Its originality is also a marked characteristic of Hebrew poetry. Homer had his teachers, but who taught Moses ? Yet 'the divine song of Troy' is less divine than the ode of triumph over Pharaoh. The Hebrew poetry is original in this sense, that it is self-educed and self-developed. It is an indigenous plant in Palestine. Like Melchi zedek, it is, in regard to an earlier culture, cbrcirwp dp,irralp, d-yEpeaX6-mos ; and if we cannot say that it has strictly 1.47)T6 etpx4p ii.tEplDv, there is no danger in predicting of it, reXos exam', *Pet lepeils els ra acipeices (Heb. vii. 3).
Connected with its originality, as in part its cause, is the fact that the Hebrew muse stood nearer than any other to the first days and the earliest aspects of creation, when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy' (Job xxxviii. 7). Those stars that Muse saw in the maiden purity of their earliest radiance ; that song the same Muse heard when first it struck the canopy of heaven and was reverberated to earth. The rose of Sharon blushed with its first loveliness on her glad sight, and the dews of Her mon were first disturbed by her unsandalled feet. Thus there is a freshness as of morn about all her imagery. In her best days there were no stock figures of speech, no loci communes, nor universal recipes for forming poetry. Not even at second hand did she receive her stores, but she took what she had out of the great treasure-house of nature, and out of the fulness of her own heart. To be a master, therefore, to other poesies is the divine right and peculiar function of the Hebrew muse. Other bards may borrow and imitate ; the poetry of the Bible copies nature and creates.
Hence there is a spontaneousness in its poetry. Open the Psalter at any place ; you find streams pouring forth like the brooks and waterfalls that trickle and gush down the hills of Palestine after the latter rain. Nature you behold at work. All therefore is ease, and, as ease, so grace. There is no constraint, no effort, no affectation. The heart itself speaks, and it speaks because it is full and overflowing.
If we add that simplicity is another marked character of Hebrew poetry, we do little more than state that which is already implied. But such is its simplicity that it seems never to have known, in its age of purity, anything of the artificial distinc tions by which critics and rhetoricians have mapped out the domain of poesy and endeavoured to sup ply the deficiencies of fancy by the laborious efforts of Varied culture. Hebrew poetry was the voice of man communing with God, and thought as little of the one as of the other of the two purposes which Horace ascribes to artistic poets ' Ant prodesse volunt aut delectare poetx.' It was, indeed, wholly unconscious of anything but the satisfaction of a high and urgent want, which made worship a necessity, and devotion a delight. A striking confirmation of these facts is found in the circumstance that among the earliest of the ' sweet singers of Israel,' women are found. The great event which Moses, in his sublime triumphal ode, had celebrated, was forthwith taken up by Miriam, whose poetic skill could not be singular, as she is described by a general name, and was supported by other females ; And, Miriam the prophetess, the sister of Aaron' (a remarkable family was that of Amram, Aaron, and Moses, and Miriam their sister,' Num. xxvi. 59), took a timbrel in her hand ; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and with dances. And Miriam answered them, Sing ye to the Lord,' etc. (Exod. xv. 2o, seq. ; see also Judg. v. 1 ; xi. 34 ; xxi. zr ; 1 Sam. xviii. 7 ; Ps. lxviii. 25).
Were it a matter to be determined by authority, we could easily prove that the Hebrew poetry is written in hexameters and pentameters. Josephus more than once asserts that the triumphal ode of Moses was written in hexameter verse (Anti;.
16. 4 ; iv. 8, 44) ; and in Antiq. vii. 12. 3, he ex pressly says, And now David, being freed from wars and dangers, composed songs and hymns to God, of several sorts of metre ; some of those which he made were trimeters and some were pentameters ;' in which statement he is as much in error in regard to the verse as he is in regard to his implication that David wrote his Psalms at some one set period of his life. Not improbably Josephus was influenced in this representation re garding the alleged metres by his Grcising pro pensities, by which he was led to assimilate the Hebrew laws and institutions to Grecian models, with a false view of thus gaining honour to his country, and by reflection, to himself as well. Even in his day the true pronunciation of the Hebrew was lost, so that it was easy to make this or that assertion on the subject of its versification. Cer tainly all the attempts to which these misstatements of Josephus (see also Euseb., Prap. Ev. xi. ; Hieron., Praf. ad Chron. ; Euseb., p. 1 ; Isidor., Orig., i. 38) chiefly led, have utterly failed ; and whatever the fact may be, whether or not these poems were written in stricter measure than the doctrine of this article supposes, we are little likely to form an exact idea of the Hebrew measures unless we could raise David from the sleep of cen turies ; and at a time when, like the present, it is beginning to be felt that there has been far too much dogmatizing about even the classical versifi cation, and that speculation and fancy have out stripped knowledge, we do not expect to find old attempts to discover the Hebrew hexameters and pentameters revived. Those who may wish to pursue the subject in its details are referred to the following works : Carpzov, Introd. in V. T., England has the credit of opening a new path in this branch by the publication of Bishop Lowth's elegant and learned Pralectiones de Sacra Poesi Hebraornm, Oxon. 1753 ; which may be found also in Ugolini, Thesaur., xxxi. ; the editions having Michaelis's Note' et Epimetra are to be pre ferred; that of Oxon. 1810 is good : the Work was translated into English by Gregory. On the didactic poetry of the Hebrews the reader may consult Umbreit, Sprache Sal. Einleitung; Rhode, De Vet. Poelar. Sapientia G7I0M. liebraor. imp. el Gracor., Havn. 1800 ; Unger, De Parabolar. natura, etc., Leips. 1828. Le Clerc, in his Biblioth. Univers., ix. 226, seq., has given what is worth attention ; see also Hist. Abrigle de la polsie chez les He'br. in the History of the Academy of Inscriptions, tom. xxiii. 92, seq. But the work which has, next to that of Lowth, exerted the greatest influence, is a posthumous and unfinished piece of the celebrated Herder, who has treated the subject with extraordinary eloquence and learning : Von Geist der Ebriiischen Poesie, 1782, to be found in his collected writings ; also Tubing. 1805, and Carlsruhe 1826 ; see also Gtigler, Die Heil. Kunst der Hebriier., Landshut 1814 ; and B. F. Gutten stein, Die Poet. Literar. alten Mannh. 1835. The subject of metre has been skilfully handled by Bellermann, Versuch fiber d. Metrik der Hebrder., Berl. 1813. Much useful information may be found in De Wette's Einleitung in d. A. Test. Berlin 1840, translated into English by Theodore Parker, Boston (U. S.) 1843. In Well beloved's Bible translations of the poetical portions may be found, in which regard is paid to rhythm and poetical form ; a very valuable guide in He brew poetry, both for form and substance, may be found in Noyes's Translation of Yob, Cambridge (U. S.) 1827 ; of the Boston (U. S.) 1831 ; and of the Prophets, Boston (U. S.) 1833 ; but the best, fullest, and most satisfactory work on the subject is by Ewald, Die Poet. Bucher des Alien Bundes, 4 vols. 8vo, Gottingen 1835-39.—J. R. B.