1768] KENNICOTT 297

He was a scholar and the friend and patron of *
scholars. Of the Latin that he had read as a young
man enough remained to enable him, after forty years'
disuse, and when nearly seventy, to compose a Latin
oration for Convocation when it met in 1761 to present
an address to the new King.
He was the first promoter and throughout a liberal
supporter of Dr. Kennicott's learned Collation of the
Hebrew Manuscripts of the Old Testament. Newcastle
had written to the archbishop about the work of
Kennicott, who applied for help from the Government.
Seeker replies : " His scheme is to compare exactly
together all the MSS of the Hebrew Bible which are at
Oxford and Cambridge and in the British Museum,
amounting at least to one hundred and ten, in order to
the publication of a more accurate text. A work of
this kind hath been long desired by the friends of
Religion and Learning throughout Europe." After
mentioning Father Houbiganti's work, he says : " But
Dr. Kennicott's if completed will outdo not only his
but all the rest of the same nature put together, and
will lay the groundwork of a standard edition of the
Old Testament for the future." He asks that His
Majesty will " make Kennicott partaker of his Royal
Bounty, as Queen Anne did Dr. Mill for his work on
the New Testament." ^

The archbishop a few days later, through Newcastle,
asks the patronage of Cambridge University for Ken-
nicott's work.^ If the Church or any other good cause
wanted something written on its behalf and his own
pen was not, as it often was, available. Seeker could
put his finger on the best man for the job and made
him do it.
