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 hymnal, or the legal books, or chronicles of the priestly caste; and the rythmical address of the nâbî, primarily intended to be heard rather than to be read, had in Ezekiel's hands, as in those of Jeremiah, become an instrument for the pen as much as for the voice. A critical age, bookish and surfeited with study, was, however, to reduce Hebrew ideas of literature into narrower bounds. No doubt the era of Hebrew captivity may be credited with an outburst of Hebrew genius; for new ideas were then breaking in upon the old exclusiveness of the Hebrew mind. But the Hebrews seem to have soon learned that if they intended to maintain any national sentiments in spite of their political weakness, they must forego cosmopolitan ideas and restrain themselves within national traditions. Thus the literary class, which now tended to take the place of an aristocracy, was checked in its sympathies. Little remained for the patriotic Hebrew but to anticipate the Arab's deification of his Qurʾân by setting up the Torah for verbal worship; and the alphabetical psalms and arrangement of Lamentations show how the creative imagination of the nâbîs was giving way to literary tricks reminding us of the