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of the positions advanced in his dissertation, but
he successfully maintained them; and the disputation, which was in the Latin language, and lasted
nearly two hours, affording sufficient evidence of
his erudition, the professors, shortly after it terminated, conferred upon him, with the usual forms,
the degree of Doctor of Theology. The diploma
he received is signed by Meinardus Tydeman,
Rector, and Franciscus Burmannus, Doctor and
Professor of Sacred Theology.
Having now accomplished his wish, and having
completed all the necessary preparations for his
departure, Doctor Livingston took leave of Holland, and embarked at Helvetsluijs, for England,
about the first of June, 1770. Upon his arrival at
Harwich, to which place the passage had been a
quick and agreeable one, he immediately passed up
to London, and there tarried with Mr. John Harrison, a respectable merchant of that city, with
whom he had occasionally corresponded, and who
had politely invited him to his house.
He availed himself of his short stay in England
to visit Oxford, and was introduced to Doctor
Benjamin Kennicoit, the celebrated Hebrew scholar, then engaged in that stupendous work to which
biblical criticism is so much indebted — the collation
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of Hebrew manuscripts. The Doctor had the honour of breakfasting with this learned and indefatigable
Hebrician, and of being taken, after the repast,
into the chamber where his amazing labours were
performed. He had been already ten years employed in the preparation of his Bible, and was now
only about half through it. "He showed me," says
the Doctor, "several of his most admired manuscripts. The manner in which he proceeded was,
to take one line from Van Der Hooght's Bible,
which he considered to be the most correct copy of
the Hebrew text, and paste that line upon the top
of a page of a blank folio book, and then, under
that line, to write all the variations which his manuscripts furnished in that line."
This extraordinary visit could not soon be forgotten; but a most gratifying memorial of it, in the
hand-writing of that distinguished man, was obtained before they parted. In the Doctor's Album,
which contains a variety of little sententious pieces
in Greek, and Latin, and Dutch, with the names of
Bonnet, Burmannus, Ravius, Tydeman, Vanderkemp, Elsnerus, and other eminent literati of
Holland, underwritten, there are a few lines in Hebrew characters, beautifully formed, and accompanied with this sign-manual —
BENJ: KENNICOTT,
E Coll: Exon: Oxon:
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