Sidebilder
PDF
ePub

(formerly more than at present) stands in the most immediate literary connexion with France.

If the principle which we laid down when considering our Author's manner as a historian, be a just one, and we believe it will not easily be impugned, it may be rendered highly probable, that this peculiarity is by no means incidental; or, rather, that it has a close connexion with the historical qualifications of our three great writers. The talent of narration is one, which is most likely to be cultivated in conversation; and in the arts of conversation we shall readily allow ourselves to be excelled by our southern neighbours. The open manners and communicable habits of the French, are nearly equally proverbial with the reserve and taciturnity of the English. And yet, while the French nation abounds in certain lighter attempts of the historical kind, they have not risen, in the present age at least, and in their own language, to the superior level of just history. They seem to want for that purpose, something of that turn for profound philosophical reflection, for which the natives of our island are so remarkable. Thus it would appear, in theory as well as in fact, that the complication of character most likely to qualify an author for excellence in the art of writing history, is just that mixture of French vivacity with British gravity, which the education and habits of Hume and Gibbon so evidently, and of Robertson more indirectly, had a tendency to generate.

In the next place, it is observed by Lord Sheffield, in his Preface to this second edition of his friend's miscellaneous writings, that he does not know that Mr. Gibbon ever wrote a line of verse, and that he never heard him say that he had done so. And, as far as our knowledge extends, both Hume and Robertson must be acquitted of having ever indulged in any attempts at poetry. We believe it to be an almost peculiar feature of English education, that both at our first rate schools and at our universities, so great and indiscriminate a stress is laid› upon poetical exercises, or rather upon the art of making verse. We should not be surprised, if farther observation and inquiry should discover, that there is a degree of incompatibility between the chaste and manly eloquence of the historian and the flowery graces of poetic diction. The colours of poetry are too glowing to mix kindly with the sober tints which suit the more correct drawing of history. May not this reflection suggest one reason, that no Englishman, thoroughly such, has yet succeeded in emulating the fame of the ancients in the higher species of historical composition? But we would not be misunderstood." To read and to delight in the reading of poetry, are one thing; to claim the honours of the poetic name, is another. The student may enrich his style, he may extend his acquaintance

with language in general, and with his own language in particular, by digging in the mine of poetry; without appropriating to himself by poetical exercises those more daring habits of thought and expression, which in the professed poet are beauties, but which are quite out of place in the language of the historian. Yet it must be observed, that although Gibbon never cultivated. poetry, his diction in general approaches too near to that of poetry; and, unfortunately, the style of poetry which it resembles, is not of the best kind. From any such improprieties his two rivals are entirely free, as indeed they are also from that appearance of affectation, which cleaves more or less to Gibbon, in every thing he writes, but which shews itself superlatively in his history. Yet, in justice to the man we are bound to add, that it is only in his manner of writing, that this seeming affectation is discovered; in his character, as shewn by his writings, and especially in his letters, an ingenuousness which is the very op posite to affectation, is predominant.

(To be concluded in our next Number.)

Art. II. The Book of Psalms; translated from the Hebrew: with Notes, Explanatory and Critical. By Samuel Horsley, LL.D. F.R.S. F.A.S. late Lord Bishop of St. Asaph. 2 Vols. 8vo. pp. 334 and 325. Price 11. 12s. Rivingtons. 1815.

MAN

AN is a paradox: but some of the species furnish examples of this trite saying more than ordinarily striking and instructive. In this peculiar class of men, none will hesitate to assign an eminent station to Bishop Horsley. His Herculean talents found their balance in an equal weight of pride, self-confidence, and defiance.. Among the numerous streams which diverge from the fountain of all knowledge, he selected the widest and the deepest, the great rivers of the intellectual domain and of these, spurning all consideration of their magnitude, their difficulty, or their remoteness from each other, he did not taste only, but he drank largely and deeply. He was a theologian, (—which, alas! cannot be affirmed of every mitred head,-) a mathematician, a philosopher, a philologist, a critic, a lawyer, and a statesman; and, in each of these characters, he courted all kinds of competition, he shrunk from no man's rivalship, and he never relinquished a claim which he had once advanced.

But we have now to do with this distinguished person in his proper province, as a Divine, and a Scripture critic. Here, though in the very temple of the Deity, he never " put off the ༦་ shoes from his feet," he never divested himself of his lofty character. Stern, bold, clear, and brilliant, often eloquent, sometimes argumentative, always original,-he was too often

1

led, by his disdain of what is common, into hazardous speculations and hasty conclusions, and not infrequently into confident assertions of dubious and paradoxical points. It is but too plain that, under the influence, perhaps unconscious, of his hierarchical prejudices, he has a perpetual propensity to fill up the chasms of proof with the perishable material of human authority He seems to have always taken it as an axiom,-at least a position which no man but himself was entitled to question,that weak evidence could be helped out by ecclesiastical decision, and that the strongest was defective if it wanted that corroboration. It is a painful feeling, but it is what the serious Christian cannot escape in contemplating the character, and reading the divinity works of Bishop Horsley, that spiritual and practical Christianity was a less object in his esteem than the pomp and majesty of a secularized religion, lifting, as Mr. Burke said, its mitred front in courts and parliaments;' and Chat the Gospel of Jesus was more an arena for the display of polemical eye and nerve, than a provision of rest to the weary soul, a source of pardon and holiness to the contrite heart. We read him with interest ever new, we look up with wonder to his colossal genius,-we always admire, and we often approve : but, when we have closed the book, the iron enters into our

soul,' and the sentiment irresistibly occurs which melted into tears the Benevolent Redeemer,-" If thou hadst known, even "thou, at least in this thy day, the things which belong to thy "peace!"—

Five years have elapsed since the Bishop's posthumous papers were announced as containing a mass of more important biblical criticism and research,, than has for many years made its appearance from the press " Of these papers, the present work on the Psalms is the first that is given to the world. It is remarkable that the Editor, (Mr. Heneage Horsley, of Dundee, the Bishop's son,) in his former notice, described this work as 'being more calculated for the use of the scholar and the theological student, than for the libraries of the generality of readers;'+ but now he gives his opinion that the work 'seems to have been intended for the edification of the Christian reader in his closet.' Pref. p. vii. These two accounts, if taken in the common acceptation of terms, do not quite agree. 'The Psalms, being all poems, and the original composition of them in the metrical form, the Bishop hath adhered to the hemistichal division; and the translation, in most parts, is so close, as to exhibit to the English reader the structure of the original.' Pref. p. viii.

