the Hebrews is very grave and austere" (and, Ewald might have added, "true"), "and leaves little room for poetic conception." As lyrical poetry was first, so it continued, for a long time, sole occupant of the field. Ewald describes it as possessing the widest compass, and reflecting the whole life of the nation at all times and in all circumstances; as having its essential peculiarity in its musical form of utterance and delivery-it was immortal thought married to vocal or instrumental melody; and as divided, according to its subjects, into various species; such as the hymn which commemorated some joyful or great event, witness the 29th, 46th, and 48th Psalms; the dirge, such as David's lament for Saul and Jonathan, and such songs of mourning for the calamities of the land, as the 44th, 60th, and 73d Psalms; the dithyrambic, an irregular, wild, and excited strain, the sole specimens of which occur in the 7th Psalm and in the 3d chapter of Habakkuk; the love-song, such as the 45th Psalm; the prayer, in which, as in the 17th, 86th, and 102d Psalms, the devotional prevails over the poetical element; and, lastly, the sententious, satiric song, to be met with in the 14th, 58th, and 82d Psalms, and which constitutes a link connecting the lyrical with the second variety of Hebrew poetry. This Ewald calls gnomic poetry. In it, feeling is solidified into sentiment; general truths take the place of individual impressions; lyric rapture is exchanged for almost philosophic calm; the style becomes less diffuse, and more sententious; the form of verse remains, but the accompaniments of song and music are abandoned and forgotten. The rise of this poetry testifies to the advance of a people in the power of generalization, and shows that a quantity of experience has been accumulated into a national stock. In Israel, it commenced with Solomon. Lyric poetry is a spray which rises from troubled waters, such as rolled in David's time; but gnomic poetry is the calm ripple upon an ocean of peace. It necessarily united itself with the floating proverbial literature of the country. From simple sententiousness it gradually swelled into oratory, snatched up fitfully the lyre it had thrown aside, or diverged into dramatic form, touching thus upon the third variety of Hebrew song. This is the drama. No regular shape of it, indeed, nor any approximation to a theatre, a stage, or the many arts and contrivances connected with it, are to be found among the Hebrews. But the simple beginning and foundation of dramatic poetry may be traced in their poetry. This Ewald finds in the Song of Songs, "which appears as if designed for a stage, albeit a very simple one, which develops winged speeches of several persons, a complete action, and in the course of the whole admits definite pauses of the action, which are only suited to the drama." Job, too, seems to him a sublime drama, which, in comparison with the Song, may be called a tragedy. Proceeding at some length to analyze the Song, he finds in it various characters—a chorus, an action, a happy termination, and a strong and lively moral. In this he is very successful; but his proconception as to the late origin of the book of Job, leads him to over-estimate the art, and somewhat to underrate the natural force and genius of that marvellous poem. For epic poetry, he searches in vain, amidst the carlier portions of the Hebrew literature, but descries its late beginnings, in Tobit, Judith, and some other of the apocryphal books. Such is Ewald's classification. It is excellent in some things, but, in the first place, it omits altogether the prophetic writers. These Ewald appears to regard as the orators of the land, rather than as its noblest and loftiest poets. Secondly, it slurs over the truly epical character of the historical books of the Old Testament. Is not Exodus itself a great epic, as well as a true history, containing all the constituents of that species of poetry? Thirdly, It rather oddly finds the commencement, if not the climax, of the degeneracy of Hebrew literature in the book of Job, which bears internal evidence of being the earliest as well as the most sublime poem in the world. We wonder Ewald had not also sought to prove that "Prometheus Vinctus" was written after the subjugation of Greece by the Romans. We fancy a subtle critic, in the thirtieth century, starting the theory that "Macbeth" was translated from the German of Kotzebue, and falsely imputed to Shakspeare! Fourthly, Ewald's principle of arrangement excludes altogether the prose-poetry of Scripture-not the least interesting and impressivewhich abounds in the historical books, and constitutes the staple of the entire volume. Without intending strictly to abide by it in our after chapters, we may now propound a division of our own. We would arrange Hebrew poetry under the two general heads of Song and Poetic Statement. We give the particulars which fall under this general division. We have first Song Exulting-in odes of triumph-Psalm cl. Insulting-in strains of irony and invective-Psalm cix. Loving-in friendly or amatory songs-Psalm xlv. Reflecting-in gnomic or sententious strains--Psalm cxxxix., Proverbs. Interchanging-in the varied persons and parts of the simple drama-Job and Song. Wildly-luxuriating-as in Psalm vii., Habakkuk iii. Narrating the past deeds of God to Israel, the simple epic- Predicting the future history of the church and the world- We have second, Poetical Statement, or Statement 1st, Of poetic facts (creation, &c.) 2d, Of poetic doctrines (God's spirituality). 