INTRODUCTION.

T

enrich and ennoble the language of a race is to enrich and ennoble the sentiments of every man who has the command of that language. This process of enrichment and ennoblement has been going on in English for nearly thirteen hundred years, and one of the chief agencies by which it has been effected is the influence, direct and indirect, of the Bible. The first coherent words of English speech which have been transmitted to us are in a species of verse which suggests, though somewhat remotely, the rhythms and parallelisms of Hebrew poetry; they constitute a hymn of praise 1 1 I subjoin this most ancient specimen of English:

Nu scylun hergan hefaenricaes uard,
metudæs maecti end his modgidanc,
uerc uuldurfadur; sue he uundra gihuaes,
eci dryctin, or astelidæ.

He aerist scop aelda barnum

heben til hrofe, haleg scepen.

Tha middungeard, moncynnæs uard,

eci dryctin, æfter tiadæ,

firum foldu, frea allmectig.

Which may be literally translated (case-signs in Italics):

Now [we] shall glorify heaven-kingdom's Warden,

Creator's might and his mood-thought [sc. counsel]

Work [or, works] of the Glory-father; as he of wonders of each [sc. of each

of wonders, of every wonder],

Eternal Lord, [the] beginning established.

He erst shaped of men for the children [sc. for the children of men]
Heaven to [sc. for] roof, holy Shaper [sc. Creator].

Then Midgard [sc. the earth], mankind's Warden,

Eternal Lord, after prepared,

For men [the] earth, Lord almighty.

ix

which includes a paraphrastic rendering of the first verse of Genesis, and whose diction throughout is colored by Scriptural reminiscences. A single word will suffice to illustrate the statement last made. This word is contained in the first line of Cædmon's Hymn, and in its ancient spelling appears as hefaenricaes. What is the meaning of hefaenricaes? In modern English it would appear as heavenric's, the possessive of heavenric, a word which would be akin in formation to bishopric. The first element of the compound is easily distinguished; the second (identical with the German Reich) means kingdom. Hence the expression as a whole is (except for the final s, the sign of the genitive) the equivalent of the phrase so common in Matthew's Gospel, but found nowhere else in the Scriptures, the kingdom of heaven, or, more literally, of the heavens. With this New Testament phrase may be contrasted another which owes its origin to the Old Testament. Such an one occurs in the fifth line of the Hymn, as aelda barnum, signifying for the children of men. From no other conceivable source could this idiom have been derived except from the Scriptures of the Old Testament. It occurs several times in the Psalms, as well as sporadically in Genesis, Proverbs, and other books. That it should have originated among the English themselves is highly improbable, and there is no other language in which it is known to occur save as a translation or adaptation from the Hebrew. The conclusion already propounded is therefore the only one which it is possible to admit.

From Cædmon's time to the present the influence of Bible diction upon English speech has been virtually uninterrupted. The Latin of Bede, like that of all the later Fathers of the Church, is saturated with its peculiarities. To them the Vulgate was not merely a treasury of fact and wisdom, but a norm of speech. The Christian poetry antecedent to the Conquest exhibits a curious blending of ancient Germanic with Hebraic idiom, to which must be added a few Latin elements. The prose of Ælfred and Ælfric could not be otherwise than powerfully affected by the books which they were constantly obliged to quote or imitate. At intervals during the Old English period, translations were made from

the Gospels, the Psalms, and other portions of the Scriptures. Bede was at work on a rendering of John's Gospel when he died, and more than two centuries later new versions, or recensions of older versions, were seeing the light. Theological activity, far from ceasing at the Conquest, was rather stimulated into new and more vigorous life. The era of cathedral building began, and much about the same time the first Miracle Plays must have been written. The tradition continues through such men as Orm, Richard of Hampole, and Langland, until we reach Wyclif - not even Chaucer lying outside its pale. From Wyclif to our own day the line is again unbroken. Who needs to be reminded of Tyndale, of Latimer, of Cromwell and his Puritans, of Bunyan, Addison, and Wesley? The Bible has been an active force in English literature for over twelve hundred years, and during that whole period it has been molding the diction of representative thinkers and literary artists. Forced into rivalry with other models, it has struggled against them, now vanquished for the moment, now sharing with its competitors the trophies of conquest, and now sole master of the field, yet always most powerful when the national life was most intense, and scarcely ever so baffled but that some signs of its authority are manifest.

