try," he observes, "is not the introduction of foreign words, and of what grammarians call the paragogic or redundant particles; for these licences, though frequent, are by no means universal in the poetical books of scripture, and they are occasionally admitted in passages merely historical and prosaic." As I write principally for unlearned readers, I shall offer no apology for explaining that the paragoge is a figure by which a letter or syllable is added to a word without making the slightest alteration in its sense, as med for me, dicier for dici; it was no doubt originally invented exclusively for metrical purposes, though it is occasionally found in prose writings, but much less frequently than in poetical. In answer to Bishop Jebb's objection, with reference to the paragogic or redundant particles, I cannot do better than quote the words of an anonymous writer in the Critica Biblica (vol. i. page 86), "That these particles are not the grand characteristic of Hebrew poetry we readily allow; nor did Bishop Lowth adduce them as such, but merely as a proof of its metrical composition, and their validity as such is not at all affected by their occurrence being by no means universal in the poetical books of scripture: for most assuredly they would only be used when required by the measure." The same writer again says, "but Dr. Jebb, in a note to the passage we have cited, further affirms, it is remarkable that in the preliminary dissertation to Isaiah, no mention is made of these particles; whence may safely be inferred, how little stress the

Bishop was disposed to lay on them, as characteristics of Hebrew poetry; for in that dissertation, he gave his last, his fullest, and most mature views of the subject.' How Dr. Jebb could have overlooked the following paragraph in the above-mentioned dissertation, we cannot conceive! But beside the poetical structure of the sentences, there are other indications of verse in the poetical and prophetical parts of the Hebrew scriptures; such are peculiarities of language, unusual and foreign words, phrases and forms of words uncommon in prose, bold elliptical expressions, frequent and abrupt changes of persons, and a use of tenses out of the common order; and lastly the poetical dialect, consisting chiefly of certain anomalies peculiar to poetry, in letters and syllables added to the end of words, a kind of licence commonly permitted to poetry in every language. But as these cannot be explained by a few examples, nor perfectly understood without some knowledge of Hebrew, I must beg leave to refer the learned reader, who would inquire further into this subject, to what I have said upon it in another place (De Sacra Pöesi Hebræorum, Prælec. 3, 14, 15), or rather to recommend it to his own observation, in reading the sacred poets in their own language.' (Prelim. Dissert. p. 67.) Here we have the most unequivocal testimony of Bishop Lowth, respecting the importance and utility of these particles, in his last, his fullest, and his most mature views of the subject."

Bishop Jebb's objection, with reference to the rhyming termination of lines, scarcely de

mands an observation; for though Le Clerc espoused the scheme of rhyming poetry," the most untenable and absurd," says Lowth, "of any proposed," it has been so little insisted on as to require no serious refutation.

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Finally," says the author of Sacred Literature," the grand characteristic of Hebrew poetry is not the adoption of metre, properly so called, and analogous to the metre of the heathen classics; for the efforts of the learned to discover such metre, in any one poem of the Hebrews, have universally failed." But in reply it may be observed, that this is no evidence against the positive existence of Hebrew metre. The difficulty of making out the quantities of syllables in a dead language, which has been but imperfectly understood for upwards of two thousand years, the true pronunciation of which has been entirely lost, and therefore of which it is impossible to fix either the accent or quantity, both the number of syllables in a word and likewise their length being a question of inextricable perplexity, we can be at no loss to conceive why the learned have universally failed to restore the lost canons of Hebrew versification. This however is no proof that they were never employed, especially in the face of such strong presumptive evidence as has been accumulated in favour of their original existence; of these a few shall here be produced.

There is first then the marked difference in style and structure in such portions of those writings, confessedly by the same author, as are decidedly prosaic when compared with those,

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by the same hand, which are presumed to be poetical. In the one case the simplest form of expression being employed, in the other the most complicated, figurative, and artificial. Secondly, there are the acrostic poems, modelled after a certain form, and evidently subjected to certain laws, which lift them quite out of the order of prose composition, and confine them to the most rigid resources of art, the lines in each being so regularly accommodated, that word answers to word and syllable to syllable." Thirdly, we find in the writings of the Hebrew poets words used in a sense and manner remote from their common acceptation. Sometimes they are shortened by elisions, at other times lengthened by the addition of a whole syllable—that is, by the application of what I have before explained as the paragogic or redundant particles; expedients almost exclusively peculiar to metrical composition. We see the various licences resorted to employed by the poets of ancient Greece and Rome; these are traceable even in the works of the most primitive among the oriental writers of verse, and some of the Hindoo poetical writings are no doubt coeval with, if they were not anterior to the Pentateuch. We discover those obvious anomalies of verbal structure and those involutions of expression peculiar to the poetical dialect of every country. We observe letters added to or cut off from the end of words, which manifest a decided submission to the rhythm, number, and measure of syllables. We know also that much of the Hebrew poetry

was composed purposely to be sung; as was no doubt the Thanksgiving ode, produced by Moses, immediately after the Israelites had passed the Red Sea; the chorus, "O sing ye to Jehovah," chanted by Miriam and the women, sufficiently attesting this fact.

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It is the opinion of Dr. Geddes, in which he is followed by other learned authorities, that on the day of celebration after the signal deliverance of the Israelites from Egyptian bondage, when this ode was sung, the men repeated every stanza after Moses, much in the same manner as the first part of our Litany is repeated by the clerk and congregation, and the women after Miriam.

"Thus far, therefore," says Bishop Lowth,

in his third prælection, "I think we may with

safety affirm, that the Hebrew poetry is metrical. One or two of the peculiarities also of their versification it may be proper to remark, which, as they are very observable in those poems in which the verses are defined by the initial letters, may at least be reasonably conjectured of the rest. The first of these is, that the verses are very unequal in length-the shortest consisting of six or seven syllables, the longest extending to about twice that number; the same poem is, however, generally continued throughout in verses not very unequal to each other. I must also observe, that the close of the verse generally falls where the members of the sentences are divided." This mode of versification, as Mr. Henley truly observes, is not altogether foreign to our own