tage; the elements shall melt with fervent heat." Nowhere in Pagan or mystic epic, dream, drama, or didactic poem, can we find a catastrophe at once so philosophical and so poetical as this.

If we pass from the general idea and spirit of Hebrew poetry, to its parts and details, many deem that other ancient nations have the advantage. Where, in Scripture, it may be said, a piece of mental masonry so large, solid, and complete, as the Iliad! Where a fiction so varied, interesting, romantic, and gracefully told, as the Odyssey? Where such awful odes to Nemesis and the Furies, as Eschylus has lifted up from his blasted rock, and, in vain, named Dramas? Where the perfect beauty of Sophocles-the Raffaelle of Dramatists? Where the inflamed commonplace of Demosthenes, like the simple fire of a household hearth, scattered against the foes of Athens with the hand of a giant, or the bold yet beautiful mysticism of Plato, or the divine denial and inspired blasphemy of Lucretius? Have the Hebrews aught, amidst their rugged monotonies, that can be compared with all this?

Now, in speaking to this question, we have something to concede and to premise, as we have, in part, premised and conceded before. We grant that there are in Scripture no such elaborate and finished works of art, as some of the master-pieces we have named. We grant, too, that, in judging of the poetic merit of the Bible, we may be prejudiced in its favor by early associations, by love and faith, just as its detractors, too, may have their internal motives for dislike to it. But we are not without reasons for the preference we give. And these are the following:

First, Scripture poetry is of an earlier date than Grecian. The Muse of Greece was but a babe at the time that she of Palestine was a woman, with the wings of a great eagle, abiding in the wilderness. This accounts, at once, for her inferiority in art, and her advantage in natural beauty and power.

Secondly, The Poetry of the Hebrews appeared among a rude people, as well as in an early age-a people with few other arts, possessing an imperfect statuary, no painting, and no philosophy, strictly so called. Their poetry stood almost alone, and was neither aided nor enfeebled by the influences

of a somewhat advanced civilization. Hence, in criticising it, we feel we have to do with a severe and simple energy, as unique and indivisible as the torrent which broke forth from the rock in the desert. Like it, too, it seems a voice of nature called into play by the command of God. Whenever a nation possesses only one peculiar gift, it will be generally found that that gift is in perfection. And not more certainly were the Greeks once the undisputed masters of the science of beauty, the Romans of the art of war, and the Italians of painting, than were the Hebrews of the sublime of poetry.

Thirdly, The purity was not inferior to the elevation of their strains. And this, which proves that they came from a higher fountain than that of mere genius, proves also that they are "above all Greek, all Roman fame." Their beauties are "holy beauties, like dew-drops from the womb of the morning." There is the utmost boldness, without the least license, in their poetry. With blushes, we omit to press the contrast betwixt this and the foul offences, against reverence and decency, found in the cleanest of Pagan poets. Small need for a Christian to spit in the temples of the gods, when their own poets scruple not, habitually and deliberately, to

defile them.

Fourthly, Partly from their intense purity, partly from the uniform loftiness of their object, and partly, as we deem, from their peculiar afflatus, the bards of the Bible carry the credentials of a power unrivalled and alone. Homer and Virgil are the demi-gods of scholars and school-boys; Sophocles and Lucretius, the darlings of those who worship a higher art; and Plato, the favorite prose poet of the devotees of ethnic philosophy. But the children, in all civilized nations, weep at the tale of Joseph, or tremble at the picture of Moses on the Mount; every female heart has inscribed on it the story of Ruth and the figure of Mary; the dreams, even of skeptics, are haunted by the glories of the Christian heaven or the terrors of the Christian hell; and on the lips of the dying, float, faintly or fully, snatches from the Psalms of David, or the sayings of Jesus. The name "Jesus," owns one, who, we hope, shall yet feel more than he does his full claims, 66 is not so much written, as it is ploughed into the mind of humanity." Even supposing their divine pretensions untrue, yet here is literary power-"this is true fame”—the only fame deserving that firmamental name, and

which not chance, nor antiquity, nor prejudice, nor the influence of criticism, but merit, must have won. Not chance, for as soon could atoms have danced without music into a world, as could such and so many winged words have fortuitously assembled—not antiquity, for this only increases the marvel-not prejudice, for have not the prejudices of the world been at least as strong as those of the church, and has not the world regarded the songs of Zion much as the English, behind Harold's intrenchments, the minstrelsy of the Norman trouveurs, and yet owned their music and felt their power?-not the influence of criticism, for who ever sought to write up the literature of the Bible, or even gave it its just meed of praise, till long after it had wreathed itself round the imagination and the heart of mankind? But how better, or how at all, solve the problem of such power, save by drawing the old conclusion, "This cometh from the Lord, who is wonderful in counsel and excellent in working?" No book like this. It has stunned into wonder those whom it has not subdued into worship; electrified those whom it has not warmed; established its reign in an enemy's country; and, while principally seeking the restoration of man's moral nature, it has captivated eternally his imagination, and cast a shadow of eclipse upon the brightest glories of his fiction and his poetry.