This alleged closeness of the version must be understood ex * Pref. to Bp. Horsley's Sermons, vol. I. p. iv,

+ Ibid.

hypothesi. Grant to the translator his notions of the meaning and constructive application of the terms, and his translation may be allowed to be literal. But in few of the labours of learned industry is there more need of a cautious judgement, and of strict rules of proceeding, than in the translation and interpretation of the Old Testament Scriptures. The natural character which belongs to the structure of the Hebrew language, and the simplicity of its idioms, make the work of translation apparently easy: but, the paucity of terms, rendering necessary in many instances a large diversity of significations; the loss of many radicals, of which one or two derivatives only exist; and the number of words occurring but two or three times in the whole range of the Hebrew writings; create immense difficulties to those students who wish to stand on solid ground in the interpretation of the Divine Oracles. The Jews of the middle ages, and their modern successors, furnish a very questionable sort of aid; and the Hebraicians, at the revival of letters, and during the sixteenth and the seventeeth centuries, were contented' to rest principally on this aid in the compilation of their lexicons and in their Bible translations: but the extreme puerility of most of the Rabbinical writers, their being totally devoid of taste, their want of just principles of philology, their general ignorance, and their antichristian prejudices, render them frequently false guides, and never to be implicitly trusted.

Perceiving these evils, some later scholars have invented a new method. They have assumed for the Hebrew tongue, as existing in the Old Testament, a sort of perfection peculiar to itself, and unsupported by any evidence from reason, from the nature of the case, or from the analogy of other languages. They regard it as self-interpretative: that is, that all the philological learning necessary for the perfect understanding and explication of every word and phrase in the Old Testament, is contained within the Old Testament itself; that every derivative Vocable can be referred to its own radical within those precincts; that each radical has an exuberance of latent and mystical meanings; and even that systems of natural philosophy, as well as great points of revealed theology, are comprized within the nutshell of one small word. Ample scope is thus afforded for fancy. With this instrument great wonders have been brought to light, by men of warm imagination and inventive genius: the only defect has been, the lack of PROOF,

There is a third school of Hebraicians, which probably was first excited by the publication of the London Polyglott in 1657, and which was advanced to a great degree of perfection by the profound erudition and the comprehensive mind of the elder Schultens. The leading principles of these scholars are, that it is as unreasonable to suppose that the whole Hebrew language,

roots and branches, is contained in the book of the Old Testament, as it would be to entertain an opinion that the whole Greek language would be comprised in a selection, of equal bulk with the Hebrew Scriptures, from writers of different ages; that Hebrew is a sister dialect with Chaldee, Samaritan, Syriac, Arabic, and Ethiopic; that the remains of the ancient Hebrew, existing confessedly no where but in the narrow bounds of the Old Testament, are most rationally and safely illustrated by comparison with those cognate dialects, especially the Arabic, which subsists in the most copious form; that the radicals of many Hebrew words exist only in those dialects; that this mode of investigation, combined with a discriminating use of the Rabbinical and the idwkermeneutic methods, is likely to lead to the surest results; and, finally, that the interpretation of the Hebrew Bible will receive great additional advantage from the study of the Ancient, and especially the Oriental, Versions. Bishop Lowth's version of Isaiah, and Mr. Good's of the Book of Job, are the best specimens that we know of this mode of Scripture study.

Bishop Horsley appears to have adopted, to a considerable. extent, the principles of interpretation which belong to the second of these classes; though he certainly would not have carried them to the utmost length of their partisans. He re-” peatedly quotes Mr Hutchinson, with respectful approbation: but in philosophy the Bishop was no Hutchinsonian.

A principal feature of this work is the application to the MESSIAH of Psalms and parts of Psalms, with a profusion which would alarm the generality of those who are usually called sober expositors. But, before we proceed to offer our own opinion on this interesting point, it is proper to hear the Bishop's statement of his principle, as very properly extracted by the Editor from an unpublished Sermon on Psalm II. 1.

"It is true, that many of the Psalms are commemorative of the "miraculous interpositions of God in behalf of the chosen people; "for, indeed, the history of the Jews is a fundamental part of revealed "religion. Many were probably composed upon the occasion of re"markable passages in David's life, his dangers, his afflictions, his "deliverances. But of those which relate to the public history of "the natural Israel, there are few in which the fortunes of the mysti"cal Israel, the Christian Church, are not adumbrated; and of those “which allude to the life of David, there are none in which the Son " of David is not the principal and immediate subject. David's com"plaints against his enemies are Messiah's complaints, first, of the un"believing Jews, then of the heathen persecutors, and the apostate "faction in later ages. David's afflictions are the Messiah's suffer"ings. David's penitential supplications are the supplications of "Messiah in agony, under the burden of the imputed guilt of man. "David's songs of triumph and thanksgiving are Messiah's songs of "triumph and thanksgiving, for his victory over sin, and death, and'

« ForrigeFortsett »