nity and elevation ? The goddess of the Hebrew bard, is not only the patroness and inventress of arts and learning, the parent of felicity and fame, the guardian and conductress of human life; but she is painted as immortal and eternal, the constant companion of the great Creator himself, and the partaker of his counsels and designs. Still bolder is the other prosopopœia: Destruction and death say of wisdom, we have heard the fame thereof with our ears.' If pretenders to taste and judgement censure such a fiction as extravagant and wild, I despise their frigidity and gross insensibility.

When Jehovah is represented as descending to punish the earth in his just anger, it is added, Before him went the pestilence.' When the Babylonian tyrant is destroyed, the fir-trees rejoice at his fall, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, 'Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us'? And at the captivity of Jerusalem the very ramparts and the walls lament, They languish together. Read likewise the following address, and tell me what emotion you feel at the time of perusal : O thou sword of the Lord, how long will it be ere thou be quiet? Put up thyself into thy scabbard, rest and be silent.' Art thou not amazed and delighted, my friend, to behold joy and anguish, and revenge ascribed to the tress of the forest, to walls, and warlike instruments. Before I conclude these observations, I cannot forbear taking notice of two remarkable passages in the Hebrew writers, because they bear a close resemblance with two in our own tragedians.

Sophocles, by a noble prosopopoeia, thus aggravates the misery of the Thebans, visited by a dreadful plagueHell is enriched with groans and lamentations. This image is heightened by a Jewish author, who describes Hell or Hades, as an enor

mous monster, who hath extended and enlarged himself, and opened his insatiable mouth without

measure.'

"Cassandra, in Eschylus, struck with the treachery and barbarity of Clytemnestra, who is murdering her husband Agamemnon, suddenly exclaims in a prophetic fury, Shall I call her the direful mother of Hell! To represent the most terrible species of destruction, the Jewish poet says, ' The first-born of Death shall devour his strength.'

Besides the attribution of person and action to objects immaterial or inanimate, there is still another species of the prosopopoeia no less lively and beautiful than the former, when a real person is introduced speaking with propriety and decorum. The speeches which the Jewish poets have put into the mouth of their Jehovah, are worthy the greatness and incomprehensible majesty of the all-perfect Being. Hear him asking one of his creatures, with a lofty kind of irony, 'Where wast thou, when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding. Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it? Whereon are the foundations thereof fastened, or who laid the corner-stone? when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Or who shut up the sea with doors, when it brake forth as if it had issued out of the womb ? When I brake it up for my decreed place, and set bars, and doors, and said, Hitherto shalt thou come, but no further, and here shall the pride of thy waves be stayed.' How can we reply to these sublime inquiries, but in the words that follow? hold, I am vile, what shall I answer thee? I will lay mine hand upon my mouth.'

'Be

I have in a former treatise observed to you, that Homer has degraded his gods into men: these writers alone have not violated the Divine Majesty by inade

quate and indecent representations, but have made the great Creator act and speak in a manner suitable to the supreme dignity of his nature, as far as the grossness of mortal conceptions will permit. From the sublimity and spirituality of their notions, so different in degree and kind from those of the most exalted philosophers, one may, perhaps, be inclined to think their claim to a divine inspiration reasonable and just, since God alone can describe himself to

man.

'I had written thus far, when I received despatches from the empress Zenobia, with orders to attend her instantly at Palmyra; but am resolved, before I set out, to add to this letter a few remarks on the beautiful comparisons of the Hebrew poets.

"The use of similes in general consists in the illustration or amplification of any subject, or in presenting pleasing pictures to the mind by the suggestion of new images. Homer and the Hebrew bards disdain minute resemblances, and seek not an exact correspondence with every feature of the object they introduce. Provided a general likeness appear, they think it sufficient. Not solicitous for exactness, which in every work is the sure criterion of a cold and creeping genius, they introduce many circumstances that perhaps have no direct affinity to the subject, but taken all together contribute to the variety and beauty of the piece.

The pleasures of friendship and benevolence are compared to the perfumes that flow from the ointments usually poured on the priest's head, which run down to his beard and even to the skirts of his clothing. The sun rising and breaking in upon the shades of night, is compared to a bridegroom issuing out of his chamber; in allusion to the Jewish custom of ushering the bridegroom from his chamber at midnight with great solemnity and splendour, preceded by the light of innumerable lamps and torches. How

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amiably is the tenderness and solicitude of God for his favourites expressed! 'As the eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings, so the Lord alone did lead them!' On the other hand, how dreadfully is his indignation described! I will be unto them as a lion, as a leopard by the way will I observe them. I will meet them as a bear that is bereaved of her whelps, and I will rent the caul of their heart.' A little afterwards the scene suddenly changes, and divine favour is painted by the following similitudes: I will be as the dew unto Judea; he shall grow as the lily; his branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive-tree, and his smell like Mount Libanus.' Menander himself, that just characterizer of human life, has not given us a more apt and lively comparison than the following: As the climbing a sandy way is to the feet of the aged, so is a wife full of words to a quiet man.' Nor has one of our Grecian poets spoken so feelingly, so eloquently, or so elegantly of beauty, as the emperor Solomon of his mistress, or bride, in images perfectly original and new: Thy hair,' says he, is as a flock of goats that appear upon Mount Gilead; thy teeth are like a flock of sheep that are even shorn, that come up from the washing:' by which similitude their exact equality, evenness, and whiteness are justly represented. Thy neck is like the tower of David, builded for an armoury, whereon there hang a thousand bucklers, all shields of mighty men:' that is, straight and tall, adorned with golden chains and the richest jewels of the East. Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins, which feed among the lilies; the exquisite elegance and propriety of which similitude need not be pointed out, and cannot be excelled.

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I have purposely reserved one comparison for a

conclusion, not only for the sake of its beauty and justness, but because it describes a friendship so different from the constancy which I hope will ever be the character of yours and mine. My brethren,’ says the writer, 'have dealt deceitfully with me. They are like torrents which, when swollen and increased with winter showers, and the meltings of ice, promise great and unfailing plenty of waters; but in the times of violent heats, suddenly are parched up and disappear. The traveller, in the deserts of Arabia, seeks for them in vain; the troops of Sheba looked, the caravans of Tema waited for them: they came to the accustomed springs for relief; they were confounded, they perished with thirst."

In giving you these short specimens of Jewish poesy, I think I may compare myself to those spies which the abovementioned Moses despatched, to discover the country he intended to conquer; and who brought from thence, as evidences of its fruitfulness, the most delicious figs and pomegranates, and a branch with one cluster of grapes, so large and weighty,' says the historian, that they bare it between two, upon a staff.' Farewell."

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Ꮓ

No. 58. SATURDAY, MAY 26, 1753.

Damnant quod non intelligunt.

They condemn what they do not understand.

CIC.

EURIPIDES, having presented Socrates with the writings of Heraclitus, a philosopher famed for involu