Before considering the nature of the plastic influence which the Bible has exercised upon English style, it may be well to remind ourselves of some of the more obvious ways in which Scriptural language has been appropriated by English writers. Of these the most important are direct quotation and allusion.

Under the head of direct quotation it will not be necessary to include the use made of Scripture in sermons and theological treatises; it will be sufficient to refer to its occasional employment by secular writers to produce the effect of impressiveness or pathos. This effect has been aptly characterized in the current number of an American periodical, by an author whom I rejoice to call my friend. His words are, "A felicitous use of Scriptural quotations, with the solemn dignity of their style and feeling, brings us with our narrow cares into the presence of past ages,

1 Rev. Frederic Palmer, in the Andover Review for April, 1892.

and raises the individual from his solitariness into union with man everywhere, with the infinite and the eternal."

This truth is akin to that recognized by Shakespeare and the great dramatists of antiquity, that tragedy requires the occasional introduction of the aphorism or gnomic sentence. The same principle holds in prose, though perhaps its application is here somewhat more limited. John Morley perceives its validity when he says of Burke: "Burke will always be read with delight and edification, because in the midst of discussions on the local and the accidental he scatters apothegms that take us into the regions of lasting wisdom. In the midst of the torrent of the most strenuous and passionate deliverances, he suddenly rises aloof from his immediate subject, and in all tranquillity reminds us of some permanent relation of things, some enduring truth of human life or society." If a writer is sufficient for the coinage of his own maxims, it may in general be best that he should confine himself to these, especially where it is the pure intellect that is addressed; but if the sensibility is to be touched as well, a felicitous use of Scriptural phraseology will hardly fail to stir the deepest springs of emotion. Who has not been thrilled, even to tears, by the organ note struck at the euthanasia of Sydney Carton?

She kisses his lips; he kisses hers; they solemnly bless each other. The spare hand does not tremble as he releases it; nothing worse than a sweet, bright constancy is in the patient face. She goes next before him — is gone; the knitting-women count Twenty-two.

I am the Resurrection and the Life, saith the Lord; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.

The murmuring of many voices, the upturning of many faces, the pressing on of many footsteps in the outskirts of the crowd, so that it swells forward in a mass, like one great heave of water, all flashes away. Twenty-three.

They said of him, about the city that night, that it was the peacefulest man's face ever beheld there. Many added that he looked sublime and prophetic.

We might be tempted to believe that the emotion was created by the circumstances, or by Dickens' exquisite art in the shap

ing of his own sentences; but read the final chapter without the Scripture words, and the difference will be readily appreciated.

Akin to direct quotation, but not identical with it, is the heightening of style through the employment of Biblical allusion. An instance of remote allusion is given by Payne, among the comments which follow. A more palpable one is supplied by an apostrophe near the end of Shelley's Defense of Poetry.

Their errors have been weighed and found to have been dust in the balance; if their sins were as scarlet, they are now white as snow; they have been washed in the blood of the mediator and redeemer, Time. Observe in what a ludicrous chaos the imputations of real or fictitious crime have been confused in the contemporary calumnies against poetry and poets; consider how little is as it appears- or appears as it is; look to your own motives, and judge not, lest ye be judged.

Here there are no fewer than seven Biblical sentences woven into a tissue all palpitating with generous sympathy and generous indignation.

Similar effects are often to be noted in poetry. Thus from the close of Aurora Leigh:

He turned instinctively, -- where, faint and far,
Along the tingling desert of the sky,

Beyond the circle of the conscious hills,

Were laid in jasper-stone as clear as glass

The first foundations of that new, near Day

Which should be builded out of heaven to God.

Or from Longfellow's Interlude before the Theologian's Tale:

Not to one church alone, but seven,

The voice prophetic spake from heaven;

And unto each the promise came,
Diversified, but still the same;

For him that overcometh are

The new name written on the stone,

The raiment white, the crown, the throne,

And I will give him the Morning Star!

But our concern is with prose, not poetry, and in prose there are all grades and settings of allusion, down to the sheerest flip

1 See p. xxxvi.