short stanza, the sense being completed in each period. Every line of the stanza commences with its initial letter, each consecutive stanza following the order of the Hebrew alphabet; and although, as Michaelis truly remarks, these poems, generally, are very much beneath the sublimity of the great mass of Hebrew poetry, they nevertheless, more than any portion of it, serve to indicate the existence of Hebrew verse.

"The acrostic, or alphabetical poetry of the Hebrews," according to the learned authority already so often quoted, "was certainly intended to assist the memory, and was confined altogether to those compositions which consisted of detached maxims, or sentiments, without any express order of connection. The same custom is said to have been prevalent, indeed is said still to prevail in some degree, among the Syrians, the Persians, and the Arabs." In another place he says, "There existed a certain kind of poetry among the Hebrews, principally intended, as it should seem, for the assistance of the memory; in which, when there was little connection between the sentiments, a sort of order, or method, was preserved, by the initial letter of each line, or stanza, following the order of the alphabet. Of this there are several examples extant among the sacred poems, besides the Psalms already mentioned (the thirtyfirst chapter of Proverbs, from the tenth verse to the end, and the whole of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, except the last chapter,) and in these

* See Lowth's Twenty-second Prælection. + Third Prælection.

examples, the verses are so exactly marked and defined, that it is impossible to mistake them for prose; and particularly if we attentively consider the verses, and compare them with one another, since they are, in general, so regularly accommodated, that word answers to word, and almost syllable to syllable."

The Masorites, or Masoretic doctors-these I may as well at once state were a fraternity of Jewish rabbins, said to have belonged to a celebrated school at Tiberias, who were compilers of a work on the Old Testament, called the Massora, to secure the Hebrew scriptures from any changes or interpolations-these Masorites, whose pointings and readings of the sacred text the Jews hold to be oracular, throw no light upon the difficult subject of Hebrew metre; nevertheless, it cannot escape the most obtuse scrutiny, that certain portions of the divine records are as much opposed to common prose, as is the Paradise Lost to the written definitions of problems in Simpson's Euclid. Will any one deny that there is as clear a distinction in style between Solomon's Song and the first chapters of Genesis, if we may venture to compare sacred with profane compositions, as between the odes of Anacreon and any of the chapters in Hume's History of England? Our ignorance of Hebrew metre cannot blind us to the fact of the actual existence of Hebrew poetry-of poetry subject to certain given laws, by which the poetry of every civilised country is governed. Bishop Hare, indeed, imagined that he had penetrated

this inscrutable secret, but Lowth, although a strong advocate in favour of the metrical compositions of the Hebrews, completely overthrew the specious yet untenable system of Hare, and the secret therefore remains involved in its original obscurity. The true pronunciation of Hebrew being lost, cannot now be restored by any rules of orthoepy with which we are acquainted, and by which the quantities of words in all other languages are defined and regulated. It is consequently impossible to fix, with any approach to certainty, the quantities of Hebrew terms, of which the Masorites were evidently just as ignorant as modern Hebrew scholars. Notwithstanding, however, the insuperable obstacles to the final adjustment of so perplexed a question, the poetry of the Bible is as clearly distinct from, and as much elevated above, the prose of that inspired volume, as the poetry of Homer is above the prose of Xenophon, one of the most eloquent writers among the ancient Greeks, of whom it was said by Quintilian, an illustrious Roman critic and rhetorician, that the Graces dictated his language, and the Goddess of Persuasion dwelt upon his lips.

Although we have doubtless lost the true pronunciation of the Greek and Latin languages, in both the rhythm and quantity remain, so that there is no difficulty in distinguishing the versification of either; we are therefore as perfect masters of the prosody of the Greeks and Romans as were the most eminent of their own philologists; "but the state of the Hebrew," as Lowth observes," is far more unfavourable, which,

destitute of vowel sounds, has remained altogether silent, and if I may use the expression, incapable of utterance, upwards of two thousand years. Thus not so much as the number of syllables of which each word consisted, could with any certainty be defined, much less the length and quantity of the syllables: and since the regulation of the metre of any language must depend upon two particulars, I mean the number and length of the syllables, the knowledge of which is utterly unattainable in the Hebrew, he who attempts to restore the true and genuine Hebrew versification, erects an edifice without a foundation."

CHAPTER IV.

Bishop Jebb's opinion concerning the existence of Hebrew metre. Authorities for and against it. Bishop Jebb's arguments not conclusive. Metre essential to poetry. Presumptive evidence of its existence in the Hebrew scriptures. The failure to restore it no proof that it did not exist in them. Conclusion of the argument.

As Bishop Jebb has, in his "Sacred Literature," endeavoured to prove, with considerable eloquence and felicity of argument, uniting great candour with much acuteness of critical investigation, that the Hebrew writers, both anterior and subsequent to the time of Moses, were not acquainted with the laws of metre, I shall make no apology for devoting a chapter to this difficult, but, nevertheless, interesting question.

The authorities, both ancient and modern, in favour of the original employment of a form of Hebrew versification, are not only numerous, but number among them some of the greatest names by which biblical literature has been distinguished; and although it does happen that none of the learned men who have investigated this perplexed subject, have succeeded in establishing the existence of Hebrew prosody, still their belief in its existence is a sufficient guarantee for the faith of inferior minds upon the pre