He who is

and acquires vigour by frequent exercise. placed in a climate where the ferenity of the weather conftantly prefents him with blue skies, luxuriant plantations, and funny profpects, will find his imagination the ftrongest of his faculties; and, in the expreffion of his fentiments, will abound in allufions to natural objects, in fimilies, and in the moft lively metaphors. His imagination will be his diftinguishing excellence, because it will be more exercifed than any other of his faculties; and all the powers both of body and mind are known to acquire vigour by habitual exertion. He, on the other hand, whofe lot it is to exist in a less favoured part of the globe, who is driven by the inclemency of his climate to warm roofs, and, inftead of basking in the funshine amidst all the combined beauties of nature, flies for refuge from the cold to the blazing hearth of a fmoky cottage, will feek, in the exercife of his reafon, thofe refources which he cannot find in the actual employment of his imagination. Good fenfe and just reafoning will therefore predominate in his productions. Even in the wildeft of his flights, a methodical plan, the refult of thought and reflection, will appear, on examination, to reftrain the irregularities of licentious fancy.

Confiftently with this theory we find Oriental poetry exhibiting the most picturefque fcenes of nature, and illuftrating every moral fentiment or argumentative af fertion by fimilies, not indeed exact in the refemblance, but fufficiently analogous to ftrike and gratify the imagination. Strong imagery, animated fentiment, warmth and vivacity of expreffion, all of which are the effects of a lively fancy, are its conftant characteristics. The accuracy of logic, and the fubtlety of metaphyfics, are of a nature too frigid to influence the Oriental writer. He feels not the beauty of demonftration, he purfues not a chain of argument, and he fubmits to the force of perfuafion, rather from the dictates of his feelings than from rational conviction. He endeavours to influence his reader in the fame manner, and commonly excites an emotion fo violent, as to produce a more powerful effect than would be experienced even from conclusive argumentation.

No.

No. CLXVII. CURSORY REMARKS ON THE POETRY OF THE PROPHETS, OF ISAIAH IN PARTICULAR, AND ON THE BEAUTIES OF BIBLICAL POETRY IN GENERAL.

HE Sibylline oracles owed their folemn air, their

T credit, and their power over the fancy, to the

dark and difficult ftyle in which they were compofed. Virgil's Pollio, fuppofed to have been written from a hint taken from the books of the Sibyls, is the most admired of his Eclogues; and a great fhare of the pleasure derived from the perufal of it, is juftly attributed to the judgment of the poet, in leaving more to be understood than meets the ear. The forebodings of Caffandra were not attended to by the Trojans; and perhaps the true reason was, that they were not completely underftood. The witches in Macbeth add to the terrible folemnity of prophetical incantation, by its darkness and uncertainty.

Obfcurity feems to have been the characteristic of all writings pretending to prediction. It certainly increased their poetical merit, though, among the Greeks and Romans, it was probably no more than a ftudied artifice to evade, if the event did not correfpond to the prophecy, the imputation of impofture. Thus were the oracles of Apollo delivered in ambiguous phrases which frequently admitted a contrary, and always a doubtful, interpretation.

Without this artful proceeding their authority had not been fo long maintained. Frequent failure, without any fubterfuge to preferve the prophetical power unfufpected, would foon have filenced the Delphic priestefs. But while the ænigmatical prediction preferved the dignity of the oracle, by infpiring awe, it contributed to its fecurity by facilitating evafion.

The Sacred Prophecies have that obfcurity which diftinguishes this fpecies of writing. The final cause of it, however, was to exercise the faith and fagacity of man

kind. The beauty which it adds to the poetry cannot be fuppofed to arife from defign or skill in poetry as an art, but is the neceffary refult of natural propriety. And none but the unbeliever will fuppofe that, like the oracles at Delphos, they admitted a doubtful, in or der to admit a double conftruction.

The prophecy of Ifaiah abounds in the beauties of Oriental poetry. The tranflation is a literal one, and, though it may be found inaccurate by a Lowth or a Kennicot, will, I believe, hardly admit of improvement in force, fimplicity, and animation. It does ho nour to the feelings of the tranflators, who, though they have performed their task with fo much fpirit, had nothing elfe in view but fidelity. To refinement and tafte they made no pretenfions; and that their work is fo well executed, muft have been owing to the excellence of their natural fentiment. We have feveral literal tranflations of the ancient poets into English profe, which are in request among fchool boys. In thefe we find no remains of that beauty which has been celebrated from age to age from its first production. Few of thefe are rendered fo faithfully, word for word, from their originals, as the Scriptures, which, notwithstanding this difadvantage, are the fublimeft and moft interefting books in the English language.

