band, who prove themselves qualified above others. It was, moreover, the peculiar privilege of antiquity, that, because spiritual elevation then waved its pinions for the first time, and had to found everything ab ovo, from the rudiments up to the highest perfection, it was able to experience an utterly uninterrupted development of poetry; whereas later ages, as soon as ever they rise to higher stages of culture, are confronted with the guiding and warning model of the ancients, by which means their development is if the model is apprehended with internal strength, and made alive again-indeed very much facilitated and ensured, but is liable to be just as much confused and rendered difficult by vain imitation and spiritless repetition.

2. It is on these principles only that ancient Hebrew poetry can be correctly estimated, as to its diversity from that of other ancient peoples, and as to its own general value.

For it is, indeed, soon discovered that this poetry, like the whole literature of the Hebrews, is of an altogether primitive origin and formation, and has passed without any foreign influence through all the stages and changes which lay in its peculiar power and capacities. The basis, nature, career, and history of genuine poetry, can be most distinctly seen in such an original poetry; and every particular poetry of this kind furnishes an invaluable contribution towards the accurate knowledge of human poetry generally. Moreover, ancient Hebrew poetry, if it be not as rich and various as that of the Indians and Greeks, yet possesses a simplicity and transparency hardly found elsewhere, a sublime naturalness which, as yet, knows little of strict art, and which suffers art, even where its influence is exerted, to remain as it were unconscious and careless. When compared with the poetry of other ancient nations, it appears to belong to a still simpler, more youthful period of humanity, to gush forth from inward fulness of emotion and grace of sentiment, and to be little concerned about external ornament and strict laws of art.

But precisely this wonderful ease, this careless disregard of external attractions, in an otherwise noble poetry, is only possible when the thoughts which occur to the poet are of such sublimity, dignity, intensity, and strength, that they suffice of themselves, and are best seen in their own simple majesty. In such case the height of the argument, joined to the corresponding mood of the poet, transcends the necessity of the auxiliary embellishments of art, just as no one would require the aid of an external image of God at the very moment that he is absorbed in the vision of the Deity. Such are rather the very occasions on which art first forms itself of its own accord in its primitiveness, as to its first impulses and rudiments; and we have the great advantage

of

of being able to pry into the sanctuary of art when occupied in the first work of its formation; whereas it is more difficult to attain an equally clear view of art in its more advanced stages.

Here we have, therefore, to consider, lastly, that ancient Hebrew poetry was animated by those sublime thoughts which are not found anywhere else in such purity, power, and persistency, as in Israel, Where such mighty efforts after the highest spiritual attainment, and such pure truths, are once in vogue, and move a whole people for centuries, there they necessarily exert a most manifold influence on the poets also, and pour themselves forth in full streams from their lips; this poetry is only one of the many utterances of that which was unique and peculiar in ancient Israel. And just as all the noblest powers and contests of this people were chiefly directed to the one object of striving for the true God and the genuine religion; in like manner, their poetry also had no other way to become great and unique than in this sole tendency to the sublime, nor to develop all its powers, except in this movement and formation. We have traces, indeed, which show that poetry, with them, penetrated into other provinces also: since it entirely accords with the nature of poetry to take its rise in every part of human life, and to pervade all its provinces; we see by the Song of Songs, and by Psalm xlv., that it did not disdain to glorify with its art the nobler situations of common human life also, and we find reference to songs of common life, nay, in part, even to culpable ones (Am. vi. 5; Isa. v. 12; Rev. xviii. 23). Nevertheless, all kinds of poetry which did not flow from that tendency, or upon which that peculiar lofty aim of the nation was not able to obtain any important influence, were obliged to continue imperfect; ancient Hebrew poetry remained, as to its predominant essence, an interpreter of those sublime thoughts which never exercised such an influence anywhere else in antiquity, and, as to its form, preserved that wonderful simplicity and ease which flow from this very sublimity-a poetry unique in its kind, and, in many respects, not surpassed by any other.

It is in this, too, that the principal, imperishable value of this poetry consists. It will be for all times a chief means of explaining that higher religion, the truths of which it breathes. And if poetry is, in this respect, inferior to prophecy, inasmuch as the latter is the mighty agitator and first loud proclaimer of the fundamental truths of religion, it nevertheless also has advantages over the latter in other points. For prophecy, indeed, gives the first powerful impulse towards the dawn of the chief truths, such as the unity and invisibility of Jahve, the church, the Messiah; but that they actually take deep root in the life of many, that

they

they are the spontaneous utterance of heart and mind, and exert a cheerful influence-that is first evidenced by poetry, which is the free outpouring of the feeling, which reveals the noblest emotions which arise there of themselves, and which, where it has a free development, is active in many, and the most different, individuals. And it moreover causes these high views, aspirations, and truths to gradually penetrate the deepest feelings of the whole people; since poetry, on account of its warmth and unpretendingness, is more easily accessible and more intelligible than prophecy, with its loftiness and austerity.

Thus, then, we see by the poets of the Old Testament how in the course of time the higher truths of the church-which at first surely emanated from a few only, and only on a few made an ineffaceable impression-exercise an increasing influence on the people generally, and re-echo from innumerable songs of every sort and tone; nay, when prophecy at length ceases, then the thoughts which it once so powerfully excited are reproduced in a thousand echoes in poetry, which does not so soon die away, and which ever renews itself again, until their voice lives on for ever in many beautiful temple-hymns for the whole community. Besides this, however, all periods of intellectual excitement produce an abundance of new thoughts and solemn impressions, which do not always at once either seek or bear loud publicity through prophecy, which therefore poetry either creatively expresses as they are born, in the winged song of momentary emotion and inspiration (as, for instance, Ps. viii., xxix., xxxii.), or, more tranquilly, endeavours to represent with its developed art (as in the book of Job); and thus poetry, in so far as it in this manner helps even nascent truths carelessly to reveal themselves in their first emotion, is often the companion and coadjutor of prophecy ; as indeed every true prophet is also a poet, although it is by no means the case that every poet is a prophet.

