question, that in the parallelism of the Hebrew tongue we can trace many of the peculiarities of modern writing, and in it find the fountain of the rhythm, the pomp, and antithesis, which lend often such grace, and always such energy, to the style of Johnson, of Junius, of Burke, of Hall, of Chalmers indeed, of most writers who rise to the grand swells of prose-poetry.

Ere closing this chapter, we may mention one other curious use of parallelism by the Jewish poets. As it is, confessedly, the key to the tower of Hebrew verse, and as, in one species of it, between every two distichs, and every two parts of a sentence, there is an alternation, like the backward and forward movements of a dance, so the sacred writers keep up a similar interchange between the vast concave above and the world below. Mark this in the history of the creation. At first, there is darkness above and darkness below. Then, as the earth is enlightened, the sky is illumined too; the earth is brought forth from the grave of chaos; the heaven is uplifted in its "terrible crystal;" and, ere the earth is inhabited, the air is peopled. Again, as to their present state, the heaven is God's throne, the earth his footstool-grandeur sits on the one, insignificance cowers on the other; power resides above in the meteors, the storms, the stars, the lightnings, the sunbeams-passive weakness shrinks and trembles below. The one is a place, nay, a womb of glory, from which angels glide, and Deity himself at times descends. The other is a tomb, an Aceldama, a Golgotha; and yet, though the one, in comparison with the other, be so groveling and mean, taken in connection with the other, it catches and reflects a certain degree of glory. It has no light in itself, but the sun condescends to shine upon it, to gild its streams and to touch its mountains, as with the finger of God. It is a footstool, but it is God's footstool. It is a tomb, but a tomb set in the blue of heaven. It has no power in itself, but it witnesses and feels the energies of the upper universe. It is not the habitation of demons, or angels, or God: but angels rest their feet upon its hills, demons walk to and fro through its wastes, and God has been heard sometimes in its groves or gardens, in the

cool wind of the day. Hence, while righteousness looks down from heaven, truth springs from earth. Hence, the prophet, after saying, "Give ear, O ye heavens ! and I will speak," adds, "and hear, O earth! the words of my mouth." So much for this mighty prophetical dance or parallelism between earth and heaven.*

* See, on this subject, Herder's "Spirit of Hebrew Poetry."

CHAPTER II.

GENERAL CHARACTERISTICS OF HEBREW POETRY.

Ar the hazard of retreading here and there our own steps in the Introduction, we must speak separately of the general characteristics of Hebrew poets. To the first we intend to name of these, we have referred already—it is their figurative language. Like the swan on still St. Mary's Lake, each thought "floats double," -each birth is of twins. It is so with all high thoughts, except, perhaps, those of geometrical abstraction. The proof of great thoughts is, will they translate into figured and sensuous expression will nature recognize, own, and clothe them, as if they were her own? or must they stand, small, shivering, and naked, before her unopened door? But here we must make a distinction. Many thoughts find, after beating about for, natural analogies-they strain a tribute. The thought of genius precedes its word, only as the flash of the lightning the roar of the near thunder; nay, they often seem identical. Now, the images of Scripture are peculiarly of this description. The connection between them and their wedded thoughts seems necessary. With this is closely connected the naturalness of Scripture figure. No critical reproach is more common, or more indiscriminate, than that which imputes to writers want of nature. For nature is often a conventional term. What is as natural to one man as to breathe, would be, and seems, to another, the spasm of imbecile agony. Consequently, the ornate writer can not often believe himself ornate, can not help thinking and speaking in figure, and is astonished to hear elaboration imputed to passages which have been literally each the work of an

hour. But all modern styles are more or less artificial. Their fire is in part a false fire. The spirit of those unnaturally excited ages, rendered feverish by luxuries, by stimulants, by uncertainties, by changes, and by raging speculation, has blown sevenfold their native ardor, and rendered its accurate analysis difficult. Whereas, the fire of the Hebrews--a people living on corn, water, or milk-sitting under their vine, but seldom tasting its juice-dwelling alone, and not reckoned among the nations -surrounded by customs and manners ancient and unchangeable as the mountains,-a fire fed chiefly by the still aspects of their scenery, the force of their piety, the influences of their climate, the forms of their worship, and the memories of their past—was a fire as natural as that of a volcano. The figures used are just the burning coals of that flame, and come forth in brief, impetuous, impatient volleys. There is scarcely any artifice or even art in their use. Hebrew art went no farther than to construct a simple form of versification. The management of figures, in what numbers they should be introduced, from what objects drawn, to what length expanded, how often repeated, and how so set as to tell most powerfully, was beyond or beneath it. Enough that the crater of the Hebrew bosom was never empty, that the fire was always there ready to fill every channel presented to it, and to change every object it met into itself.

The figures of the Hebrews were very numerous. Their country, indeed, was limited in extent, and the objects it contained, consequently, rather marked than manifold. But the "mind is its own place," and from that land flowing with milk and honey, what a rich herbarium, aviary, menagerie, have the bards of the Bible collected and consecrated to God! We recall not our former word, that they have ransacked creation in the sweep of their genius; for all the bold features and main elements of the world, enhanced, too, by the force of enthusiasm, and shown in a light which is not of the earth, are to be found in them. Their images are never forced out, nor are they sprinkled over the page with a chariness, savoring more of poverty than of taste, but hurry forth, thick and intertangled,

like sparks from the furnace. Each figure, too, proceeding as it does, not from the playful mint of fancy, but from the solemn forge of imagination, seems sanctified in its birth, an awful and holy, as well as a lovely thing. The flowers laid on God's altar have indeed been gathered in the gardens and wildernesses of earth, but the dew and the divinity of Heaven are resting on every bud and blade. It seems less a human tribute than a selection from the Godlike rendered back to God.

We name, as a second characteristic of Hebrew poetry, its simplicity. This approaches the degree of artlessness. The Hebrew poets were, indeed, full-grown and stern men, but they united with this quality a certain childlikeness, for which, at least, in all its simplicity, we may search other literatures in vain. We find this in their selection of topics. Subjects exceedingly delicate, and, to fastidious civilization, offensive, are occasionally alluded to with a plainness of speech springing from perfect innocence of intention. The language of Scripture, like the finger of the sun, touches uncleanness, and remains pure. "Who can touch pitch, and not be defiled?" The quiet, holy hand of a Moses or an Ezekiel can. The proof is, that none of the descriptions they give us of sin have eyer inflamed the most inflammable imagination. Men read the 20th chapter of Leviticus, and the 23d of Ezekiel, precisely as they witness the unwitting actions of a child; nay, they feel their moral sense strengthened and purified by the exposures of vice which such passages contain. The Jewish writers manifest this simplicity, too, in the extreme width and homeliness of their imagery. They draw their images from all that interests man, or that bears the faintest reflection of the face of God. The willow by the water-courses, and the cedar on Lebanon-the ant and the leviathan the widow's cruse of oil and Sinai's fount of fire-the sower overtaking the reaper, and God coming from Teman and from Paran-Jael's tent-nail, and Elijah's fiery chariot-boys and girls playing in the streets of Jerusalem--and those angels that are spirits, and those ministers that are flames of fire; yea, meaner obiects than any of these are selected impartially to