nterpretation. There are more in the sequel, as to the English words hank, and to hanker after, which I perhaps may notice by and by. It seems to me that Auca, a term of the base Latinity, is a mere technical word, formed from the sound which the bird makes, when it cries; not so much when it cackles, as when it calls for its companions; and quære, whether the English word aukward be not more rationally deduced from auca, (this animal being both perverse and aukward) than from the Saxon Ewerd, from whence the glossographers generally derive it. And possibly the local northern word, to squawk, may have no other original but this, the initial letters squ being nothing but addition, by that figure, which the rhetoricians call prosthesis. Let the reader judge. Now, as to the words hank, and to hanker after, which I promised to touch upon, Bishop Kennet writes thus, “anca, ancus, was the thigh or hind leg,-affer quatuor panes, affer ancum porci, i. e. a leg of pork. Hence a haunch of venison; up to the haunches in dirt; and hence, with some allusion, to have a hank upon, to hanker after." No doubt but the word hanch comes from the Latin and Italian anca, but mediately perhaps from the French hanche. Anca is probably from the Latin, ancus, which, as Festus says, signifies, qui aduncum brachium habet, ut exporrigi non possit, and M. Dacier upon Festus observes, that Ancus Martius, the third king of Rome, obtained his name from this circumstance. The Greek word Ayev, signifies cubitus, and Junius inclines to think anca, or hanch, may come from thence "ab ayxwv, quod non modo cubitum, sed quemlibet membrorum flexum, Budeo authore, significat." The reader may take which etymology he pleases; but who can discern any allusion between the words hank, and to hanker after, and a leg of pork or a haunch of venison, as mentioned by the bishop? This surely is fetching things very far, when it is so obvious to deduce the substantive hank, in the phrase to have a hank upon a person, from a hank of thread, which Dr. Lye very plausibly deduces from the Islandic hark, vinculum'; as if you should say, "ita vinculis obstrictum aliquem habere, ut præ metu ad omnia, quæ volueris, præsto sit.” And so as to a hank of thread, he tells us, that hank and haunk in the Islandic language, is, "funiculus in forma circuli colligatus." To hanker after a thing, seems to have a quite different original; this means inhiare, anrie rem appetere, and therefore the same learned author derives it froin the Dutch hunkeren, which, I suppose, signifies to hunger;' insomuch, that to hanker after any thing, fucans, to hunger after it; a manner of speaking of the same import with that other metaphorical one, of thirsting after a thing. 1758, Oct. Yours, &c. PAUL GEMSEGE. XXXI. A Passage in Virgil explained. MR. URBAN, VIRGIL being the prince of the Latin poets, it would be desirable to have every single passage in him rightly understood. There is one, however, in the first book, which the interpreters, those at least which I have an opportunity of consulting, do in general, methinks, mistake. The words are these: Hæc ubi dicta, cavum, conversa cuspide, montem Æn. i. 85. He is speaking of Eolus, the king of the winds, who, with his sceptre, say the interpreters, quod celsa arce sedens manu tenebat, v. 60. pierced the side of the mountain, and from the aperture therein made, the brother winds hastily and impetuously, and as it were in a crowd, rushed out. Thus Servius. "Cavum] ordo est; conversa cuspide cavum montem in latus impulit. Et alibi: In latus, inque feri curvam compagibus alvum, "Quasi in rem, quæ facile cedit ictui." The verse here quoted occurs, Æn. ii. 51. where the poet is writing of the Trojan horse, whose side was perforated by the lance of Laocoon. And, in the same manner, Mons. de la Rue, in his verbal interpretation, " Concussit cavernosum montem ad latus intorta cuspide;" as likewise Mr. Dryden, in his translation, He said, and hurl'd against the mountain's side His quiv'ring spear, and all the god applied. The raging winds rush through the hollow wound, &c. In short these expositors wanted only a hole or opening for the winds to rush out at, and having found one so readily in the side of the mountain, they were content. But the author, in my opinion, meant to tell us, that Æolus tenet ille immania saxa Vestras, Eure, domos :) v. 143. pushed the mountain on its side, overturning it so with a blow of his spear, that from the aperture at the root, the struggling winds were enabled to get out. Certainly this interpretation, which the words will perfectly well bear, expresses the power of the god in a much more grand and sublime manner, than the other does, which only represents him as making a hole in the mountain's side. The overturning of a lofty and ponderous mountain creates in us the most magnificent idea imaginable; I would therefore give the passage thus: No sooner said, but with his trident couch'd, He turn'd the hollow mountain on its side. And, if I mistake not, our Milton understood the place in this manner, when he says, As if on earth Winds under ground, or waters forcing way Milton, vi. 195. The words, had pushed a mountain from its seat, are a clear imitation of those in the Roman poet, montem impulit in latus. But how nobly has the English poet improved upon the Roman one, by that addition, half-sunk with all its pines! This is making the thought in a manner his own; and thus it generally fares, whenever any passages of the ancients come into the hands of true geniuses; the jewels are always then set to the best advantage. 