V. 12. What man doth know what power, and Now if so many alterations were made, many for the worse and none for the better, except sometimes an obsolete word removed, it were to be wished that a different plan had been adopted, that of equally removing the most flat and vulgar expressions, in order that by substituting more select phrases the insipidity might be removed without destroying the simplicity of language. This is an excellence in poetry, of which the writers in Elizabeth's reign seem to have had no conception; for they often overwhelm their thoughts under a profusion of high-flown, pompous and turgid expressions, which lift us up to the third heavens, and then in the very next line we sink down again, along with Sternhold, far below the level of mediocrity, and down to the very dust of the ground. Now as essences are so much in fashion, it seems to me possible however to have extracted from Sternhold's lines an essence of some better poetic effect, by the preparation abovementioned; whereas the opposition between the high flights of other Elizabethian poets and their inclination to creep upon the ground, presents itself so continually, as renders the operation more difficult in them, and indeed almost impossible without a double distillation from the grosser materials, in order to be able to extract any poetic essence, even in almost any two stanzas together, without the spirit evaporating altogether. The Psalms by Sternhold, so modelled, would have been more acceptable to common congregations than any new version in a higher style; and it was with this view, that I have given a sample of such an essence of Sternhold, VOL. IX. D D Sternhold, in which more is retained from the ancient edition of 1597, than from the variations in the later ones. S. In Shakespear's As You Like It the following lines are known to all. "Freeze, freeze thou bitter sky, As benefits forgot; Tho' thou the waters warp, : As friends rememb'red not." But I doubt whether all persons understand in the same sense the line Tho' thou the waters warp. The word warp is now always used in a bad sense to denote the perversion of an object from its right state to one less natural or proper, as when a board is said to be warped among weavers only it is still used in a sense approaching nearer to its original meaning of to work; thus their first parallel threads extended for a web are called the warp, as being the foundation of the work, which are afterwards crossed by other threads by means of the shuttle, and called the woof. Did Shakespear then mean to suggest, that the conversion of water into ice might be considered as a perversion of it from its right state? This may be possible, and, I believe, it is thus generally understood; yet it seems to be both an uncommon and even harsh kind of expression. Or did he allude to the parallel threads of icicles hanging from the eaves of houses, which in the first scene of this act he calls the icy phang, and may here mean mean by the sharp sting? Now I doubt whether he meant either sense, and did not rather use warp here in its original sense of merely to work upon the waters, which primitive sense the word still retained in his age, and is often employed in that sense in the version by Sternhold; nay, I know of no example there, where it has any other meaning, the idea of perversion not being then included in warping. Thus in Ps. 52. "Why doth thy minde yet still devise Such wicked wiles to warp? Thy tongue untrue in forging lyes Is like a rasour sharp." Where we may observe also that it rhymes to the very same word sharp as in the poet, and is a mere variation of the prose version, "Thy tongue deviseth mischiefs like a sharp razor, working deceitfully." This extensive sense weorpan always has in the AngloSaxon, i. e. projicere, jactare, immittere, and to do any thing in general; a mole was called a mould-warp, on account of its throwing out the mould and working under ground. Again in the seventh Psalm, "He whets his sword, his bowe he bends, Aiming where he may hit, And doth prepare his mortal darts, His arrows keen and sharp, For them that do me persecute, Whilst he doth mischiefe warp." Here warp means again to work mischief in the original sense of the Saxon word; in the prose it is only conceived mischief: but the edition of Sternhold of 1715 has changed it to harp. "And do at mischief harp." In another Psalm we have, "What vantage or what thing Thy In these lines we find so many thoughts, words and rhymes, similar to those lines of Shakespear, that one would be almost tempted to think those psalms to have been uppermost in the poet's mind at the time of composition, and although he followed the ungodly trade of a poet, yet that he did sometimes go to church and sing psalms, and even remembered them the next day: he had only to change the meaning mutatis mutandis from inveighing against the malice of open enemies to the above lines against the ingratitude of false friends; and we have no reason to conceive that he meant any thing more by to warp the waters than to operate upon, or work upon the waters, agrecably to the sense of warp in the version of his cotemporary Sternhold. We have seen in the case of Coligny's ghost how ready he was to turn every thing which he read to use, and pluck flowers from every bush in his way. P. S. It being mentioned in your last, p. 258, that Hawking has been noticed by Firmicus, in his astrology, who lived under Constantine, I find there the following words: "In Virgine si Mercurius fuerit inventus, quicunque sic eum habuerint fortes erunt et industrii, sagaces, equorum nutritores, accipitrum, falconum cœterarumque avium, quæ ad aucupia pertinent, similiter et canum, molossorum, vertagorum et qui sunt ad venationes accomodati. Homines quaque et milites tenebunt, omniaque munimenta ad militiam pertinentia, ac plurimum equestri jaculatione delectabuntur.” Lib. v. 8. Query whether the Greeks had preceded the Romans in this art? S. ART. ART. XV. On the Mode of Interpreting the BIR, Prophecies. TO THE EDITOR OF CENSURA LITERARIA. With very great respect for the learning and talents. of your venerable Correspondent S. to whom I think all your readers are under much obligation, I must differ from him with regard to some of the positions stated in his letter inserted in your last Number. That there is a medium to be observed between the wholly literal and wholly allegorical or mystical interpretation of the prophecies cannot be denied. But the difficulty still remains to know where to draw the line. Good and eminent men, Jews as well as Christians, ancients as well as moderns, have erred on both sides. In our own days we have seen the virtuous and learned Bishop Horne allegorizing almost the whole of the scriptures; and Rosemuller (as I judge from what S. says of him) reducing them again to their literal meaning. Yet surely there is a line to be drawn, safe at least, though neither inclusive nor exclusive of a great part of the Bible, which is from the information of the New Testament. Whatever Rosemuller or any other commentator may say, while I believe in the general inspiration of the apostles I must also believe that those prophecies which they expressly quote, and to the completion of which in their own sight they bear witness, were in the proper sense prophecies and to be fulfilled at a future time, however literally they might appear to be accomplished in their first and most obvious sense: and references of this kind in the New Testament DD 3 |