Subject: Oriental languages

This 15-page manuscript, written circa 1830, presents an explanation of an oriental language, possibly Hebrew, using contemporary oriental linguistic principles. The manuscript includes illustrated charts and symbols, and shows evidence of a well-intentioned but perhaps not fully accurate approach to the study of Hebrew grammar. It features handwritten text in both English and Hebrew. The manuscript, discovered among the papers of Hon. John Davis (1761-1847), a prominent Boston judge and politician, is unsigned. The script is not in Davis's hand. The last page is toned from being folded and stored, suggesting that the manuscript may be incomplete. This is a fascinating manuscript likely from an early 19th-century student, possibly of Moses Stuart of Andover Theological Seminary.

First American edition of the "Works of the Rev. Claudius Buchanan, L.L.D." published in New-York by Whiting & Watson, printed by L. Deare in 1812. This collection comprises Buchanan's Christian researches in Asia, with notices of the translation of the Scriptures into Oriental languages; his Memoir on the expediency of an ecclesiastical establishment for British India; and his Star in the east, with three new sermons. It also includes Dr. Kerr's report on the state of Christians in Cochin and Travancore, Buchanan's sermon "Healing Waters of Bethesda," and his speech before the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews. Buchanan's work includes a description of the Jewish settlement in India, noting his donation of Indian Hebrew books to Cambridge University. The first edition worldwide was published in London in 1811. WorldCat lists four copies of the 1812 New York edition.