1758, Dec. Yours, &c. PAUL GEMSEGE. XXXII. A brief Account of the various Translations of the Bible into English. I CANNOT learn that any part of the Holy Scriptures, translated into the ancient British tongue, is now remaining. It is not indeed certain, that they were ever translated into that language; if they were, it is probable they were all destroyed in that general devastation which was made under Dioclesian about the year 301, when, as Fox in his Acts and Monuments, page 89, relates, on the credit of ancient authors, "almost all Christianity was destroyed in the whole island; the churches subverted; all the books of the scripture burned; and many of the faithful, both men and women, were slain." Yet I may observe, that in Chaucer's time, there was a tradition that the Gospels were extant in the British tongue, when Alla was king of Northumberland, in the sixth century. Chaucer's words, in the Man of Lawe's Tale, are these: A Breton boke, written with Evangiles, Was set, and thereon he swore anone, &c. But as this might be only a poetical fancy, I shall lay no great stress upon it. The Saxons made themselves masters of this island somewhat before the year 500; and after the Saxon inhabitants of this country (says Mr. Lewis, in his History of the Translations of the Bible into English) were converted to Christianity, we are sure they had the whole Bible in their own country character and language. The most ancient version of the gospels, in that language, that I have found mentioned, is that of one Aldred, a priest, inserted in the code of Eadfride, Bishop of Lindisfarne, about the year 680, (or as others say 730) which was near a hundred years after the Abbot Augustine, with forty Benedictine monks, were sent from Rome by Pope Gregory the First, to instruct the Saxons in the Christian religion. Venerable Bede, who was a Saxon, we are told (See Lewis's Hist. page 6) translated the whole Bible into the Saxon tongue, and that King Alfred did the same. Yet Bale tells us, that Alfred translated only part of the Psalms; "Psalterium Davidicum, quod morte preventus non perfecit;" and Aug. Calmet says, that Cuthbert, Bede's scholar, in the catalogue of his master's works, speaks only of his translation of the Gospels into that language, and says nothing of the rest of the Bible, Bede died in 735, and Alfred in 901. It is generally held, that the first translation of the Bible into English was made by John Wickliffe, who was born at Wickliffe, in Yorkshire, and educated at Merton college in Oxford; he translated it from the Latin Bibles then in use, as the Saxon versions had been done before. This translation must have been made some time before the year 1384, when Wickliffe died. Aug. Calmet says, it is not known that this translation was ever printed, but that there are several MSS. of it in England. The same learned Benedictine also informs us, that John Trevisa is supposed to be the first who translated the Bible into English, and that his translation. was finished in the year 1357. This John Trevisa was vicar of Berkley, in Gloucestershire; afterwards there was a revisal made of Wickliffe's translation by some of his followers; or, as some think, a new version, with several corrections. And these are all the English translations of the whole Bible, (as far as I can find) that were made before the art of printing was invented, which art was first brought into England by William Caxton, about the year 1470, or very soon after. In the year 1526, William Tindal, a Welchman, but educated at Oxford, first printed his New Testament in English, in 8vo. at Antwerp, where he then resided. This translation was not made, as the former ones had been, from the Vulgate Latin, but from the original Greek. About four years after this he published the Penteteuch in English, from the original Hebrew; and continued to translate several other books of the Old Testament, till the time of his death, which was at Tilford, or Wilford, near Bruxells, in the year 1536, where he was first strangled, and then publicly burnt. But the year before this, the whole Bible was translated into English by Myles Coverdale, a native of Yorkshire, but residing somewhere beyond sea; it was published in folio, and dedicated to King Henry VIII. Of this Bible, it is said there were only two more editions, one in a large 4to, in 1550, and another in 1553. Some suppose this version was made partly by Tindal, and partly by Coverdale. In 1537, Matthews's Bible, as it was called, was printed with the king's licence; of which there was another edition in 1551. Mr. Lewis, (Hist. of Transl. of Bib. p. 111.) is of opinion, that this Thomas Matthews is a fictitious name, and that one John Rogers was the translator, or at least the publisher of that edition. This John Rogers was educated at Cambridge, and became acquainted with Tindal at Antwerp; but in Queen Mary's reign, (being then in England) he was burnt on account of his printing that Bible. In the year 1539, Matthews's Bible was published with some alterations and corrections, in a large folio, printed by Grafton and Whitchurch, which was called Cranmer's, or the Great Bible; and the same year also, one Taverner published another edition of this Bible; in this edition |