3d, Of poetic sentiments, with or without figurative language (golden rule, &c.) 4th, Of poetic symbols (in Zechariah, Revelation, &c.) In support of this division, we maintain, first, that it is comprehensive, including every real species of poetry in Scripture-including, specially, the prophetic writings, the New Testament, and that mass of seed poetry in which the Book abounds, apart from its professedly rhythmical and figured portions. Song and statement appear to include the Bible between them, and the statement is sometimes more poetical than the song. If aught evade this generalization, it is the argument, which is charily sprinkled throughout the Epistles of Paul. Even that is logic defining the boundaries of the loftiest poetry. All else, from the simple narrations of Ezra and Nehemiah, up to the most ornate and oratorical appeals of the prophets, is genuinely poetic, and ought by no means to be excluded from the range of our critical explication and panegyric. Surely the foam on the brow of the deep is not all its poetry, is not more poetical than the vast billows on which it swells and rises, and rather typifies than exhausts the boundless power and beauty which are below. "God is a spirit," or "God is love," contains, each sentence, a world of poetic beauty, as well as divine meaning. Indeed, certain prose sentences constitute the essence of all the poetry in the Scriptures. Round the rule "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and all thy soul, and all thy mind, and all thy strength, and thy neighbor as thyself," revolve the moral beauties and glories of both Testaments; its praises are chanted alike by Sinai's thunders and the temple songs; round it cluster the Psalms, and on it hang the Prophets. What planetary splendors gather and circle about the grand central truth contained in the opening verse," In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth," and about the cognate statement, "The Lord our God is one Lord!" And how simple that sentence which unites the psalmodies of earth and of heaven in one reverberating chorus, "Worthy is the Lamb that was slain!" Truly the songs of Scripture are magnificent, but its statements are "words unutterable," which it is not possible for the tongue of man to utter! Secondly, Our division is simple, and is thus better fitted to the simplicity of the Hebrew poetry. It disguises less elaborately, and dresses less ostentatiously, the one main thing which lies within all the rhythmical books of the Bible. That one thing is lyrical impulse and fire. "Still its speech is song," whether one or many speakers be introduced, and whether that song mourn or rejoice, predict or instruct, narrate or adore. The Song of Solomon is a song, not a drama; or let us call it a dramatic song. Job is a lyrical drama, or dramatic lyric. The histories are songsprinkled narratives, facts moving to the sound of music and dancing. And the prophets seem all to stand, like Elisha, beside the kings of Israel and Judah, each one with a minstrel's harp beside him, and to it and the voice of accompanying song, there break the clouds and expand the landscapes of futurity. This lyrical impulse was not, however, the mere breath of human genius. It was the "wind of God's mouth," the immediate effect of a divine afflatus. This, former critics too much overlook. They find art where they ought to find inspiration; or they cry out "genius," when they ought to say, with solemn reverence and whispered breath, "God." And by preserving, more entirely than others, the lyrical character of all Hebrew poetry, we supply this third reason for the adoption of our classification-It links the effect more closely with its cause-it exhibits all Hebrew song, whether simple or compound, from Moses down to Malachi, as stirred into being by one Great Breath-finding in the successive poets and prophets, so many successive lyres for the music, soft or stormy, high or low, sad or joyful, which it wished to discourse. To say that all those lyres were natively of equal sweetness or compass, or that the Breath made them so that all those poets were naturally, or by inspiration, alike eloquent and powerful, were to utter an absurdity. But is it less absurd to suppose a systematic decline in the fitness and fulness of the lyres-in the eloquence and power of the prophets-when we remember, first, that Habakkuk, Haggai, and Zechariah, belonged to this latter class; when we remember, secondly, that the latter day of Judah exhibited crises of equal magnitude, and as worthy of poetic treatment, as its earlier; when we remember, thirdly, that the great event, the coming of Christ, to which all the prophets testified, was more clearly revealed to the last of the company; and when we remember, fourthly, that the Power who overshadowed Malachi, was the same who inspired Moses-his eye no dimmer, his ear no heavier, his hand no shorter, and his breath no feebler than of old? No! the peculiar prophetic and poetic influence did not gradually diminish, or by inches decay; but whether owing to the sin of the people, or to the sovereignty of God, it seems to have expired in an instant. Prophecy went down at once, like the sun of the tropics, leaving behind it only such a faint train of zodiacal light as we find in the apocryphal books; nor did it reappear, till it assumed the person of the Prophet of Galilee, and till he who in times past spoke unto the fathers, by the prophets, did, in the last days, speak unto us by his own Son. СНАРТЕER IV. POETRY OF THE PENTATEUCH. We have intimated already, that, though we have, in the former chapter classified Hebrew poetry under certain generic heads, we deem it best in our future remarks, to pur |