KENNICOTT, Dr Benjamin, well known in the learned world for his elaborate edition of the Hebrew Bible and other valuable publications, was born at Totness, in Devonshire, in the year 1718. His father was the parish clerk of Totness, and once master of a charity school in that town. At an early age young Kennicot succeeded to the same employment in the school, being recommended to it by his remarkable sobriety and premature knowledge. It was in this situation he wrote the verses on the recovery of the honourable Mrs Courtney from a dangerous illness, which recommended him to her notice, and that of many neighbouring gentlemen, who, with laudable generosity, opened a subscription to send him to Oxford. In judging of this performance, they may be supposed to have considered not so much its intrinsic merit, as the circumstances under which it was produced. For although it might justly claim praise as the fruit of youthful industry struggling with obscurity and indigence, yet as a poem it never rises above mediocrity, and generally sinks below it. But, in whatever light these verses may be considered, the publication of them was soon followed by such contributions as procured for the author the advantages of an academical education. In the year 1744 he entered himself at Wadham College: and it was not long before he distinguished himself in that particular branch of study in which he afterwards became so eminent. His two dissertations, on the Tree of Life, and the Oblations of Cain and Abel, came to a second edition as early as the year 1747, and procured him the singular honour of a bachelor’s degree conferred upon him gratis by the university a year before the statutable time. The dissertations were gratefully dedicated to those benefactors whose liberality had opened his way to the university, or whose kindness had made it a scene not only of manly labour, but of honourable friendship. With such merit and such support, he proved a successful candidate for a fellowship of Exeter College; and soon after his admission into that society, he distinguished himself by the publication of several occasional sermons. In the year 1753 he laid the foundation of that stupendous monument of learned industry, at which the wise and the good will gaze with admiration, when the cavils of prejudice, and envy, and ingratitude, shall no longer be heard. This he did by publishing his first dissertation, on the state of the printed Hebrew text, in which he proposed to overthrow the then prevailing notion of its absolute integrity. The first blow, indeed, had been struck long before by Capelins, in his Critica Sacra, published after his death by his son, in 1650; a blow which Buxtorf, with all his abilities and dialectical skill, was unable to ward off. But Capellus having no opportunity of consulting manuscripts, though bis arguments were supported by the authority of the Samaritan Pentateuch, and that of parallel passages and the ancient versions, could never absolutely prove his point. Indeed the general opinion was that the Hebrew manuscripts contained none, or at least very few and trifling variations from the printed text; and with respect to the Samaritan Pentateuch, the most opposite opinions were entertained. Those who held the Hebrew verity, of course condemned the Samaritan as corrupt in everyplace where it deviated from the Hebrew; and those who believed the Hebrew to be incorrect, did not think the Samaritan of sufficient authority to correct it. Besides, the Samaritan itself appeared to very great advantage; for as no Samaritan manuscripts were then known, the Pentateuch itself was rashly condemned for errors which ought rather to have been ascribed to the incorrectness of the editions. In this dissertation, therefore, Dr Kennicot proved that there were many Hebrew manuscripts extant, which, though they had hitherto been generally supposed to agree with one another, and with the Hebrew text, yet contained many and important various readings; and that from those various readings considerable authority was derived in support of the ancient versions. lie announced the existence of six Samaritan manuscripts in Oxford alone, by which many errors in the printed Samaritan might be removed; and he attempted to prove, that even from the Samaritan, as it was already printed, many passages in the Hebrew might undoubtedly be corrected. This work, as might reasonably be expected, was examined with great severity both at home and abroad. In some foreign universities the belief of the Hebrew verity, on its being attacked by Capellus, had been insisted on as an article of faith. “Ista Capelli sententia adeo non approbata fuit fidei sociis, ut potius Helvetii theologi, et speciatim Genevenses, anno 1678, peculiari canone caverint, ne quis in ditione sua minister ecclesiae recipiatur, nisi fateatur publice textum Hebraeum, ut hodie est in exemplaribus Masoreticis, quoad consonantes et vocales, divinum et authenticum esse.”^[1. λV olfii Biblioth. Heb. tom. ii. p, 27« ] And at home this doctrine of the corrupt state of the Hebrew text was opposed by Comings and Bate, two Hutchinsonians, with as much violence as if the whole truth of revelation had been at stake.

The next three or four years of Dr Kennicot’s life were principally employed in searching out and examining Hebrew manuscripts, though he found leisure not only to preach, but also to publish several occasional sermons. About this time Dr Kennicot became one of the king’s preachers at Whitehall; and in the year 1759 we find [7:12:693]him vicar of Culliam in Oxfordshire. In January 1760 he published his second dissertation on the state of the Hebrew text, in which, after vindicating the authority and antiquity of the Samaritan Pentateuch, he disarmed the advocates for the Hebrew verity of one of their most specious arguments. They had observed that, the Chaldaic Paraphrase having been made from Hebrew manuscripts near the time of Christ, its general coincidence with the present Hebrew text must evince the agreement of the latter with the manuscripts from which the paraphrase was taken. Dr Kennicot demonstrated the fallacy of this reasoning, by showing that the Chaldaic Paraphrase had been frequently corrupted, in order to reconcile it with the printed text; and thus the weapons of his antagonists were successfully turned against themselves. He appealed also to the writings of the Jews themselves upon the subject of the Hebrew text, and gave a compendious history of it, from the close of the Hebrew canon down to the invention of printing; together with a description of a hundred and three Hebrew manuscripts which he had discovered in England, and an account of many others preserved in various parts of Europe. A collation of the Hebrew manuscripts was now loudly called for by the most learned and enlightened friends of biblical criticism; and in the same year, 1760, Dr Kennicot issued his proposals for collating all the Hebrew manuscripts prior to the invention of printing, which could be found in Great Britain and Ireland, and for procuring at the same time as many collations of foreign manuscripts of note as the time and money he should receive would enable him to procure. His first subscribers were the learned and pious Archbishop Secker, and the delegates of the Oxford press, who, with that liberality which has generally distinguished them, gave him an annual subscription of L.40. In the first year the money received was about five hundred guineas; in the next it rose to nine hundred, at which sum it continued stationary till the tenth year, when it amounted to one thousand. During the progress of this work, the industry of our author was rewarded by a canonry of Christ Church. He was also presented, though we know not exactly when, to the valuable living of Mynhenyote, in Cornwall, upon the nomination of the chapter of Exeter. In 1776 the first volume was published, and in 1780 the whole was completed. If we consider that above six hundred manuscripts were collated, and that the whole work occupied twenty years of Dr Kennicot’s life, it must be owned that sacred criticism is more indebted to him than to any other scholar of his age. Within two years of his death he resigned his living in Cornwall, from conscientious motives, on account of his not having a prospect of ever again being able to visit his parish. Although many good and conscientious men may justly think, in this case, that his professional labours, carried on elsewhere, might properly have entitled him to retain this preferment, and may apply this reasoning in other cases, yet conduct so signally disinterested certainly deserves to be admired and celebrated. Dr Kennicot died at Oxford, after a lingering illness, on the 18th of September 1783; and he left a widow, who was sister to Mr Edward Chamberlayne of the treasury. At the time of his death he was employed in printing Remarks on Select Passages in the Old Testament, which were afterwards published, the volume having been completed from his papers.