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. WI sibility attach Mr. W. no of Massachus there is a ger He asks for 1 naturally che even ask for 1 our country it W. are not to them that we

the advertisement for the republication of Gesenius, that at least
the laws of literary courtesy demanded, that I should, in some
way, have been civilly advertised of it.

No such thing, however, was done. Prof. C. not only pub-
lished without doing this, but he never did me the courtesy of
sending to me a copy of his work. Unfortunately for his re-
spectable publishers, they were persuaded to stereotype the work,
seemingly without the apprehension, that a work of such a na-
ture is susceptible of improvement without limits, and that such
a mind as that of Gesenius would certainly make further im-
provement; as indeed subsequent facts demonstrated.

Nor was this all. At the end of § 3 of the Grammar, in an addition of his own, where he undertakes to give a list of "the most valuable grammatical works," Prof. C. names the grammars of Gesenius, Ewald, Nordheimer, Prof. Lee of Cambridge in England, and Hupfeld, one section only of the last having been published. To make out the character thus given to the last named work, he must of course have gone upon the principle of ex pede Herculem. He has not given his readers the least notice, that such a grammar as mine is in existence.

If now my Reviewer has testified correctly, on p. 257, when he says, that "the circulation of numerous editions... has attested the opinion universally entertained of its [my Grammar's] superiority over any work of the kind which had preceded it," in what light, I would beg to know, does this testimony place the courtesy of Prof. Conant? I will not myself undertake to characterize his method of proceeding; but I have not conversed with a single friend on the subject, who does not regard it as an intended insult. Prof. C. has been remonstrated with by his friends; but, as they assure me, to no purpose. He keeps his own counsel, and refuses to give any explanation.

Of course, I have never asked either him or them for any explanation. The pamphlet which Prof. C. has recently published, the tone of which even his somewhat partial reviewer complains of, is such a breach of the laws of comity and common civility, that decent self-respect places me beyond the reach of making any comments on it. The tone and temper of this pamphlet may help, perhaps, to solve the mystery of his former course. But such a solution I could not foresee, when I engaged in the translation of Roediger's Grammar. Nor was it necessary to take this into view, in order to form an opinion. He undoubtedly intended and expected, when he published Gesenius, that this work should supersede mine. And after all the discourtesy he

had shown, I felt myself at liberty to choose where I pleased, i. e. to republish my own Grammar, or to translate another, provided it was different from that which he had published.

This, however, I did not undertake without counsel. I consulted friends to whose opinion I am accustomed to pay much deference, as to the propriety of the measure. Not one has ever expressed a doubt of it to me, after looking at the subject.

Other particulars will serve the purpose of eclaircissement. Prof. C. had a copy of Roediger's Grammar sent to him by a mutual friend of him and me, some three months before I received one. From two different quarters, each entitled, as I believe, to implicit credit, I received the intelligence that he did not design to alter the stereotype plates of Gesenius' eleventh edition, which the publishers had unguardedly got upon their hands; and the reason he assigned for it was, that Roediger's additions and alterations were not important enough to justify the expense and trouble of alteration.

While this intelligence was before me, I obtained a copy of Roediger, and read carefully the book. I now felt that the way was fairly open for me, to give the avails of this grammarian's labours to our public, and that I ought to do it. I have done so; and so far as I am yet able to see, I have transgressed no law of God or man, in doing it. My conscience is wholly at ease. I appeal to the spontaneous sense of τὸ καλόν and τὸ πρέπον, in every true scholar's breast, whether any man can pursue such a course toward me, in relation to such a matter, as Prof. Conant has pursued, and then have any right, in law or equity, to turn round and complain of me for publishing without consulting him. I think my reviewer will be not a little puzzled, when he comes to know all these facts; and specially, after what he has said in commendation of my labours. If anything like one half of what he has said is true, it is impossible for him to justify such rudeness and incivility towards me.

Will the reviewer bear with me, if I suggest (what seems indeed to lie on the whole face of his communication), that he probably is not well acquainted with the nature and value of Roediger's amendments? That Roediger is more of a philosopher in grammar than Gesenius, eminent as the latter was, no competent judge I think will doubt. I understand it to be generally felt and conceded by Hebrew scholars. Prof. Conant has put him, however, into the back ground, as much as decency would allow. Not intending to republish him, until circumstances roused him to connect himself with a republication be

important dipk State. There for not having have defeated

erous answer t It is time th these things.

some more am

of the injustic on the part of have this whol affected on ac I cannot co I disclaim an have not enga ever, of Mr. make it. WE sibility attach Mr. W. no of Massachus there is a gen He asks for 1 naturally chei even ask for t our country is W. are not to them that we

gun without his concurrence, it was of course for his interest to keep Roediger's amendments in the back ground, by saying nothing in his recent advertisements respecting them. In a very different light from his, and from that of the reviewer, (if the latter may be said to have at all considered it), do I regard the question of publishing them. There is scarcely a page of Gesenius that has escaped addition or modification from Roediger's finely informed, well-balanced, and judicious mind. More would have been done, as he assures us in his preface, had the heirs of Gesenius permitted. More will doubtless yet be done by him, should he live and prosper, for the advancement of the grammatical knowledge of the Hebrew.