For, after the concession made in regard to artistic purpose and polish, we are willing to accept the critical challenge given us, as to the poetic beauty of the Scriptures. We dare prefer Job to Eschylus and to Homer, and even Hazlitt and Shelley have done so before us. There is no ode in Pindar equal to the "Song of the Bow," and no chorus in Sophocles to the "Ode" of Habakkuk. In all the "Odyssey" there is nothing so pathetic and primitive as "Ruth," and the story of Joseph. Achilles arming for battle is tame to the coming forth, in the Apocalypse, of Him, whose "name is Faithful and True;" who is "clothed in a vesture dipped in blood;" and "treadeth the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God." Jeremiah and Nahum make the martial fire of the "Iliad" pale. The descriptions of natural objects in Lucretius seem small when compared with the massive pictures of David and Job. If he has been said "divinely to deny the divine," the bards of Israel have far more divinely confessed and reflected it, till you cry-"It is the voice of a

God, not of a man." The questions of Demosthenes, what are they to those of Ezekiel or Amos, sublime and fearful as the round sickle of the waning moon? Plato and the elements of his philosophy lie quietly inclosed in some of Solomon's sentences; and transcendently above all, whether Roman, Greek, or Hebrew, tower two, mingling their notes with the songs of angels-the Divine Man, who spake the Sermon on the Mount, and the Prophet who stood in spirit beside his cross, and sang of him whose face was more marred than that of man, and his form than that of the sons of

men.

The great modern poets still remain. And here we find but four who can even be named in the comparison-Dante, Shakspeare, Milton, and Goethe. First, Dante comes forward reluctantly, for not Virgil nor Beatrice are dearer to him than Moses and Isaiah. Indeed, the Hebrew bards, and not the Mantuan poet, are his real "masters." "He is indebted," says Hazlitt, "to the Bible for the gloomy tone of his mind, as well as for the prophetic fury which exalts and kindles his poetry." He owes, we should rather say, his gloomy tone of mind to himself, and the truths and visions, which frequently cheer it, to the Bible. But the second part of the sentence is true. The moral severity of tone, the purged perdition poured out upon his enemies, the air of exultation with which he recounts their sufferings, remind us of Ezekiel, or of him who said "Thou art righteous, O Lord! who hast judged thus, and hast given them blood to drink, for they are worthy." In his union, too, of a severe and sin ple style, with high idealism of conception, he resembles the Scripture writers, whose visions are so sublime, that they need only to be transcribed to produce their full effect. His childlike tone is also Scriptural-a tone, we may remark, preserved fully in no translation, save one in prose we read lately, which reminded us of the "Pilgrim's Progress." But, while the prophets are the masters, Dante is obviously but a scholar. His vehemence and fury compared to theirs resemble furnace, beside starry, flames. Too much of personal feeling mingles with his prophetic ire. And while possessing more of the sublety which distinguishes the Italian mind, he has not such wealth of imagery, and towering gran

*

*By Dr. John Carlyle.

deur of eloquence, as the Hebrews, little or nothing of their lyrical impulse, and while at home in hell, he does not tread the Empyrean with such free and sovereign steps, although there, too, he has a right, and knows he has a right, to be.

Shakspeare-nature's favorite, though unbaptized and unconsecrated, child-has derived less from Scripture than any other great modern author, and affords fewer points of comparison with it. He was rather a piece of nature than a prophet. His real religion, as expressed in the words, "We are such stuff as dreams are made of, and our little life is rounded with a sleep," seems to have been a species of ideal Pantheism. He loved the fair face of nature; he saw also its poetic meaning; but did not feel, nor has expressed so deeply its under-current of moral law, nor the sublime attitude it exhibits, as leaning upon its God. Hence, while the most wide and genial, and one of the least profane, he is also one of the least religious of poets. His allusions to Scripture, and to the Christian faith, are few and undecided. He has never even impersonated a character of high religious enthusiasm. He never, we think, could have written a good sacred drama; and had he tried to depict a Luther, a Knox, a Savonarola, or any character in whose mind one great, earnest idea was predominant, he had failed. The gray, clear, catholic sky behind and above, would have made such volcanoes pale. Had he written on Knox, Queen Mary would have carried away all his sympathies; or, on Luther, he would have been more anxious to make Tetzel ridiculous, than the Reformer reverend or great. Shakspeare was not, in short, an earnest man, hardly even-strange as the assertion may seem-an enthusiast, and, therefore, stood in exact contrast to the Hebrew bards. He often trifled with his universal powers they devoted the whole of their one immense talent to God. He, like his own Puck or Ariel, loved to live in the colors of the rainbow, to play in the plighted clouds, to do his spiriting gently, when he did it, but better still to swing in the blossom that hangs from the bough;" they were ready-girt, stripped, and sandalled, as those "ministering spirits sent forth to minister to the heirs of salvation." He seemed sometimes waiting upon the wing for a great commission, which never came-the burden of the Lord lay always upon their spirits. He was of the "earth earthy," the truest and most variegated emanation from its soil; but