TO THE

EDITOR OF THE NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW,

ON

HEBREW GRAMMAR.

BY M. STUART,
PROFESSOR IN THE THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY, ANDOVER.

ANDOVER:

PRINTED BY WILLIAM H. WARDWELL.
1847.

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[THE following Letter was sent to the Editor of the North American Review, with a request that he would publish it at the close of his next number, in case he should deem it compatible with the rules he had prescribed for himself, as to the admission of communications of such a nature. He returned my manuscript, with a courteous and gentlemanly letter, in which he states, that the length of my communication, and the probability of a rejoinder still longer, precluded him from complying with my wishes, which he would otherwise readily gratify. Of the matter of his letter, in respect to other things concerned with my communication, I do not hold myself at liberty to speak, because I consider it as belonging of confidential intercourse between friends. But thus much I may say, viz., that he makes no objection to my publishing what I have written, in any way that I may judge best; and that throughout his letter he has shown the comity and kind feelings, which belong to the gentleman and the scholar. I do not publish in order to cast any blame on him, but because I think that it is due to justice and a proper self-respect, to remove, if it may fairly be done, the at least seeming imputa. tion of disregarding the laws of comity, and of having rendered my Grammar worthless by numerous and palpable blunders in translating the German.-M. S.]

LETTER.

Theol. Seminary, Andover, Aug. 1847.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE NORTH AMERICAN:

My Dear Sir,-In the last (July) number of your Review is an article, under the head of CRITICAL NOTICES, giving some account of a "grammatical mêlée," as the writer calls it, occasioned by the almost simultaneous publication in English of Roediger's edition of Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, by Professors Davis and Conant and myself. It has never been my custom to meddle with any of the reviews of my works published either in this country or in England; not even in a single instance have I done it. I have always said: 'Both countries are lands of liberty; let every one speak his own opinion.' If the review is unfair, which has sometimes happened; or if the writer shows that he has not studied the subject which he has undertaken to canvass; I have ever regarded it as safe and proper to remain silent. Reviews got up in this way will seldom do but little harm; and every man, who is engaged in serious pursuits, and wants all his time in order to make progress in them, will find it much better to devote himself to his main business, than to turn aside in order to review reviews.

"Sed certi sunt denique fines." While a man ought to bear very patiently with the expression of critical or literary opinions or views different from his own, he is not always bound to be silent, when his moral character, or his gentlemanly courtesy, is called in question. There are times, when either of these comes to be attacked, that render it proper and expedient, if he feels himself to be innocent, to vindicate his own conduct.

After serious doubt whether such a time has arrived for me, and after performing the duty of a second reading, I have deemed it due to myself to address you on the subject of the Notice in question. You of course will take the liberty to act according to your own judgment in the case, as to publishing what I write. I am fully aware, that you cannot adopt a general rule,

important dipl State. There for not having have defeated erous answer

It is time th these things.

some more am

of the injustic on the part of have this who affected on ac I cannot co I disclaim an have not enga ever, of Mr. make it. W sibility attach

Mr. W. no of Massachus there is a gen He asks for 1 naturally che even ask for 1 our country i W. are not to them that we

which will permit authors reviewed to make their defence in your pages. The general liberty of doing this would involve you in endless difficulty, and convert your highly respectable Periodical into a mere arena of broils-uninteresting and worse than useless to the public. If, on the whole, my case does not claim some exception to the general principle which I have so fully conceded, then decline to publish my communication. If you think it best to decline, on the general ground stated, when you have read and reflected upon what will be said in the sequel, you may depend on my "keeping the peace," and behaving as a quiet and orderly member of the literary Republic ought in all good conscience to do.

Had the writer of the notice in question merely given an opinion as to my literary errors, I should have troubled neither you nor him. Who the writer is, I do not know. Possibly he may be yourself; but my opinion is somewhat of a decided one that he is not; for I do not recognize your impress, which generally leaves some marks behind that stand in high relief. But whoever he may be, I recognize in him an undoubted friendly feeling. He has said more in the way of approbation, both of my efforts and of my works, than I could possibly ask any friend to say; I had almost said, than I could wish any one to say, because I fear there is somewhat of hyperbole in what he has said. I cannot do otherwise than acknowledge his courtesy and general good feeling. I hope that I shall not sacrifice any part of my claim to a continuance of them, in his view, by what I am going to say in the sequel.

On p. 258, the reviewer acknowledges that "the translation of the eleventh edition of Gesenius' Hebrew Grammar, is no legal bar to another gentleman's translating the fourteenth." That position, I suppose, is sufficiently plain in law, if not in equity. He then adds, however, that "he should suppose a liberal courtesy would have left the task to Prof. Conant, if he chose to assume it, especially as he had shown himself so competent to the task." This is the point to which I take exception. It leaves me in a doubtful state as to observing the laws of courtesy; or rather, notwithstanding the visible caution of the language, it leaves an impression on the mind of the reader, who of himself knows nothing perhaps about the matter as it really stands, that I have probably violated the laws of courtesy. Less than this, the language as it stands cannot, as I think, fairly be said to mean. To this, then, and to all surmises or inuendos of the like nature, I have a plain and simple answer to make, in the way of stating facts.

When I began to teach the Hebrew language at this Seminary, there was only one Institution in the country where it was taught; which was Dr. Mason's Divinity School in the city of New York. There were neither lexicons, nor grammars, nor any other parts of a Hebrew apparatus, to be bad, a few solitary scattered copies of Buxtorf's small lexicon and grammar excepted, and some few of Parkhurst's, all of which were in the possession of individuals here and there. In my first attempt to make a Hebrew grammar, without the vowel-points, (following Parkhurst), I was obliged to set up a part of the type with my own hands. My next essay was a large octavo, with the vowel-points; in the publication of which the printers and myself ran great risk of losing what little we had. Slow was the sale, but gradually it increased. My second effort, at a grammar of this kind, was to reduce the size nearly to one half its former bulk; in which, as in the preceding edition, I was most essentially aided by Gesenius' Lehrgebäude or large Hebrew Grammar. Every subsequent edition was corrected, modified, and (as I would hope) amended more or less. It was not until after the sixth edition was published, that I had any formidable rival in this department of labour. The idea never once entered my mind, that I had either the right or the power to control others, as to the publication of a rival grammar. Dr. Nordheimer conferred with me, in respect to the publication of his Hebrew Grammar; and so far was I from opposing it, that I encouraged him to go on. I never thought of objecting to Professor Bush's publication of his grammar, in respect to either of his editions. I have always held it to be the undeniable right of the public to obtain the best book they can, in any departinent of science. Of course, if I have been in the right as to this opinion, no man can with any propriety say to his neighbour: 'You shall not publish, or you ought not to publish, a better book than mine.'

Cherishing sentiments and feelings such as these, if Prof. Conant had, in the way of civility, addressed a note to me, before the publication of his Gesenius, and told me what he was about to do, I should not have made the least objection. Considering that when my sixth edition of Heb. grammar was published, I had been labouring more than thirty years to promote the study of Hebrew in our country; that I was already descending into the vale of years, and that the grammar in question was the principal hook I had published, (some small pamphlets excepted), which really yielded a compensation in any good measure adequate to the labour bestowed, it did seem to me, when I saw

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