APPENDIX. Plainness of language should always be the companion of truth; but this plainness is perfectly consistent with every characteristic of taste, and with figurative expression. Indeed one pertinent and figurative allusion will oftentimes convey more instruction, and will more powerfully impress the mind, than pages of reasoning. The wide scene of Nature, should not be spread before us in vain:but thence we should draw applicable and judicious illustrations. These remarks will, in some degree, apply to the Hebrew poetry. There is something in those writings, to the observation of true taste, unspeakably simple, tender and sublime. Their figures are innumerable, bold and energetic. They drew them from two sources---the object of Nature, and the practice of common life.* The former is the grandest, the latter, perhaps, was most universally intelligible. In the sacred scriptures we meet examples of every excellence and stile of writing. All the boldest attempts of human Genius are eclipsed by comparison with them. From the loud and thrilling harp of Isaiah, of David, of Jeremiah, and of Job have proceeded strains which the most polished age of Greece, or of Rome would have imitated * See Lowth's admirable Prelections on Hebrew poetry. APPENDIX. in vain. In the scriptures there appears no bombastic glare, no artificial colourings. Plain, easy, and concise, they ascend from the lowest note of simplicity to the loudest thunder of sublimity. We see in them no load of epithets, but language moving along free from incumbrances in its native strength---Horace has said that three essential qualities must combine in the composition of a genuine Poet, 1. Ingenium, or Invention. 2. Mens divinior, or a Mind of diviner constitution. 3. Os magna Sonataurum, or a vigour and magnificence of expression. Longinus has proposed five sources of sublimity in composition. 1. Το περι τας νοησεις αδρεπήβολον, or boldness of conception and adventurous imagination. 2. Το σφοδρον και ενθεσιαστικον---or an Enthusiastic sensibility. 3. Η ποια Των σχηματων πλασις, or a certain conformation of figures. 4. Η γενναια φρασις, or a generous character of diction. 5. Η εν αξιώματι και διαρσεί συνθεσις, or a dignified and elevated composition. APPENDIX. The following extracts which are offered as illustrations of Genius, will I think be found to flow from each of these sources, and I think it will be acknowledged that their writers possessed those qualities mentioned by Horace. ISAIAH, xiv. 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 23. "Thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, how hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! The Lord hath broken the staff of the wicked, and the sceptre of the rulers. He who smote the people in wrath with a continual stroke, he that ruled the nations in anger, is persecuted and none hindereth. The whole earth is at rest, and is quiet: they break forth into singing. Yea, the fir-trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, since thou art laid down, no feller hath come up against us. Hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming: it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations. All they shall speak and say unto thee, art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us? Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. How art thou APPENDIX. fallen from Heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations--23, I will also make Babylon a possession for the bittern and pools of water---and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of Hosts." This passage is remarkable for sublimity. The doom of the subject of the prophecy, the king of Babylon, is described in every circumstance of grandeur and terror. There never was a stronger and more awful personification than that which is contained in the ninth verse. Hell from beneath is moved to meet thee at thy coming, &c. And the whole passage bears a correspondent elevation. In the 23d verse the desolate waste is brought before our view-swept by the besom of destruction-polluted with pools, where "the hollowing-sound bit"tern guards its nest." Dr. Young had the spirit of this verse in view, when speaking of the end of the world, he says, "Ruin fiercely drives her ploughshare over creation." JOB XXXIX. 27, 28, 29, 30. Doth the Eagle mount up at thy command, and make her nest on high. She dwelleth and abideth on the rock, upon the crag of the rock, and the strong place. From thence she seeketh the prey; and her eyes behold APPENDIX. afar off. Her young ones also suck up blood: and where the slain are, there is she. No description could be more concise, more characteristic and striking. The whole of the wonderful chapter from which it is extracted, besides its poetical excellence, contains accurate instructions in natural history. JOB XXviii. 20, 22, 23. Whence then cometh wisdom, and where is the place of understanding? 22, Destruction and Death say, we have heard the fame thereof with our ears. 23, God understandeth the way thereof, for he looketh to the ends of the earth, and seeth under the whole heaven."The greatness of the expression in the 22nd verse will escape no accurate observer. -- JOB iv. 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. "Now a thing was secretly brought to me, and mine ear received a little thereof, in thoughts from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men. Fear came upon me and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit passed before my face; the hair of my head stood up: It stood still, but I could not discern the form thereof: An image was before mine eyes; there was silence, and I heard a voice saying, Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than |