founded two scholarships at Oxford, which took effect on her death at Windsor, 25 Feb. 1830, and her name is perpetuated in the bidding prayer among the benefactors of the university. Numerous letters to and from her are in Roberts's ‘Memoirs of Hannah More.’
Kennicott's great work was his ‘Vetus Testamentum Hebraicum cum Variis Lectionibus,’ 1st vol. Oxford, 1776, fol.; 2nd vol. 1780, fol. To the second volume was annexed a ‘Dissertatio Generalis’ on the manuscripts of the Old Testament, which was published separately at Oxford in the same year and reprinted at Brunswick in 1783 by Paul James Bruns, a native of Lübeck, who was employed by Kennicott in collating manuscripts at Rome and elsewhere. A copy of the entire work, the result of many years' assiduous labour, was presented by Kennicott in person to George III. In 1753 he issued ‘The State of the printed Hebrew Text of the Old Testament considered, a Dissertation,’ and in 1759 he brought out a second dissertation on the same subject. These volumes were translated into Latin by W. A. Teller, and published at Leipzig, the first in 1756, the second with additions in 1765. Bishop Lowth inspired him with a desire to test the accuracy of the Hebrew text of the Old Testament. His critical examination of the manuscripts began in 1751, and when Secker, then bishop of Oxford, urged him in March 1758 to undertake their regular collation, he yielded to the request. His labours met with much support. The subscriptions made in England for his aid amounted to 9,119l. 7s. 6d. In France the Duc de Nivernois encouraged his design, and he was permitted to examine certain manuscripts at Paris in 1767. By the king of Denmark's order the use of six very ancient manuscripts was offered, four quarto volumes of various readings were sent to him by the command of the king of Sardinia, and the stadtholder of Holland gave a yearly donation of thirty guineas. His first report ‘On the Collation of the Hebrew Manuscripts of the Old Testament’ was forwarded to the subscribers in December 1760, and a similar statement appeared each year until 1769. The complete series was issued in one volume at Oxford in 1770, and the reports to 1768 were translated into Latin and included in the ‘Bibliotheca Hagana … a Nicolao Barkey.’ Kennicott was twice (1758 and 1769) refused permission to borrow manuscripts from the Bodleian Library, but he sent to it on 17 Dec. 1760 the manuscript collations which he had then made. The rest of his collations, with his correspondence and miscellaneous codices, were at first deposited in the Radcliffe Library, transferred to the Bodleian Library on 10 May 1872, and now rest in the new museum. Bishop Barrington gave in 1820 to the Bodleian Library a mass of Arabic tracts and papers which belonged to Kennicott.
Johnson said of these investigations that ‘although the text should not be much mended thereby, yet it was no small advantage to know that we had as good a text as the most consummate industry and diligence could procure;’ but they were censured by some critics for inaccuracy, and by the Hutchinsonians through the feeling that they might lead men to value the letter rather than the spirit of the bible. A volume called ‘The printed Hebrew Text of the Old Testament vindicated. An Answer to Mr. Kennicott's “Dissertation,”’ was written by Fowler Comings in 1753 (Mrs. Delany, Autobiography, iii. 526), and Julius Bate [q. v.] published ‘The Integrity of the Hebrew Text vindicated from the Objections and Misconstructions of Mr. Kennicott,’ 1754. An anonymous pamphlet, ‘A Word to the Hutchinsonians, or Remarks on three Sermons lately preached before the University of Oxford,’ 1756, was written by Kennicott, and George Horne [q. v.] retaliated with ‘An Apology for certain Gentlemen in the University of Oxford,’ 1756. Horne subsequently issued ‘A View of Mr. Kennicott's Method of Correcting the Hebrew Text,’ 1760; but in the end they became attached friends. Thomas Rutherforth, D.D., King's professor of divinity in Cambridge, issued in 1761 a letter to Kennicott on his ‘Dissertation,’ to which he at once replied, whereupon Rutherforth published a second letter, and the Rev. Richard Parry came out with ‘Remarks on Dr. Kennicott's Letters,’ 1763.
Kennicott met with great opposition abroad. There appeared in 1771 ‘Lettres de M. l'Abbé de * * * ex-professeur en Hebreu … au Sr Kennicott,’ purporting to be printed at Rome and sold at Paris, and an English translation was struck off in 1772. In reply to this work Kennicott at once wrote ‘A Letter to a Friend occasioned by a French Pamphlet [anon.],’ 1772, stating that it was the composition of six Capuchins in the convent of St. Honoré at Paris; but it is said by Jones to have been inspired by a Jew called Dumay, who had been an assistant to Kennicott (Jones, Life of Horne, pp. x–xi, 84–109). Bruns published at Rome in 1782 a Latin version of this letter by Kennicott, and added some letters of his own. Another defence in reply to this attack was written in 1775 by the Rev. George Sheldon, vicar of Edwardston, Suffolk. In Italy there appeared a censure upon Kennicott's letters
