1

Even now it scents us half to death,

With your old quids and wheezing breath."
Even tagtail Echo stands aloof,

Quite satisfied with former proof.

If Pan can stomach, let him have it,

No god or mortal else will crave it.

Poor Galatea's quite outrageous,

Since now your tunes no more engage us,
The Cyclop never pleas'd her whim,
She stuck to you and jilted him.
Now quite forlorn and quite forsaken
At the French leave which you have taken,
To seem consistent in her preference,
She only treats your hogs with deference.
Who would have thought when you departed,
So great an uproar would be started.
There's greater noise among your cronies,
Than Venus made to lose Adonis.
Even Meles' horse-pond boils and blubbers,
To lose so soon two favourite lubbers,
Who to its banks did 'oft repair,
To fish for frogs and tadpoles there.
The first was Homer, known of old
For lying stories sung and told;
'Bout how Achilles try'd to slay us,
To please one bully Menelaus.
The next was Bion, simple loon,
He kept to quite a different tune;
Instead of wars and bloody noses,

He sung

"the prophets," and "Vicar and Moses;' Venus would never venture near him,

And none but brutes would stay to hear him.

'Tis strange that every weed that grows,
Is killed by winter's frosts and snows,

Yet thawed by spring it straight revives,

And seems, cat-like, to have nine lives.

But man, poor, honest, clever soul,

When once he goes, goes for the whole;
And when the clods have pressed his snout,

He'll have good luck to get it out.

Even thou, old Clodpole, on thy back,

Has ceas'd thy everlasting clack.

*—and wheezing breath.-The original is xas to goy aσdμa,

O Bior, brandy did it all!
That lurch for grog produc'd thy fall!
Why was not thy allowance shorter,
With less of rum and more of water?

Or what vile wretch, his grog shop hid in,
Could sell thee rum when thrice forbidden ?

But law shall catch the rascal soon-
And I meanwhile will catch thy tune;
And if like Orpheus I could reach thee,
I'd go to hear old Pluto teach thee.
But, sirrah, if thou playest there,
As thou wast wont in upper air,
Dame Proserpine will take offence,
And pack thee off post haste from thence.

E'en I should like to stand without

The door to see them kick thee out;

Nay, even I'd lend a hand, if able,

And lug the base, while you squeal treble.

THE

BOSTON REVIEW.

FOR

JUNE, 1811.

Librum tuum legi, et quam diligentissime potui annotavi quae commutanda, quae eximenda arbitrarer. Nam ego dicere verum assuevi. Neque ulli patientius reprehenduntur, quam qui maxime laudari merentur.

Plin.

ARTICLE 28.

Review of Griesbach's New Testament.

(Concluded from page 114)

We sincerely regret, that a passage in our review of Gries bach's Greek Testament was so expressed, as to convey a sense, to the minds of many of our readers, different from our real meaning. For if it be understood, as it has been interpreted by the writer in the Panoplist for the last month, it fixes upon us the reproach either of great ignorance, or great baseNo man, who has so much as dipped his feet in sacred criticism, can be rash enough to place the common reading of the three texts in Acts, Timothy, and John's 1 Epistle on a level in point of authority; and yet, from the words of the following passage in our review, we may be thought to have done this.

ness.

"It has always struck us with astonishment, that many of those who maintain the most rigid notions of inspiration, and exclaim most vehemently against the glosses, evasions, and forced interpretations of hereticks, should have discovered so little solicitude to ascertain the true text even of the New Testament, and have felt no more dread, than they seem to have done, of adding to the word of God. To what is it to be attributed that even at the present day, 1 John v. 7. is quoted in proof of the doctrine of the Trinity, and even taken as a text of discourses; when it ought to be known, that it has not more authority in its favour than the famous reading of the seventh

commandment in one of the editions of King James' Bible; thou shalt commit adultery. The same may be said of Acts xx. 28. and 1 Tim. iii. 16. which ought to be no more quoted in their present form as proof passages, by any honest and well instructed theologian."

Now, our meaning was not that the same might be said of the degree of authority of the received readings in Acts and Timothy, which could be said of the well-known interpolation of the three heavenly witnesses; this would have been too gross a misrepresentation of facts to have been swallowed even by our friends and, as we should have hoped, too gross to be imputed to us even by enemies. Our meaning certainly was, that the texts in Acts and Timothy, were, like that in John, STILL QUOTED in proof of the doctrine of the trinity, and as we thought with great impropriety; and this was the only circumstance, in which we intended to represent them as in the same case. However; our words have appeared to convey another meaning, the very falsehood and rashness of which we hope will rescue us from the suspicion of having intended it. In the mean while, the sentence would have expressed the whole of our meaning, if it had read thus "the same may be asked (i. e. to what is it to be attributed that they are still quoted) with respect to Acts xx. 28. and 1 Tim. iii. 16. which ought to be no more quoted in their present form as proof passages, by any honest and well instructed theologian."

Now, though the writer in the Panoplist says, that such an assertion as ours appears to be, "admits of no excuse or palliation;" perhaps he may have himself sometimes found in the haste of composition, that two sentences are connected in a manner very plain to the author, whose head is full of his subject, and who therefore refers every word to its proper antecedent; while the words suggest to another reader a very different meaning, in consequence of his referring them to an immediate, and not to a remote antecedent. However, lamenting as we do that our language has conveyed to any readers a meaning which we did not intend, and especially one which has called forth such a pitiless pelting of hard names from the critick in the Panoplist, we still beg to call the attention of our readers to that assertion which we had chiefly in view in the passage in question, and which remains unhurt, viz. that these

texts, as well as that in John, "ought to be no more quoted in their present form, as proof passages, by any honest and well instructed theologian." Whether the authority of the text in John is a little more or a little less than that of the curious errour in King James' Bible, we are not solicitous to show; it is enough to justify the comparison, that the text of the heavenly witnesses is not found in a single Greek MS. written before the invention of printing, and has been established in our bibles by a series of frauds and mistakes. The "profaneness," and "indecency" of the comparison we expect to feel, when our censors feel the weight of evidence against the passage in question. But even of this we have some hopes, as they have already ventured to say, that they "do not aver, that no man can honestly reject the text as spurious." We hope they will have no compunctions for this most safe and liberal concession.

Before we examine this critical tentamen, we should be glad to know, where the writer found a passage, which he has included in marks of quotation p. 506. which, as it now stands, may be inadvertently supposed to be an extract from the review to which he is replying. He says that " among many things which have been alleged, this is one; that "Griesbach, like all other great criticks, rejects the doctrine of the Trinity, and has expunged from the New Testament all the principal texts by which this doetrine is supported." Now, we beg leave to ask, where this declaration is to be found? who has made it? or, is it an absurd allegation, invented for the occasion by the writer, for the sake of enjoying a childish triumph in exposing it? This may be one of the pious artifices which are lawful in support of the truth; if we called it disingenuous, we should only return the language of the Panoplist but we know, and these gentlemen know also, that every intelligent Unitarian considers the trinitarianism of Griesbach, which is well understood, as a circumstance of the highest importance, when his authority is appealed to in the case of the doubtful texts, which are thought to affect the Trinitarian controversy.

The credit of Wetstein suffered, though in the opinion even of Michaelis very unjustly, in consequence of his suspected he→ resy. Now as Griesbach has confirmed almost all Wetstein's