God's voice, slaying the false prophets, "heaps upon heaps." We again find him compelling clouds and rain from the brassy sky, and, "through fire and water," running before Ahab's chariot, to the entrance of Jezreel. We follow him, then, a fugitive from Jezebel's vengeance, on his way toward Horeb, the mount of God; fed by an angel; lodging in a cave; hearing afar off the voice of Jehovah; watching the couriers of the divine coming-the wind, the earthquake, the fire; and at last made aware of that coming itself, in the still small voice, and covering his face with a mantle, as he came out to the mouth of the cave. Instructed in the duties he had to perform during his brief remaining career, cheered by the tidings of seven thousand who had not bent the knee to Baal, and prepared by that celestial colloquy for the great change at hand, we see him returning to the haunts of men -anointing Elisha his successor once more "finding" guilty Ahab, who trembles in his presence more than if the ghost of Naboth had stood up before him-and, as his last public act, bringing down new forks of flame upon the fifties and their captains, who in vain sought him to prophesy health and life to the dying Ahaziah. We see him, then, turning his slow majestic steps towards the Jordan, oft reverting his eyes to the mountains of his native land, which he is leaving for ever; shaking off by his stride like gossamer the inquisitive sons of the prophets, till Elisha and he are seen moving on alone; his eye waxing brighter, and his step quicker, and his port loftier as he talks to his companion, and approaches the stream; standing for a moment silent on its brink-lifting then his mantle, wrapping it together, smiting the waters, and they part hither and thither; resuming, on the other side, the high converse, but now, with eager glances cast ever and anon onwards; at length, meeting the fiery chariot, mounting it, as a king his car, and carried, without a moment's delay, in a rushing whirlwind upwards-his mantle falling, and Elisha exclaiming, "My father, my father, the chariot of Israel, and the horsemen thereof!" We may not farther or fully follow his triumphal progress, but, doubtless, as like a prince he had mounted the chariot, so with prince-like majesty did he direct the fiery steeds, gaze around on the peopled wilderness of worlds, outstrip the comet's glowing wheel, rise above the sun, and the sun's sun, and every system from which the sun's system is visible, cross the firmaments of

space, pass through the gates into the city, enter amid the rising, welcoming, and wondering firstborn of heaven, and at last merge in the engulfing glory of the great white throne.

Such honor have not all God's saints, nor have had all his prophets. But surely here the dignity of the prophetic office came to its height, when, in the fulness of its discharge, it swelled up into heaven, and when he, who, in the native grandeur of his commission, had walked among men as a being of another race, was lifted up before his time, like a pearl from the dust, and added to an immortal and sinless company.

We mention, as the last general characteristic of Hebrew poetry, its high moral tone and constant religious reference. Without occupying the full position of Dr. Johnson, in hist celebrated ex cathedra and a priori sentence against sacred poetry, we are forced to admit that, of sacred poetry, in its higher acceptation, we have had little, and that our sacred poets are few. There are, we think, but three poets-Dante, Milton, and Cowper-entitled at once to the terms sacred and great. Giles and Phineas Fletcher, James and Robert Montgomery, Milman, Pollock, French, and Keble, are sacred poets, and much of their poetry is true and beautiful; but the shy epithet "great" will nardly alight on any one of their heads. Spenser, Cowley, Pope, Addison, Scott, Wordsworth, Wilson, Coleridge, and Southey, have all written sacred poems (Coleridge's Hymn to Mont Blanc, and Scott's Hymn of Rebecca, in Ivanhoe, are surpassed only by the Hebrew bards); but none of them is properly a sacred poet. For some of the best of our sacred verses, we are indebted to such men as Christopher Smart, John Logan, and William Knox. Of the tribe of ordinary hymn writers, whose drawl and lisping drivel-whose sickening sentimentalism-whose unintentional blasphemies of familiarity with divine things and persons- -whose profusion of such fulsome epithets as "sweet Jesus," ," "dear Lord," " dear Christ," &c., render them so undeservedly popular, what need we say, unless it be to express our surprise that a stern Scottish taste, accustomed to admire the "Dies Irae," our own rough but manly version of the Psalms, and our own simple and unpretending Paraphrases, should dream of introducing into our sanctuaries the trash commonly known as hymns. The writer of sacred poetry should be himself a sacred poct, for none else can continuously,

or at large, write what both the critic and the Christian will value, though for different reasons-the Christian for its spirit and tendency, the critic for its thorough artistic adaptation to the theme.

