to the force of persuasion, rather from the dictates of his feelings than from rational conviction. He endeavours to influence his reader in the same manner, and commonly excites an emotion so violent as to produce a more powerful effect than would be experienced even from conclusive argumentation.

No. CLXVII.

Cursory Remarks on the Poetry of the Prophets, of Isaiah in particular, and on the Beauties of Biblical Poetry in general.

THE Sibylline oracles owed their solemn air, their credit, and their power over the fancy, to the dark and difficult style in which they were composed. Virgil's Pollio, supposed to have been written from a hint taken from the books of the Sibyls, is the most admired of his Eclogues; and a great share of the pleasure derived from the perusal of it, is justly attributed to the judgment of the poet, in leaving more to be understood than meets the ear. forebodings of Cassandra were not attended to by the Trojans; and perhaps the true reason was, that they were not completely understood. The witches in Macbeth add to the terrible solemnity of prophetical incantation, by its darkness and uncertainty.

The

Obscurity seems to have been the characteristic of all writings pretending to prediction. It cer tainly increased their poetical merit, though an

the Greeks and Romans, it was probably no more than a studied artifice to evade, if the event did not correspond to the prophecy, the imputation of imposture. 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 so long maintained. Frequent failure, without any subterfuge to preserve the prophetical power unsuspected, would soon have silenced the Delphic priestess. But while the enigmatical prediction preserved the dignity of the oracle, by inspiring awe, it contributed to its security by facilitating evasion.

The Sacred Prophecies have that obscurity which distinguishes this species of writing. The final cause of it, however, was to exercise the faith and sagacity of mankind. The beauty which it adds to the poetry cannot be supposed to arise from design or skill in poetry as an art, but is the necessary result of natural propriety. And none but the unbeliever will suppose that, like the oracles at Delphos, they admitted a doubtful, in order to admit a double construction.

The prophecy of Isaiah abounds in the beauties of Oriental poetry. The translation 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, simplicity, and animation. It does honour to the feelings of the translators, who, though they have performed their task with so much spirit, had nothing else in view but fidelity. To reinement and taste they made no pretensions; and that their work is so well executed, must have been owing to the excellence of their natural sentiment.

We have several literal translations of the ancient poets into English prose, which are in request among school boys. In these we find no remains of that beauty which has been celebrated from age to age from its first production. Few of these are rendered so faithfully, word for word, from their originals, as the Scriptures, which, notwithstanding this disadvantage, are the sublimest and most interesting books in the English language.

That they are thus excellent, it may indeed be said, is not to be wondered at. They proceeded from that real inspiration to which the celebrated writers of antiquity only pretended. And if the enthusiasm, which the imaginary assistance of a fabulous deity excited, could diffuse that captivating spirit over the works of a mortal poet which has charmed every succeeding age, it will be an obvious inference, that the genuine afflatus of the great Author of the universe must produce a work of eminent and unquestionable beauty. Such reasoning is plausible; but, in the present case, it may not be improper to observe, that the divine inspiration operated intentionally no farther than in dictating truth of representation, and in laying open scenes of futurity; and that the beauties discoverable in the medium of composition, by which those primary ends are accomplished, are but collateral and subordinate effects. Considered as such, every man of sentiment feels them of a superior kind, and if he judges by the criterion of his undissembled feelings, must acknowledge, that though they are sometimes resembled in Homer, they are seldom equaled, and never excelled. Take a view of the poetical beauties merely as the productions of Isaiah, a very ancient poet of Judea, and his writings will surely claim the attention of a man of

VOL. III.

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 pretensions, when they attribute the general admiration of the Scriptures, as compositions, to opinions formed in their favour in the early period of infancy. The truth is, the prejudices which they have unreasonably adopted against the doctrines derived from those ancient books extend themselves to the style and sentiment: but, surely, exclusive 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 justly excite the attention of criticism as curious specimens of Oriental composition.

It might, indeed, have been expected, from the general taste which at present prevails for the remains of ancient English poetry, that those works, which justly 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 preserving, has been recovered from its dust, and committed to memory, the Family Bible has been suffered to lie unopened, or has been perused by many only with a view to painful improvement, without an idea of the possibility 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 strong sense of pleasure, while they are reading the Scriptures solely from motives of duty, and a desire of edification. In truth, among those whose natural taste is not corrupted by false refinement, which perhaps is the

most numerous, though not the most distinguished part of the community, the Bible is read as affording all the delight of pleasing poetry and history; and it may, therefore, justly be said to be the most popular book in the English language.

But all readers, whether vulgar or refined, who fully feel and acknowledge the admirable touches of nature and simplicity, which are observable in every page of those writings, will, perhaps, receive additional satisfaction when they discover that their taste is conformable to classical ideas of literary excellence.

There is, in the present age, a very numerous tribe of readers, who have formed their taste and sentiments from the writings of the philosophers of Geneva, and from the sceptical sophistry of our own countrymen. They are known to make pretensions to a very uncommon degree of refinement in their judgment of composition, and to condemn every work, whatever marks it may bear of a strong, though uncultivated genius, which wants the last polish of delicacy and correctness, and has nothing similar to those modern productions with which alone they have been conversant. With all their boasted comprehension of mind, they seem to want ideas, which may operate as principles in forming a just opinion of those works which were composed before the invention of systematic rules, and before native sentiment was superseded by the feeble, though elegant feelings, of which we boast in a very advanced state of civilization. Under these unfavourable prepossessions, the Bible appears to them as an assemblage of grossness and vulgarisms, 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 style, and catch inelegance.