examined in the little pamphlet before us. We shall come presently to speak of the replies given to them.

Having, in the preface, cleared away what Sir William considers the rubbish of Christian interpretation, he proceeds, in the body of the work, to erect a temple more worthy of the philosophic worshipper. The Christians, he contends, have fallen into all their errors, with

regard to the Jewish Scriptures, by putting a literal interpretation upon them. They, for example, have considered what are falsely called the historical books of the Old Testament as the real history of a people called the Jews. But Sir William, looking far beyond that thin surface which meets the eye of the ordinary examiner, has discovered that, far from being a real history of the Jews, it is an allegorical history (we beg our readers to be composed) of the reform of the calendar. Our readers, " poor easy souls," may have fancied that Joshua was real flesh and blood, and the enterprising leader of the Jewish people; but our new prophet instructs us, that Joshua" is the type of the sun in the sign of the Ram." The capture of Jericho, in like manner, is a typical representation of the overthrow of the lunar months;" and the extermination of the Canaanitish nations, a type of the "extermination of the worship of the heavenly host." "The story of the five kings is an astronomical allegory relating to the five intercalated days." "Samson is the same as Hercules, and both are types of the sun. The feast of the Passover was instituted as a memorial of the transit of the equinoctial sun from the sign of the Bull to that of the Ram or Lamb." Lot is a name easily derived from the Hebrew root, meaning absconcio: Abraham as plainly signifies pater excelsus. Now it is manifest that "the former is here a type of the moon, and the latter of the sun." In like manner," this" (the proving the calendars to be erroneous) "I pretend was done in the allegorical history of the flight from Egypt, and of the passage of the Israelites into the promised land." p. 176. We will add to this a few extracts, given by Mr. D'Oyly from another part of Sir William's treatise, which at once shew the excess to which he systematizes, and the sort of reasoning by which he upholds his system.

"The taking of Jericho" he considers as meaning the "destruction

of the lunar months." The proof is as follows:-Jericho (1) is evidently a collective noun derived from () the moon; therefore Jericho is not a real place, but a word allegorically expressing the moon. Again, because Jerusalem is derived from words signifying "the inheritance of peace," he pronounces Adonizedec, king of Jerusalem, to be "the sun, who became, by the reform of the calendar, king of the inheritance of peace." In like manner, because the term Canaanite may, though by a very arduous process, be derived from two words signifying to "fix the time," he denies the Canaanites any but an astronomical existence, a residence among the stars. And in the same star-gazing spirit, because the words translated the Red Sea may, if put to the torture, be constrained to sig-. nify the concave hemisphere; he contends that the concave hemisphere should be substituted, in Joshua iv. 23, for the Red Sea; though the word is translated, in many passages where the change would introduce gross nonsense, in the same manner; though the Septuagint thus understood it; and though such a suggestion never, we believe, occurred to any one Jew.Of the word " Rabab" he says, that it "signifies space, or latitude," and that it was worshipped as a deity by the Sabbaists, who built a temple to Rachab, called Beth-Racab. On that verse which conveys the promise of the land to the Israelites, Joshua i. 4, "From the wilderness and this Lebanon even unto the great river, the river Euphrates, all the land shall be your coast;" Sir William instructs us, that Lebanon does not signify a mountain, but is a name for the rising sun; and that the word translated the river Euphrates" should be rendered "the splendor of the fruit tree," the fruit tree being a symbol of the starry heavens. D'Oyly, pp. 66-70.

Such are the specimens exhibited by Mr. D'Oyly of the Edipus Judaicus; and the reader may be as

sured that these are not the accidental dark spots in a surface of light, but that the whole mass is equally opaque, equally eccentric in its course, evil in its aspect, and disastrous in its influence.

Having given our readers a specimen of the two parts of Sir William's book, we shall still further defer any regular comment upon them till, as we proposed, we have attempted to supply our readers with a sort of scale, by which they may be enabled in some degree to measure the authority of this member (for such he is) of the privy council. He will not be offended if, in considering his claims in the world of letters and philosophy, we do him less homage than his titles might seem to demand. He remembers, that even a goddess received a wound when she descend ed to skirmish with mortals; and when he quits the council chamber for the schools, he must take his lot with common men.