Meantime it is proper, for the present exigency, to advert to the fact, that Prof. Conant, and by implication his Reviewer, profess and declare, that a most faithful and accurate translation of both Gesenius and Roediger has been given by the former to the public. To my translation exceptions are taken by the former in a pamphlet of more than fifty pages, which the reviewer bas endorsed, and which as I perceive, is bound up with the recent issue of Appleton's edition of the work, together with nearly as much more of Appleton's bookselling advertisements. What purposes these are to serve to the learner of Hebrew, who purchases that work, it might be difficult to say. As he does not use my edition, he needs not to be guarded against my errors, It is not difficult, however, to guess what the bookselling adver tisements mean; but one has not hitherto been accustomed to see them attached to a manual of Hebrew Grammar, which convenience requires to be put in the most compact form that is feasible. Prologue and epilogue, however, have sometimes been attached to particular kinds of composition, and may sometimes serve, like the retinue that escorts a great man, to announce approach, and give the signal for departure.

But to the merits of the case. Roediger, with a keen and philosophic eye, had come, by the perusal of Varro, to the conclusion, that there is an obvious ground or principle in the use of language, which will account for the apparently inexplicable, and seemingly contradictory, uses of the Hebrew tenses. Scores of grammarians and critics have essayed to untie, or else to cut, the Gordian knot. It still remained fast and firm when Gesenius took it in hand. Prof. Conant, finding that Gesenius' solution is dropped in Roediger's edition, has reproduced it at the close of his recent edition. The amount of it is simply, that the Hebrew, having only two tenses, must naturally employ them

with much laxity and comprehensiveness. Hence, in cases where the designation of action was more important than that of time, both tenses might be employed indifferently, and both therefore came to occupy, in part, one common ground. But why not employ one tense only in such cases, in order to avoid ambiguity and mistake? A question which, as I imagine, it would be difficult to answer; and which, at any rate, neither Gesenius nor Prof. C. has answered.

In a word, (for I must be summary here), it gives no solution of a division of tenses into Preterite and Future, to say as Prof. C. does (p. vi.), that "it was doubtless the primary division of time." Was the Present, then, excluded from such primary division? And why did not the Hebrews provide a form appropriate to this, as well as the Greeks and Latins? This consideration alone renders it very probable, that the Hebrew ground of distinct forms of tenses lies in something besides time merely, and something quite different from it. Varro, in his Latin Grammar has suggested, that all action, as designated by verbs, may be divided into actio perfecta and actio infecta, i. e. action completed and action incomplete. The incomplete, Roediger names the Imperfect, which is only another word of the same meaning as the former; and the completed he names the Perfect, which has the same correspondence with its preceding name. The only question that remains, in order to show the propriety of this, is: Does the actual use of the Hebrew tenses correspond with such a theory?

For all who wish full satisfaction here, an attentive examination of Roediger's Grammar, §§ 123–126, is requisite. Any action, imperfect as to its completion may of course be designated by the Imperf. tense. The analogy of the Greek and Latin Imperfects goes a great way toward illustrating the nature of such a tense. But neither of these languages reaches the extent of the corresponding Heb. Imperfect. A single glance at the nature of the usage, in the way of illustration, may be allowed here, in order that I may be understood. Let us take the so-called Imperfect. (1) It designates the proper future; for what is future, is of course action incomplete. (2) The present; for that which is now in action, is not completed. (3) The past; and this when a particle precedes which necessarily points to the past, and leaves no room for mistake by the reader; or when continued or often repeated action is designated, or something customary and constantly recurring. All these are of course action in some sense incomplete, whether in time past or future. Thus Job's

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

sons made a feast in their turna, and this was an established custom among them. Job, fearing that they might sin in their festive seasons, offered up sacrifice and made intercession for them, as often as they feasted. "Thus did Joh continually," adds the sacred writer. The word did is designated here by the simple and absolute Imperf. of the verb, viz. by ". Now the propriety of employing this form of the verb, in the present case, is quite apparent, on the ground of Varro and Roediger. The action was at no time fully completed; it was renewable as often as the occasion demanded. Just so in Gen. 2: 6, “There went up (b) a mist from the face of the ground," i. e. it was a customary or usual occurrence, and the ascension of the mist was at no one time fully completed. Abundance of like examples is found in all parts of the Heb. Scriptures; see Roed. Gramm. § 125. 4. b. In both of these cases the Perfect might have been employed; but then the writer, if he had employed it, would have regarded the actions in question mainly as things that had once existed or actually happened, and not principally (as he has now done) in the light of customary and often repeated actions.

No tolerable solution of such cases, now, can be found in the theory of a Praeterite and Future, which have merely a relation to time. There is a nodus, in all such cases, which such a theory neither unties nor cuts.

In like manner as to the Perfect. Besides the usual praeterite tense, it also designates action which has long continued and still continues, in like manner with the Imperfect, except that the nicer shade of meaning has reference to actual occurrence or existence, rather than to the continuance and repetition of such occurrence. As to the Perfect with Vav before it, being employto designate a future sense, it is neither more nor less than a tropical use of the tense. What is predicted or declared as about to exist or take place, is often expressed by the Perfect, in order to show the certainty of the matter. It is spoken of, by virtue of such an idiom, as if it were a thing which had already been actually accomplished. The Greek language not unfrequently employs the Aorist and the Perfect in the same manner, Kühn. Ausfürl. Gramm. § 443. 2. § 439. 2. The energy of this mode of expression, and the strongly marked rhetorical aspect of it, must be evident to every one.

Yet in respect to this simple and obvious account of these phenomena in Hebrew, Prof. C. says, that "Roediger has given an unphilosophical view of the relation of the primary and the