That they are thus excellent, it may indeed be faid, is not to be wondered at. They proceeded from that real infpiration to which the celebrated writers of antiquity only pretended. And if the enthusiasm, which the imaginary affiftance of a fabulous deity excited, could diffufe that captivating fpirit over the works of a mortal poet which has charmed every fucceeding age, it will be an obvious inference, that the genuine afflatus of the great Author of the univerfe muft produce a work of eminent and unquestionable beauty. Such reafoning is plaufible; but, in the prefent cafe, it may not be improper to obferve, that the divine infpiration operated intentionally no farther than in dictating truth of reprefentation, and in laying open fcenes of futurity; and that the beauties difcoverable in the medium of compofition, by which thofe primary ends are accomplished, are but collateral and fubordinate effects. Confidered

as

as fuch, every man of fentiment feels them of a fuperior kind, and if he judges by the criterion of his undiffembled feelings, muft acknowledge, that though they are fometimes refembled in Homer, they are seldom equalled, and never excelled. Take a view of the poetical beauties merely as the productions of Ifaiah, a very ancient poet of Judæa, and his writings will furely claim the attention of a man of letters, as much as those of the native of Smyrna or of Ascra.

They who pretend to an exemption from prejudice, evince the futility of their pretenfions, when they attribute the general admiration of the Scriptures, as compofitions, to opinions formed in their favour in the early period of infancy. The truth is, the prejudices which they have unreafonably adopted against the doctrines derived from those antient books, extend themselves to the ftyle and fentiment: but, furely, exclufive of the religious tendency, and of the arguments for the authenticity of the books, they claim a great degree of veneration from their antiquity, and juftly excite the attention of criticism, as curious fpecimens of Oriental compofition.

It might, indeed, have been expected, from the general tafle which at prefent prevails for the remains of ancient English poetry, that thofe works, which juftly boast a higher antiquity than any of the productions of North or South Britain, would have been particularly regarded. But, while the ballad of a minstrel, beautiful, perhaps, and well worth preferving, has been recovered from its duft, and committed to memory, the family Bible has been fuffered to lie unopened, or has been perused by many only with a view to painful improvement, without an idea of the poffibility of deriving from it the elegant pleasures of literary entertainment.

Yet even the vulgar often feel the full effect of beauties which they know not how to point out; and are affected with a very ftrong fenfe of pleasure, while they are reading the Scriptures folely from motives of duty, and a defire of edification. In truth, among those whofe natural tafte is not corrupted by falfe refinement, which perhaps is the most numerous, though not the most diftinguished part of the community, the Bible is read as affording

affording all the delight of pleafing poetry and hiftory; and it may, therefore, juftly be faid to be the moft popular book in the English language.

But all readers, whether vulgar or refined, who fully feel and acknowledge the admirable touches of nature and fimplicity, which are obfervable in every page of thofe writings, will, perhaps, receive additional fatisfaction, when they difcover that their tafte is conformable to claffical ideas of literary excellence.

There is, in the prefent age, a very numerous tribe of readers, who have formed their tafte and fentiments from the writings of the philofophers of Geneva, and from the fceptical fophiftry of our own countrymen. They are known to make pretenfions to a very uncommon degree of refinement in their judgment of compofition, and to condemn every work, whatever marks it may bear of a ftrong, though uncultivated genius, which wants the last polish of delicacy and correctness, and has nothing fimilar to thofe modern productions, with which alone they have been converfant. With all their boafted comprehenfion of mind, they feem to want ideas, which may operate as principles in forming juft opinion of thofe works, which were compofed before the invention of fyftematic rules. and before na tive fentiment was fuperfeded by the feeble, though elegant, feelings, of which we boast in a very advanced ftate of civilization. Under thefe unfavourable prepoffeffions, the Bible appears to them as an affemblage of groffnefs and vulgarifins, which, therefore, without determining upon the authenticity of it, they avoid reading, apprehending that they can derive no pleasure from it, and that they may corrupt their ftyle, and catch inelegance.

With thefe it would be a valuable point gained, for their own fakes as well as for fociety, if they could be prevailed on to far to lay afide their prejudices as to open the book, and judge of it from what they feel and remark on a fair examination. If they could once be induced to read it with avidity, from an expectation of literary amusement, they could scarcely fail of receiving, at the fame time, a more important benefit.

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