The first work which invested Sir William with some notoriety (using that word in its epicene or doubtful sense), was the "Academical Questions." This work was a sort of general insurrection against every opinion held in every age by every philosopher, with the exception of one, whose orthodoxy, upon that single point on which he differed from the great mass of mankind, is strongly upheld. The philosopher is Berkely; and the single tolerated opinion is, that of the non-existence of matter. Sir William, in this any thing but common-place book, first controverts all established definitions of mind, denies the theory of active and passive powers of the mind, disputes the influence of the mind on the actions, then falls pell-mell upon all substance, and, by a single stroke, annihilates every thing we see, hear, and handle; then from things, or supposed things, proceeds to men, and proves that all philosophy is false philosophy, that the wisest men hitherto have rather cackled than reasoned, and that it remains for Sir William Drummond to raise

up, from the scattered fragments of Greek and Roman absurdity, an altar, where those enlightened men who nearly deny the existence of mind, and quite of matter, may fall down and worship. As yet this new system of theology has not been introduced. He has been content, like some modern travellers, to pull down pantheons without rebuilding them; and it remains to this moment, though we shall attempt hereafter to give some light on the subject, a profound secret, what single proposition, or fact, Sir William Drummond thoroughly believes. His philosophy might perhaps be best taught by one vast negation-"I believe nothing that any one else believes."

We have given this account of the "Academical Questions," to shew that the task of demolition is not new to the author; that this invader of the sanctuary is also the invader of all those edifices which the wis dom of ages had thrown up around us; that he who cannot believe in the Bible, is unable also to credit the existence of matter; that, in fact, he has as much faith in the Jewish Scriptures as he has in any thing else. It is true, that many of the idealists by no means admit their system to involve such universal scepticism. But what is the fact? If we deny the existence of every thing for which we have not the primary evidence of consciousness, we are no more conscious of the existence of other minds, or even of our own minds at any previous moment, than of the existence of matter: therefore the idealist is bound to maintain, that nothing of mind or matter exists, except his own mind at the precise moment at which he speaks. This system might, we think, have sug gested to Sir William a far shorter process for invalidating Scripture. Why did he not, instead of perverting the Bible, deny its existence? Could he once convince the world of so obvious a fact, how glorious would be the consequences! Dr.

Marsh would put off his armour: Dr. Maltby (whose curtailing project we mean speedily to examine) would think the whole ghost of a Bible no more mischievous than a half one: the Bartlett's Buildings Society would return to her old easychair: and the world, released from its supposed scriptural shackles, would slash away the Commandments, as Æneas did the shades in Tartarus; and proceed boldly to sin, to quarrel, to fight abroad and stab at home, up to the full bias of their fallen nature.

But to return to Sir William: The next work in which we recollect to have recognised his dilapidating hand, is in the Herculanensia; a volume of treatises, the joint production of himself and Mr. Walpole, on certain topics connected with Herculaneum. Tired, we apprehend, with the follies of above-ground philosophers and prophets, the learned gentleman determined to dive into the bowels of the earth for a new and improved philosophy. What he saw there it is difficult to say, as Sir William is no great reporter of facts. What he learned by his converse with the dead of the year 79, is announced to the world in a few very learned, rather eloquent, and, we think, highly inaccurate and fanciful disquisitions. In calculating, for instance, the population of Herculaneum, he estimates the inhabitants by the size of the theatre; proceed ing throughout upon an hypothesis, contradicted by the concurrent testimony of the Roman writers, that all women were excluded (we wish they had) from the Roman theatres. In the third disquisition in this volume, while searching for some more remote root for the word Herculaneum than that which has satisfied other etymologists, the name of Hercules, its founder, he enters upon an extensive argument, to shew that half or all the heathen gods were types of the sun, and the twelve labours of Hercules typical of the signs of the Zodiac. Here we see the germ of the monstrous theory CHRIST. OBSERV. No. 127.

examined in the work before us by Mr. D'Oyly, in which Jehovah is converted to the same type with the heathen gods, and the twelve Apostles are destined to occupy the same typical throne with the labours of Hercules. In another essay, the rebellion of the Titans is treated as an allegorical history of volcanic eruptions.

