canonical book of the Old Testament, written by the prophet Jeremiah, according to Archbishop Usher and some other learned men, who follow the opinion of Josephus and St Jerome, on occasion of Josiah's death. But this opinion does not seem to agree with the subject of the book, the lamentation composed by Jeremiah on that occasion being probably lost. The fifty-second chapter of the book of Jeremiah was probably added by Ezra, as a preface or introduction to the Lamentations: the two first chapters are employed in describing the calamities of the siege of Jerusalem; in the third the author deplores the persecutions he himself had suffered: the fourth treats of the desolation of the city and temple, and the misfortunes of Zedekiah: the fifth chapter is a prayer for the Jews in their dispersion and captivity: and at the close of all he speaks of the cruelty of the Edomites, who had insulted Jerusalem in her misery. All the chapters of this book, except the last, are in metre, and digested in the order of the alphabet; with this difference, that in the first, second, and fourth chapters, the first letter of every verse follows the order of the alphabet; but in the third the same initial letter is continued for three verses together. This order was probably adopted, that the book might be more easily learnt and retained. The subject of this book is of the most moving kind; and the style throughout lively, pathetic, and affecting. In this kind of writing the prophet Jeremiah was a great matter, according to the character which Grotius gives of him, Mirus in affectibus concitandis.