A volume of Poems by Mrs. Rebecca S. Nichols, of Cincinnati, will, we understand, be issued for the next holidays. Mrs. N. has some warm admirers, and this volume is to contain her best productions. We hope its success may equal its deserts.
The fine, thoughtful Essays Written in the Intervals of Business, have been reprinted by A. D. F. Randolph, of this city.
The Rev. Isaac Leeser, one of the Jewish ministers of Philadelphia, whom we have long known as a scholar and man of talents, is engaged on a new translation of the Old Testament, on the basis of the common English version, carefully corrected and improved according to the best Jewish authorities. It is intended by Mr. Leeser so to render the Hebrew text that but few explanatory notes will be needed, and he reasonably hopes that his edition will be commonly adopted by the Jews of this country. Dr. Kenrick, the Roman Catholic Bishop of Philadelphia, has just published (by Dunigan & Brother, New-York,) The Epistles and the Apocalypse, from the Vulgate, having previously given to the public a translation of the Gospels; and Dr. Alexander of Princeton, and several other men of learning, have lately been occupied with new versions of particular portions of the sacred volume. It is well known, too, that a society, composed for the most part of members of one of the largest and most respectable denominations of Christians, has been established mainly for the purpose of publishing a revised version of the Bible, but it is not probable that this society will ever accomplish any thing more than an increased "contempt for God's word and commandment." The specimens we have of its scholarship might justify some merriment if they were connected with something less venerable and sacred.
For ourselves we are content with the Bible as it is, and cannot help a feeling of regret that any who profess to be governed by its wisdom are disposed to treat it with so little reverence. Undoubtedly there are some slight verbal inaccuracies in the common version, but they are understood, or may be easily explained in notes: we want here no innovations, no improvements, no progress, except in the observance of the good we understand. Nevertheless, we see with pleasure all the studies with which really learned men illustrate their convictions of the significance of the original. For the chief portion of mankind, in this night in which we live, the sun does not shine with its original splendor, but it is reflected on us by the moon, and we care not how many thousand stars reflect it also according to their capacity.
A new version, by which it is not proposed to displace the common one, is to appear from the press of Mr. Colby, in this city, and the high reputation of its author for learning and judgment, is a sufficient assurance that what he does at all he will do in a very masterly manner. The Rev. Dr. Conant, Professor of Biblical Literature in the University of Rochester, says in a letter to his publisher:
"It has long been a favorite object with me to furnish a translation of the Holy Scriptures for unlearned readers, which should accurately express the meaning of the original by the aids of modern scholarship in the style and manner of the early English versions. The translation is intended, therefore, for the benefit of the common reader of the Scriptures, to aid him in more clearly understanding them wherever our common version is for any reason obscure. In other words, it is to do directly by a translation what has long been attempted by the awkward and circuitous method of a commentary; viz. to make the Scriptures plain to the unlearned reader. I should for many reasons regard it as undesirable, and it certainly is impracticable, to supplant the common version to any extent as the received version for the church and the people, or the common English Bible and common standard of appeal for those who use only the English language."
Dr. Conant will preserve as nearly as may be the manner of the old translations, endeavoring only to combine the fidelity and exactness of modern scholarship with the simplicity and strength of the common version. To such an effort, by such a man, we see no objections. The reputation most at stake is that of Dr. Conant himself, and those who know him do not fear that that will suffer. It will at least be interesting to mark the differences between his renderings and those of King James's translators.