who began as a shepherd-lad to cultivate the arts of music and poetry, breathe a spirit of plaintive tenderness that distinguishes them from the statelier productions of other contributors to Hebrew psalmody.

A utopian theory of the great Plato, but one that he declared could be carried out only by "a god or some divine one," was the training of the Grecian youth in odes like the Psalms: and this-the religious instruction of the people-was the very object of the Hebrew lyrics. The plan of the Greek philosopher had been put in practice centuries before his day in Palestine, and on a far grander scale than ever he imagined. In the royal city of Jerusalem, four thousand musicians appointed by David chanted hymns of triumph and praise, to the accompaniment of harp and flute; while in the gorgeous temple of David's son, the sublime worship of Jehovah challenges description.

For three thousand years, these Hebrew anthems, unapproached by the religious songs of any other age or people, have been the glory of the Jewish and the Christian Church, eloquently testifying that "there has been one people among the nations—one among the millions of the worshippers of stocks-taught of God."

Most of the Psalms date from David's time; but one (Psalm xc.) carries us as far back as Moses, and others were as late as the Captivity; they thus cover a period of nearly ten centuries. They were probably arranged as we now have them in the fifth century B.C.

Elegiac Poetry.-King David was also a writer of elegy, that kind of song in which the Hebrew poets and prophets poured out their grief in the unaffected language of nature. Some of his Psalms are beautiful specimens of this species of poetry, especially Psalm xlii., "As the hart panteth after the water-brooks," composed during his exile among the mountains of Lebanon. Another exquisite and

pathetic elegy of this poet, rendered below in English verse by Lowth, is the

LAMENTATION FOR SAUL AND JONATHAN.

"Thy glory, Israel, droops its languid head,

On Gilboa's heights thy rising beauty dies;
In sordid piles there sleep the illustrious dead,
The mighty victor fall'n and vanquished lies.

Yet dumb be Grief; hushed be her clam'rous voice!
Tell not in Gath the tidings of our shame!
Lest proud Philistia in our woes rejoice,

And rude barbarians blast fair Israel's fame.

The sword of Saul ne'er spent its force in air;
The shaft of Jonathan brought low the brave;
In life united equal fates they share,

In death united share one common grave.

Daughters of Judah! mourn the fatal day,

In sable grief attend your monarch's urn;
To solemu notes attune the pensive lay,

And weep those joys that never shall return.

With various wealth he made your tents o'erflow,
In princely pride your charms profusely dressed;
Bade the rich robe with ardent purple glow,

And sparkling gems adorn the tissued vest.

On Gilboa's heights the mighty vanquished lies,
The son of Saul, the generous and the just;
Let streaming sorrow ever fill these eyes,
Let sacred tears bedew a brother's dust.

Thy firm regard revered thy David's name,

And kindest thoughts in kindest acts expressed;
Not brighter glows the pure and generous flame
That lives within the tender virgin's breast.

But vain the tear and vain the bursting sigh,
Though Sion's echoes with our grief resound;
The mighty victors fall'n and vanquished lie,

And war's refulgent weapons strew the ground."

Didactic Poetry.-In the golden age, didactic poetry also reached the acme of perfection. The Proverbs that then

flowed from the inspired pen of SOLOMON, prince of didactic writers as his father was of lyric poets, are too well known, with all their richness of practical wisdom, to require more than a passing mention. Expressed concisely in energetic words, according to the different forms of parallelism, these moral precepts are indeed "like apples of gold in baskets of silver."

Of the same general scope as the Proverbs, and by the same author, is Ecclesiastes, or the Preacher. In this book is shown the vanity of earthly pleasures; and the whole duty of man is summed up in the sentence, "Fear God and keep his commandments." The Book of Ecclesiastes has been attributed to Solomon's latter days; the Proverbs, to his prime; while that sweet pastoral, the Song of Songs-singularly beautiful, whether taken literally as an exponent of happy wedded love, or allegorically as delineating the mutual attachment of God and his people—was the joyous outburst of his youth. Solomon was also the author of a thousand canticles and various works on miscellaneous subjects; books of making which, he tells us, there was no end.

Prophetic Poetry of the Golden Age.-The writings of the earlier prophets, florid with high-wrought imagery, revived for a time the waning glories of the golden age. Foremost of this class in eloquence of diction, sublimity of thought, and versatility of genius, stands ISAIAH. Majesty united with elaborate finish; a harmony that delights the soul; a variety that imparts freshness without detracting from dignity; simplicity and unvarying purity of language,-conspire to make the lyric verse of "the Evangelical Prophet" the most appropriate embodiment of the awful messages of God to the Jews, the promise of a Messiah and universal peace.

After a career of nearly seventy years, Isaiah sealed his great work with his blood in the reign of the idolatrous Manasseh (698-643 B.C.). His mind has been pronounced "one of the most sublime and variously gifted instruments which

THE PROPHETIC WRITINGS.

97

the Spirit of God has ever employed to pour forth its Voice upon the world."

Even the minor prophets, if we except Jonah the oldest, exhibit in their compositions unwonted grandeur and elegance: Hosea, with his sententious style; Amos, "the herdman and gatherer of sycamore fruit;" Joel and Micah; Habakkuk, whose fervent prayer to the Almighty is graced with the loftiest embellishments, and Nahum, perhaps the boldest and most ardent of all.

We

And so the Golden Age of Hebrew Literature ends. know only its sacred poetry, and much indeed of this has disappeared.* The harvest and vintage songs which wakened. the echoes amid the vales of Palestine, the pastorals that accompanied the shepherd's pipe on the hill-sides of Ephraim, all are lost forever; "the voice of mirth and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom and the bride," were forgotten in the streets of Jerusalem, when the land was desolate under the Babylonian and "the daughters of music were brought low."

SILVER AGE.

The Prophets. The names of three great prophets-Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Daniel-illuminate the first page in the history of the decline of Hebrew literature. But in their writings, and notably so in those of the later minor prophets, poetry was evidently on the wane. They lived in a degenerate day. About half of the prophecy of Jeremiah, denouncing the judgment of Heaven on the disobedient people, is poetry; he lacks the pomp and majesty of Isaiah, but excels in stirring the gentler emotions.

His Lamentations are beautiful elegies on the fall of his country and the desecration of the temple; every letter seems "written with a tear and every word the sound of a broken

*For example, the Book of Jasher, which appears to have been a collection of songs in praise of the just and upright-the subject of endless discussions.

heart." The verses of the several chapters in the original begin with consecutive letters of the alphabet, that they may be the more easily memorized, for it was intended that the sins and sufferings of the Jewish nation should never be forgotten. Can anything be more touching than the personification of Jerusalem, sitting as a solitary widow on the ground and mourning for her children?

"Is this nothing to all you who pass along the way? behold and see If there be any sorrow like unto my sorrow, which is inflicted on

me;

Which Jehovah inflicted on me in the day of the violence of his wrath.

For these things I weep, my eyes stream with water,

Because the comforter is far away that should tranquillize my soul. My children are desolate, because the enemy was strong."

Ezekiel and Daniel were carried captives to Babylon, where they made known their prophetic visions. The former wrote partly in poetry, characterized by a rough vehemence peculiar to himself. The Book of Daniel, in which history is combined with prophecy, is in prose, and a portion of it in the Chaldee language.

Another writer of distinguished merit, belonging to this age, was the scribe and priest Ezra (already mentioned), who was