The Hebrew poet was nothing, if not sacred. To him, the poetical and the religious were almost the same. Song was the form instinctively assumed by all the higher moods of his worship. He was not surprised into religious emotion and poetry by the influence of circumstances, nor stung into it by the pressure of remorse. He was not religious only when the organ was playing, nor most so-like Burns and Byron-on a sunshiny day. Religion was with him an habitual feeling, and from the joy or the agony of that feeling poetry broke out irrepressibly. To him, the question “Are you in a religious mood to-day?" had been as absurd as "Are you alive to-day?" for all his moods-whether high as heaven or low as hell-whether wretched as the penitence of David, or triumphant as the rapture of Isaiah-were tinged with the religious element. From God he sank, or up to him he soared. The grand theocracy around ruled all the soul and all the song of the bard. Wherever he stood-under the silent starry canopy, or in the congregation of the faithful-musing in solitary spots, or smiting, with high, hot, rebounding hand, the loud cymbal-his feeling was, "How dreadful is this place! this is none other but the house of God, and this is the gate of heaven." In him, surrounded by sacred influences, haunted by sacred recollections, moving through a holy land, and overhung by a heavenly presence, religion became a passion, a patriotism, and a poetry. Hence the sacred song of the Hebrews stand alone; and hence we may draw the deduction, that its equal we shall never see again, till again religion enshrine the earth with an atmosphere as it then enshrined Palestine-till poets are the organs, not only of their personal belief, but of the general sentiment around them, and have become but the high priests in a vast sanctuary, where all shall be worshippers, because all is felt to be divine. How this high and solemn reference to the Supreme Intelligence and Great Whole comes forth in all the varied forms of Hebrew poetry! Is it the pastoral?-The Lord is the shepherd. Is it elegy ?-It bewails his absence. Is it ode?—It cries aloud for his return, or shouts his praise. Is it the historical ballad?-It recounts his deeds. Is it the

penitential psalm?-Its climax is, "Against Thee only have I sinned." Is it the didactic poem ?-Running down through the world, like a scythed chariot, and hewing down before it all things as vanity, it clears the way to the final conclusion, "Fear God, and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man." Is it a "burden," tossed, as from a midnight mountain, by the hand of lonely seer, toward the lands of Egypt and Babylon ?—It is the burden of the Lord; his the handful of devouring fire flung by the fierce prophet. Is it apologue, or emblem?-God's meaning lies in the hollow of the parable; God's eye glares the "terrible crystal" over the rushing wheels. Even the love-canticle seems to rise above itself, and behold a greater than Solomon, and a fairer than his Egyptian spouse, are here. Thus, from their poetry, as from a thousand mirrors, flashes back the one awful face of their God.

CHAPTER III.

VARIETIES OF HEBREW POETRY.

It is common for a new writer on any subject to commence his work with open, or with gently insinuated, depreciation of those who have preceded him, or at least, in the course of it, to “damn them with faint praise," or to hint and hesitate out strong but suppressed dislike. Not in conformity with this custom, we propose to commence this chapter by candidly characterizing the principal writers on Hebrew poetry with whom we are acquainted.

By far the most generally known of those writers is Bishop Lowth, the fourth edition of whose "Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews," translated from the Latin by G. Gregory, F. R. S., with notes by Michaelis and others, now lies before us. To use a term which this author himself employs ad nauseam, Lowth's book is a very “elegant" production. It is written in a round, fluent, and perspicuous style; abounds in learning and ingenious criticism; is full to overflowing of specimens selected, and in general re-translated, from the Hebrew bards; shows a warm love for their more prominent excellencies, and an intimate know

ledge of their mechanical structure; and did good service for their fame when first published. To say, however, that it is ever more than "elegant," or ever rises to the "height of its great argument," were to compliment it too highly. It contains, indeed, much judicious criticism, some good writing, and a few touches of highly felicitous panegyric; but, as a whole, it is tame almost to mediocrity-squares the Hebrew poetry too much by the standard of the Greek and Latin classics-displays little or no kindred genius-dilutes and deadens the portions of the Bible it professes to render into English verse-bears too decidedly the stamp of the eighteenth century-and does not at all fulfil its own expressed ideal," He who would feel the peculiar and interior elegances of the Hebrew poetry must imagine himself exactly situated as the persons for whom it was written, or even as the writers themselves-he is to feel as a Hebrew, to read Hebrew as the Hebrews would have read it." Lowth is very little of a Hebrew, and the point of view he occupies is far below the level of the "hills of holiness." His criticism bears not even the proportion to the subject which Pope's "Messiah" does to its original; it wants subtilty, power, and abandonment. Much of his general preliminary matter is now obsolete, and the account which he gives of the individual writers is meagre. He supplies a series of anatomical sketches, not of living portraits. He is to David and Isaiah what Warton was to Shakspeare, or Blair to Homer and Virgil. His translator has not been able altogether to overcome the air of stiffness which adheres to all English versions from the Latin. Nor do the notes by Michaelis add much to the book's value. They have, indeed, much learning, but their literary criticism is alike despicable and profane. "Ezekiel," says our learned Theban," does not strike with admiration, nor exhibit any trait of sublimity." Truly, over such a critic all the wheels of Chebar would roll in vain, for what impression can be made on insensate and infidel dust? Even a mule would be awestruck in the gorge of Glencoe, but a mule is only a relation to Michaelis. His translator sounds a deeper deep, and actually accuses Ezekiel of the bathos !

Such was the criticism of the past age. Rarely did it reach, in any of its altitudes of praise, a term higher than the aforesaid "elegant"—a term which, while accurately