" At the close of the seventeenth century came from England
a strong antiphonal answer in this chorus; Meric Casaubon, the
learned Prebendary of Canterbury, thus declared: "One language,
the Hebrew, I hold to be simply and absolutely the source of
all." And, to swell the chorus, there came into it, in complete
unison, the voice of Bentley--the greatest scholar of the old
sort whom England has ever produced. He was, indeed, one of the
most learned and acute critics of any age; but he was also Master
of Trinity, Archdeacon of Bristol, held two livings besides, and
enjoyed the honour of refusing the bishopric of Bristol, as not
rich enough to tempt him. _Noblesse oblige_: that Bentley should
hold a brief for the theological side was inevitable, and we need
not be surprised when we hear him declaring: "We are sure, from
the names of persons and places mentioned in Scripture before the
Deluge, not to insist upon other arguments, that the Hebrew was
the primitive language of mankind, and that it continued pure
above three thousand years until the captivity in Babylon.
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