We have taken this brief survey of the preceding works of Sir W. Drummond, hoping, as we said, to supply our readers with a scale by which his pretensions and peculiarities as an author may be tried; by which those who are disposed to think well of heterodoxy in religion, may trace the operation of the author's Quixotism upon subjects more reverenced by them. If we are not deceived, both the works we have noticed betray much passion for display; much love of innovation; much self-conceit; much much contempt of others; much blindness in the perception of what really exists, and acuteness in the discovery of what has no existence ;much, in short, of that perverse ingenuity by which, in fevers, the patient cunningly discovers imaginary visitors in every corner of his room, and yet blindly runs his head against the wall. Sir W. Drummond will forgive us a simile of this kind, by which nothing more is meant than to give our readers some conception of a character of mind which the uninitiated can conceive only by some such obvious illustration. We will only add, that instead of being angry at being compared to a man in a fever, he ought devoutly to wish the simile a fact; as then he might, in a measure, apologize for the extravagances of his opinions, by the height of his pulse. We shall now, however, proceed more distinctly to notice the work, and the answer; the bane, and antidote, which are both before us.

The preface to Sir William Drummond's book is, as we have already intimated, occupied with attacks upon the Scriptures and the

3 N

Orthodox interpretations of them. It is, of course, impossible that we should, in compliment to this new assailant, fight all the battles in which the advocates of religion have fought and triumphed a thousand times. Replies to this author may be found in almost every reply to Tom Paine. We shall content our selves with merely stating the nature of his attacks, and giving our readers a few pages of the sensible observations of Mr. D'Oyly in reply to his adversary.

There are then, we think, three points on which the author is chiefly culpable:--First, he imputes to the orthodox interpretations of Scripture which they never employ. Secondly, he himself discovers in the Jewish Scriptures certain defects, not recognized by any of the best critics of any age or country. Thirdly, he states his objections to the Scriptures, or the accredited interpretation of them, in a style of the grossest indecorum and levity. As to these charges, let our readers take some examples.-Christians, then, are represented as believing that the God of the Hebrews was a mere "local and material god, who dwelt in a box made of shittim wood, in the temple of Jerusalem" (Pref. p. 7); as having human passions, and those none of the best; as a quarrelsome, jealous, vindictive God; as continually changing his plans for the government of the world." Again, "they" (the Christian readers of the Old Testament) "find it quite simple that the Triune Jehovah should dine on veal cutlets at Abraham's table; and are not at all surprised, that the God of the universe should pay a visit to Ezekiel, in order to settle with the prophet, whether he should bake his bread with human dung or cow dung." But we really cannot consent to soil our paper with any more such ribaldry as this.

"

In these several instances, it will at once be perceived, that this universal sceptist attributes to Christian interpreters expositions which

they do not avow; that be clothes all accredited opinions in the most absurd dress; that, on the whole, the Jewish Scriptures enjoy no sort of homage from him, but rather provoke his ridicule and indignation. Now, we will say nothing of the dishonesty of charging men with opinions they do not hold, nor of the indecorum of grossly insulting the religion of fifteen millions of his fellow-subjects; but we cannot help calling his attention, as the means most likely to impress him, to the estimation in which these Scriptures have been held by men of undisputed liberality and genius. Longinus represents the lawgiver of the Jews "as no ordinary man." Tacitus, speaking of the faith of the Jews, as derived from the Scriptures, says; "The Egyptians venerate various animals, as well as likenesses of monsters.

The Jews acknowledge, and that with the mind only, a single Deity. They account those to be profane who form images of God, of perishable materials, in the likeness of man. Theirs is the one supreme eternal God, unchangeable, immortal. They therefore suffer no statues in their cities." Locke, whose bigotry in church or state will not be supposed to have fettered his judgment upon this or any other topic, has pronounced the Scriptures to have God for their author; eternity (not the calendar) for their object; and truth, without any mixture of error, for their subject matter. The testimonies of Boyle, Bacon, and Pascal, to the Jewish Scriptures, are in every one's hand. That of Sir William Jones is equally notorious, where he declares that "the Scriptures + contain, independently of their divine original, more true sublimity, more exquisite beauty, purer morality, more important history, and finer strains both of poetry and eloquence, than could be collected within the same compass from all other books that were ever

Tacit. Hist. lib. v. 5. + Anniversary Discourse.