Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/109

 ence that should be noted—namely, this—That the mode or style of a communication of the Will of God to the human family was to be symbolical, or figurative; and that by consequence it should not be scientific or philosophic—or such as could be interpretable in an abstract, or an absolute sense.

A question now meets us, an answer to which is important to our present line of argument. The ancient Palestine, we have said, was rich in its material garniture, as related to the needs and purposes of a figurative literature. And so are, and have been, other lands; but those who have trod the soil and tilled it may have had little or no tasteful consciousness toward the aspects of Nature, as beautiful or sublime. Poetry has not had its birth among them: the language of the people has reflected only the primitive intention of a colloquial medium; and therefore it has been poor in its vocabulary as to the specific differences of objects, and as to less obtrusive distinctions among objects of the same class.

In these respects, then, how was it with the Hebrew people? Writers of a certain class have allowed themselves to repeat, a thousand times, the unsustained allegation that this people was—"a rude and barbarous horde." Do we find it to be such? We possess portions of the people's literature; and, more than this, we have in our hands their language; or, at least, so much of it as suffices for putting us in position, on sure grounds of analogy, for filling in some of the chasms, and for safely