Hebrew Poetry. We conclude that poetry, in its technical form, must be verse. Verse is of various kinds, according to the language, the taste, and degree of civilisation among the people who employ it. The most ancient and simple (apparently) is the Hebrew; presuming, as we must, that the Psalms, Prophecies, and certain other portions of the Sacred Scriptures, are not poetical in substance only, but that they are metrical in the original. The secret, however, wherein their rhythm consisted, is irrecoverably lost; the language itself being only preserved in the skeleton form of consonants, with a very inadequate supply of vowels; and the words (independent of the masoretic points) resembling, if the figure may be allowed, those decayed leaves which we find in the forest in winter, of which nothing but fibres remain, like curious and delicate net-work. But in the artful structure of the sentences, in their melodious movement at times, and more especially in their corresponding members (as though every clause had its tally, every sound its echo, every image its reflection, and every thought its double), we may discover that the poetical portions of the Old Testament are in verse, of which the precise laws are no longer remembered. Bishop Lowth, the greatest authority on this subject, says, "The harmony and true modulation depend upon a perfect pronunciation of the language, and a knowledge of the principles and rules of versification; and metre supposes an exact knowledge of the number and quantity of syllables, and, in some languages, of accent. But the true pronunciation of Hebrew is lost — lost to a degree far beyond what can be the case of any European language preserved only in writing; for the Hebrew, like most Oriental languages, expressing only the consonants, and being destitute of the vowels, has lain now for two thousand years mute, and incapable of utterance. The number of syllables in a great many words is uncertain; the quantity and accent are wholly unknown."-"The masoretical punctuation," which professes to supply the vowels, was formed a thousand years after the language had ceased to be spoken; and is "discordant, in many instances, from the imperfect remains of a pronunciation of much earlier date, and better authority, that of the Seventy, of Origen, and other writers ;" and "it must be allowed, that no one, according to this, has been able to reduce the Hebrew poems to any kind of harmony." It is certain that Hebrew verse did not include rhyme; the terminations of the lines, when they are most distinct, never manifesting any thing of the kind. Acrostic, or Alphabetical arrangement, as in the 119th Psalm, is found in several instances; and was adopted, no doubt, for the purpose of aiding the memory of the learner, or the reciter. Parallelism is a principle feature in Hebrew verse: "He spake, and it was done; He commanded, and it stood fast."- Psalm xxxiii. 9. "Let the wicked forsake his way, and the unrighteous man his thoughts: and let him return unto the Lord, and He will have mercy upon him; and to our God, for He will abundantly pardon.". Isa. lv. 7. Every phrase, indeed almost every word, has its response in these quotations. I have chosen the common version, in preference to that of the learned Prelate, because it is more simple (in the foregoing and following cases), and, from being familiar, is more easily intelligible when addressed to the ear. That organ, though marvellously quick in apprehending sounds, and their collocation, to which it has been accustomed, finds it exceedingly difficult to follow (in verse especially) new phrases and strange thoughts. On the other hand, in reading, the eye can dwell more intensely on the distinct verbiage; having, in this respect, the advantage of the ear, because in moving along the little horizon of the page, it catches glimpses of words to come, while it retains the receding traces of those that are passed; and thus is enabled to gather up the meaning, as it unfolds, from the scope both of the text and the context: for sight, like "The spider's touch, so exquisitely fine, Feels at each thread, and lives along the line;" whereas the ear can only connect the successive sounds as they are pronounced, with those that are gone by, which are often imperfectly caught, and more faintly remembered, as the discourse proceeds. I make the remark here, but apply it generally to the passages of verse which I may quote in these papers; having (for the most part) deliberately chosen those which may be deemed common-place, because such will be best understood by the hearers, from my ineffective recitation. Bishop Lowth exhibits various forms of Hebrew stanzas (manifestly such to the eye, and not altogether imperceptible by the ear), consisting of two, three, four, and even five lines, admirably implicated and symmetrical, from the disposition of the parallelisms, and other poetic symbols. Antithesis is the second characteristic of Hebrew verse. The Book of Proverbs abounds with this figure. 66 Hope deferred maketh the heart sick; but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life." - Prov. xiii. 12. "The mountains shall depart, and the hills shall be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed."- Isa. liv. 10. Amplification is the third prevailing feature. "As the cloud is consumed, and vanisheth away; so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more. He shall return no more to his house; neither shall his place know him Job, vii. 9, 10. any more." "How goodly are thy tents, O Jacob! and thy tabernacles, O Israel! As the valleys are they spread forth; as gardens by the river side; as the trees of lign-aloes which the Lord hath planted, and as cedar-trees beside the waters."-Numbers, xxiv. 56. Compare the harmonious cadences of this fine prose in our own old version of Holy Writ, with the halting, dancing, lumbering, grating, nondescript paragraphs in Macpherson's Ossian. Greek and Latin Prosody. The metres of Greek and Roman verse are the glories of those two languages: the one, the most copious, opulent, and flexible; the other, the most condensed and energetic of any that are well known. These two tongues contain treasures of literature, esteemed by the learned above all that time has spared of the works of past generations; principally, no doubt, for their intrinsic value, but partly, also, on account of their rarity and antiquity; and yet more so from the impulse of our own early prejudices in their favour, and those noble, venerable, and beautiful affinities which they hold with all that "Seems wisest, virtuousest, discretest, best," MILTON. among the most extraordinary people of the old world; living, as they did, in the light of nature, but under circumstances peculiarly favourable to the development of every kind of talent; who cultivated all the fine arts, and carried, as we have ocular demonstration, history, eloquence, poetry, architecture, and sculpture, even to the vanishing point of perfection. Nor, in the abstruse sciences, were their attainments less admirable; while, in music and painting-from contemporaneous testimony and analogy with their other accomplishments we may presume, that they had reached |