The distribution of the Psalms amongst the Clergy seems to have varied in different Churches. The explanation, however, which Marten gives* with respect to the Church of Amiens, probably applies to all Cathedral Churches. He says that anciently the entire Psalter was recited at Amiens daily throughout the year," in conventu," that is, with all the Canons present; but that on account of the burden of such a service, a portion of the Psalter was subsequently assigned for recitation to each Canon, so as to ensure the daily recitation of the whole Psalter within the ecclesiastical body. In connection with this, it will be interesting to remark, in passing, that the reception

* De Antiquis Ecclesiæ Ritibus, Lib. iv., cap. xviii, 19: Tom. 3, p. 62. Ed. 1764. Antwerp.

of the book of the Psalter from the hands of the Precentor formed a part of the ceremonial at the admission of a new Canon, certainly in the Church of Paris, and probably elsewhere too.*

It has been suggested to me that the distribution of the Psalms amongst the Clergy of Sarum probably formed the basis of that distribution of them over the days of the month which is prescribed to the modern English Clergy in the Book of Common Prayer. There are indeed sixty sections, two for each day in the latter, while there are but fifty-two in the former list. Yet on comparing the two, it will be found that the divisions in the two lists correspond in a much larger number of cases than might have been expected.

The immediate reason, however, why I quote the scheme here is, because it shows a preponderance of odd numbers in the Psalms apportioned to each clergyman. Taking the first forty-nine of these groups, which dispose of the Psalms properly so called, and counting the Psalms according to the numbering and arrangement in the Latin Psalter, we have thirty

* De Antiquis Ecclesiæ Ritibus, Lib. i., cap. v., Ordo i.: Tom. 2, p. 182.

groups which contain an odd number of Psalms against nineteen which contain an even number--a ratio of very nearly five to three.

Look, in short, where we will, and we find traces, more or less distinct, of the fact that ancient Christianity was careful even of such a detail as tho number of Psalms that should be assigned to an Office; that it recognized, and, of course, transmuted with its own higher purpose and intention, the old Pagan principle that "God delights in the odd number;"* that—to state the matter dispassionately -the rule of the odd number in Divine Service was preferred, but, as certainly, was not absolute.

* Numero Deus impare gaudet."-Virgil Ecl. 8, 75.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE INFLUENCE OF HEBREW WRITERS UPON THE

ENGLISH BIBLE.

THE numerous commentaries which have been written in Hebrew and kindred languages, constitute a region of Scriptural exegesis traversed by so few readers. amongst ourselves, that I have thought it worth while to collect a few examples, which might convey some idea of the manner in which our English Bible has been influenced by them. There is, indeed, ample evidence on the face of the English Bible itself, that the translators of it were acquainted with the Hebrew writers that are best accredited. In many a passage where the translation of the Original is open to debate, the decision seems to have been taken in the direction of traditional acceptation, which was learned from one or other of the leading Hebrew authorities. It is, perhaps, almost superfluous for me to say, that we cannot accept everything that is said by a Hebrew writer about the Holy Scriptures for

the single reason that a Hebrew says it, any more than we can accept everything that is said by Englishmen about Shakespeare. Still, upon the whole, Englishmen are by far the best authorities about Shakespeare. And so, when we have made every deduction from the value of the Hebrew commentators for much that to our generation appears fanciful, far-fetched, uncritical, sometimes even childish, and often, when measured by our beliefs, heretical and false; still we have in them a body of exposition, descending even to the treatment of minute anomalies in grammar, and preserving much of what has been said and believed about the Scriptures in the most remote past— a storehouse of native and traditionary acceptation, which no modern translators can with impunity ignore. It was a sound position that was taken up by one of the profoundest Semitic scholars the English clergy ever had-one of that famous band of the seventeenth century, whose intellect and acquirements served to make the English clergy, according to the flattering proverb, the amazement of the world: "The Jews I look on, as especially in this case, to be had regard to, not because the language is now to them as a mother-tongue vulgarly spoken, as an