The One Primeval Language traced experimentally through Ancient Inscriptions in Alphabetic Characters, of Lost Powers, from the four Continents. By the Rev. Charles Forster, B. D. London: 1851. Part I. The Voice of Israel from the Rocks of Sinai, or the Sinaitic Inscriptions Contemporary Records of the Miracles and Wanderings of the Exode. 8vo, pp. 182. Sinai Photographed, or Contemporary Records of Israel in the Wilderness. By the Rev. Charles Forster, B. D. London: 1862. 4to, pp. 552. [pp. 533-565]

a' ~ 0 ~i)~ c~~kic Ji sc~~j'~~~on~. [0`~TOBLR3
iii one instance at least, if the ne~ rendering, ~~}iic~i Levy
proposes for a difiicn}t and dispntcd clanse in Prov. xxx.
could be sho~~n to be correct. Aniong the things there stated
to be "coi~cly in going" is, as onr version has it, "a king
against ~~hon~ there is no rising np." ~cscnins, ~v}io snspects
all Arabisin, translates " a king ~~ho has the people ~~itli him."
TTitzig assumes an error ill transcription, and alters tlie text
into` a king ~vho has God ~~itli him." Levy finds, or thinks
lie finds3 tlie ~~ord ~vhich occasions all tlie emharrassiiient in
tliis passage, ill the Sinai tic inscriptions as the name of a
divinity, and on this groi~n d, v~hile lie defends the integrity
of the text, lie adopts llitzig's understanding of it.
This more than doubtful combination is, however, of trifling
conse~juence as compared with tlie intin~ate bearing which
this whole subject would have upon the verity of t}ie Scriptural record, if the view taken of it in the ~vorks named at tlie
ii cad of this article could be substantiated. ~~Te must devote
to it, therefore, a brief consideration. 11ev. Charles Forster,
one of the six preachers of the cathedral of Canterbury, and
rector of Stisted, 1~ssex," has revived in these publications the
theory of Cosmas in the sixth centnry, that iliese inscril)tions
were the woH~ of tlie children of Israel during tlieir forty
years' wandering in the wilderness. This lie has sought to
vindicate and establish in the most elaborate mai)ner. lle
has further wrought out an alphabet of his own, by which lie
undertakes to decipher in detail these records upon the rocks,
adding a translation from which it would appear that they
were designed to record tlie`niracles aiid divine interpositions
of that cventfnl period. In spite, however, of tlie indefatigable industry shown in these volumes, and of the elegance of
their appearance, which in the case of one of Hiem is really
sumptuous, and notwiHistaiidiiig the pious intent of their
author, we are obliged in caiidor to say that they are ll()t
likely to be of any advantage either to science or religion3 so
far as their main scope and purpose is couccriied. Tlic visionary cli~racter of ~Ir. Forster, his readiness to substitute
conjecture for facts, and his unfitness for the solution of so
perplexed a problem in which tlie data are so few, the chances
of error so numerous, and the rigorous accuracy of inatlicinat