pleased to find you think it so, as well as that you do not
admire a callow clergyman any more than I do.

And now the providence of God (I hope it was) has engaged me in
such a work wherein you may be very assistant to me, I trust
promote His glory and at the same time notably forward your own
studies; for I have some time since designed an edition of the
Holy Bible, in octavo, in the Hebrew, Chaldee, Septuagint and
Vulgar Latin, and have made some progress in it: the whole
scheme whereof I have not time at present to give you, of which
scarce any soul yet knows except your brother Sam.

What I desire of you in this article is, firstly, that you would
immediately fall to work, read diligently the Hebrew text in the
Polyglot, and collate it exactly with the Vulgar Latin, which is
in the second column, writing down all (even the least)
variations or differences between them. To these I would have
you add the Samaritan text in the last column but one, which is
the very same with the Hebrew, except in some very few places,
only differing in the Samaritan character (I think the true old
Hebrew), the alphabet whereof you may learn in a day's time,
either from the Prolegomena in Walton's Polyglot, or from his
grammar. In a twelvemonth's time, sticking close to it in the
forenoons, you will get twice through the Pentateuch; for I have
done it four times the last year, and am going over it the
fifth, collating the Hebrew and two Greek, the Alexandrian and
the Vatican, with what I can get of Symmachus and Theodotian,
etc. Nor shall you lose your reward for it, either in this or
the other world.