3. If we inquire what means we possess for the accurate knowledge of this ancient poetry, their inadequacy, as far as tradition is concerned, is indeed easy to be seen. For, in other ancient nations, the traditionary account of the character, kind, and form of their songs and poems has been, subsequently to the flourishing period of their poetry, preserved in learned writings, which, however unscientifically they may treat the subject, are yet of great use to us, in order to obtain the first sure basis for the investigation of these matters. But the Hebrews have never made their ancient poetry the subject of learned works; the ancient art itself, too, was not developed to such perfection among them as to cause them, at an early period, to consider it necessary to describe it. In this state Christianity and the middle ages supervened, in

which

which every exact and perfect memory of such ancient matters had long been lost among the Jews, and in which the Christians busied themselves but little with Hebrew. Among the Arabs, indeed, the Jews even imitated Arabic poetry in the ancient Hebrew language, more from mere learning than from a living impulse.

We are therefore exclusively confined-if we deduct a few isolated notices in the inscriptions of the Psalms, and in some other places of the Old Testament-to the examination and close scrutiny of the remains of ancient Hebrew poetry themselves; and here again the small compass of these remains not a little increases the difficulty of sure knowledge. Nevertheless, so much has yet been preserved, and the remains show themselves, on a strict examination, to be so different in point of age and so various as to kinds, that a rigid investigation and comparison cannot be without important results; one point accurately ascertained soon leads to several others, and the whole reappears more and more distinctly and completely in its original true character. And even though every particular cannot now, on account of the scantiness of the sources, be discerned, yet that portion which is still open to investigation cannot be examined and understood with too great minuteness. The correct interpretation of words and the comparison of all remains and traces, joined to a distinct perception of what poetry really is, will thus be the surest means of investigation. Every uncertain, groundless prejudice must disappear before the discovery of the actual truth; but there is so great a variety of them, that people seem hitherto to have hardly found out what is an erroneous assumption on this subject, and what is not. Although people, for instance, are now-a-days more on their guard against incautiously mixing up the ideas of Greek and Latin poetry in questions about that of the ancient Hebrews, yet they have, on the other side, immediately taken up the fancy that there is no trace of any dramatic poetry whatever in the Old Testament; nay, they will rather explain a whole book wrong, than concede what a strict examination always evinces afresh. În fact, however, all accurate views and satisfactory conceptions of the entire field of Hebrew antiquities, and especially of the ancient poetry, were, until our times, nearly lost, and the direct road to discern the whole in its primitive truth has only just been safely opened.

II.-History and Kinds of Hebrew Poetry.

It follows, from what has been said above, that lyrical poetry is universally the nearest kind of poetry which arises in any people. It is so according to its nature; for it is the daughter of the moment, of sudden feelings, of deep and fiery emotions. It is so in

point of time also: the short lyric is the most permanent, imperishable part of poetry, the first and last effusion of the poetic mood, like an indestructible fountain which may at any time begin to flow afresh: therefore it necessarily is also the oldest kind of poetry among all nations, and the one which first establishes a poetic art and form, and paves the way for all other kinds of poetry. For, as the oldest and nearest kind of poetry, it is also the most comprehensive, and contains in itself the germs of new particular species. When the mind is occupied by a great event, but one which already belongs to the past, and which has become a subject for reflection, then the lyric poet, pouring forth his thoughts in a fuller stream, may dwell more on the event itself, and recal its chief scenes in a more tranquil narrative before the memory; that is, however, the germ of epic poetry, and such epic subjects are in fact easy to be recognized in ancient lyrical songs like Exod. xv., Judg. v. Now if this mere narration of past great events enters into poetry in such a way that the poet conceals his own feelings and thoughts behind the tranquil and circumstantial relation of his story, that constitutes the particular species of epic poetry. It is still more evident how easily a lyric poet, under the urgency of sublime emotions, may utter what he has himself experienced in life-because he feels its truth to be too powerful and necessary-in terms that make it applicable to every one; as the diction in Ps. xxxii. and lxii., for instance, suddenly and involuntarily passes over, precisely in the sublimest passages, to sententious general truths, and to an admonition to all men to submit themselves to such truths. This, however, is already the germ of sententious, or gnomic poetry, which arises as soon as ever a poet exhibits such general sentences and admonitions, dissociated from their living origin, by themselves alone, as at once example and instruction. Lastly, lyrical poetry not unfrequently borders on dramatic, as soon as ever a perplexed juncture is, by means of imitative citation of the sentiments and thoughts of the different persons concerned in it, represented as in the play of life itself, and thus receives a living solution; and the lyrical poet arrives so much the more easily at this animated exhibition, the more powerfully the imagination is, precisely in his case, excited; as, for example, such dramatic subjects are discovered in the passages, Judg. v. 28-30; Ps. xiv. 2-5; lxiv. 5-7 (whether an in Ps. lxiv. 6 (Heb. vii.) is the first person plural is, according to Lam. iii. 22, doubtful, as the third person suits the context better), to say nothing at present of the traces of alternate choruses in Ps. xxiv. 7-10, and elsewhere. The materials and rudiments of new species of poetry, epic, gnomic, and dramatic, are, therefore, dormant in lyrical poetry, and nothing but a favourable juncture