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REVIEW.
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f < Still pjeg , sed tp praise , yet not afraid to blame . "—Popbl .
Ai * t . I . —The 23 o i ^ of Psalms ; Translated from the Hebrew : icith Nates JEvplanatory andrGriticaL By Samuel liorsley , LL . p . F . R . S . F . A . S . late Lor < l Bishop of St . Asaph . , 2 vols . 8 vo . London , Sold by Rivingtoixs , and . by Longman ancl Co . ** U 3 i . Vol . I . pp . 30 y . Vol . 11 . . pp . 30 U
THK varies ! pursuits , and versatile -talents , of this writer , have long bie&i known to the public . During hisJ ^ fe . he appeared before it as a mathematician , a polemical divine , a classical scholar , aqd a Biblical and Scriptural critic . Some minor works , among which , a few political and controversial tracts must be ranked , were
the productions of his pen . But the reputation of Bishop Hartley , superior as . were his powecs and attainments , is , iU consulted by the zeal with which the volumes now to be reviewed , and otbef compositions that he did not live to prepare for the press , are brought under the notice of the world . Of the
posthumous publications intended to do honour to his memory his speeches are perhaps the most unexceptionable ajwj-interesting : if in these he occasionally appears like a retained advocate , rather than as a lord of parliament ; in the character of a lawyer much more than in that of a senator
and a prelate ; still he exhibits a wide compass of knowledge , admirable quickness of perception and strength of diction , aad more than common skill in attack and in defence ; nor should
ii . be forgotten that all his energies of reasoning and language are directed against colonial slavery , and other practices not less disgraceful to the British and the Christian name . Two
descr iptions of persons are unjust to his fnemory—his blindly partial friends , and some of those of whose religious tenets he was the opponent . We perceive a want of discrimination in both .
imnoog the former no individual has more essentially injured Dr . Horsley ' s fgiiane than one who , of all men , ought tcfJaave been it ' s guardian . We refer tn : the Rev . Hencage Horsley , who conceives ' these volumes to be the
most profound and the most important fail the learned works of their great
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author ! " It must be confessed , too , that certain of our Nonconformist and Unitarian brethren , who disliked the departed Bishop as a dogmatical codcontroversialist and a bigotted Churchman , have not duly estimated the vigour of his faculties , the extent of his
learning , the excellencies of his style and the independence of his mind . Iri his conflict with Dr . Priestley , he \ fou > the vanquished party ( such is our deliberate opinion ) , not the victor : yet the triumph of Dr . Priestley was obtained over no ordinary foe !
Having thus adverted to Bishoj > Horsley ' s literary character and merits , we freely acknowledge that his translation ot the Book of Psalms not only disappoints our expectations , but is eminently calculated to bring those charming devotional poems , and even sacred criticism itself , into contempt . * It is much to be lamented , " says the Rev . Heneage Uorsley , " that the author left behind him no introductory chapter or prefatory essay to the translation , explanatory of his scheme , of exposition , and furnishing a general commentary upon the whole book
/*—Pref . viii . Nothing indeed can be plainer than that " the author" did not finish thes £ papers for the public eye . Of m&ny of the Psalms he has given no translation : upon some he has left ho annotations ; and yet for this incorrrplete version , divided between two slender octavo volumes , we are called upon to pay no common price . The experience of the Rev . Heneage Horsley nas rendered him a proficient in the trade of editorship . His preface , for example ] is extended through at least nine pages ,
additional to what it would have occupied , by " an extract from a sermon of the Bishop ' s on the first verse of th ^ second Psalm . " A few passages qf this extract it will be necessary t 6 transcribe : < c Of all the books of the Old Testament ; the book of Psalnris is the most universally [ generally ] read , but , I fear , as little as any understood . This cannot be ascribed to any extraordinary obscurity of these sacred songs , for of all the prophetic parts of the Scriptures they are certainly tH * most perspicuous . But it is owing- partly ,
Review.
REVIEW .
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1817, page 39, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2460/page/39/
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