The appearance of the Revised Version of the New Testament
has let loose an army of discontented writers. At first they confined themselves to sharp and distant criticism; they are now coming to close quarters with hostile versions of their own. Of such is the Life and Letters of St. Paul, by Dr. Dawes. (Longmans, Green, and Co.)—The author's original desire to translate was occasioned by the remark of a sick man, who stopped his clergyman's advice to faith and repentance by saying, "Oh, Sir, if you understood yourself the Gospel you preach, you would know that the gifts and calling of God are without repentance." The fact that the Revisers only made a marginal attempt to meet this sick man's difficulty has procured for us the publication of Dr. Dawes' book, for he thinks this instance of conservatism only one of many failures to remove the hard sayings which offend God's little ones. Consequently, we are presented with the Epistles of St. Paul in a colloquial form, which pro- fesses, according to Mr. Kennedy's canon for a good trans- lation,—" that it may be read with pleasure, or at least without difficulty." The present may indeed be read without diffi- culty of a certain kind ; but as to the pleasure, that is a matter of taste, not always determined by the easy flow of lan- guage.—The New Testament Scriptures in the Order in Which They Were Written, by the Rev. Dr. Hebert (Henry Froude), is another attempt in the same direction ; but this is motived by dis- content with the text rather than with the translation of the Revisers, and by a desire—laudable in its degree—to place the books of the New Testament in their chronological order. But we demur, as a matter of principle, in this age of scholarship, to any version founded on the arrierJ text of 1611. As this instalment, however, of Dr. Hebert's book only represents the six earliest letters of St. Paul, the faults of the old text are not very prominent, though among them is the weak interpolation in Romans xiv., 6, " He that mindeth not the day, to the Lord he mindeth [it] not."—On the other hand, in the Origin and History of the New Testament (Hodder and Stoughton), we have Mr. James Martin of Melbourne, Victoria, cordially accept- ing the results of the Revision. He has been led to expand a lecture on " The Written Word." into a volume of 250 pp., which describes the occasion of each book of the New Testa- ment, the collection of them into a Canon, the fortunes of the chief Greek manuscripts, the nature of the various versions, the origin and characteristics of the eight English translations which pre- ceded the Authorised Version, and lastly, the reasons which have justi- fied a revision. The whole seems to be done in an instructive and genuine way.—A New Metrical Translation of the Hebrew Psalter, by W. D. Seymour, Q.C., LL.D. (Longmans, Green, and Co.), is an adventure into perilous regions, especially on the part of one who tells us that his acquaintance with Hebrew roots and stem-words, vowel-points, and reading-signs is not as deep as he could wish. Would any one venture to preface a translation of the Epistle to the Romans with such a naive confession as to the state of his Hellenistic Greek ? And yet the language of the Old Testament does not seem to be thought one of those matters wherein "a little learning is a dangerous thing." The apology for the metrical form of the book consists in a quotation of the apologetic preface to Keble's version made in 1839. But is not the omen rather a sad one ? Can that version be said to have lived ? Will this, therefore, live, under the shadow of its sanction ? This opening verse of Psalm xliv. shows fairly enough the quality of the sing-song rub-a-dab which we are asked to take in place of the solemn and musical rhythm of the Bible and Prayer-book
We have heard it, 0 God, with our ears, And our fathers the story have told, What a work Thou host wrought in the years That are growing historic and old ; How, the heathen expelled by thy hand, Thou didst stablish our sires in their place, How Thy measures of vengeance were plann'd To tiproot an idolatrous race,"
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