Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/114

 him in correspondence with the Prophet's style, when he rebuked the vices, and denounced the wrong-doings of later life.

The crowds assembling in the courts of the Temple, where the Inspired man took his seat, and the promiscuous clusters that surrounded the pillars whereupon the Prophet's message was placarded, found the language of these remonstrances to he familiar to their ears. The terms and the style went home to the conscience of the hearer:—these utterances did not miss their aim by a too lofty upshot: they took the level of the popular intellect; and so it was that, as well the luxurious princes of the people as the wayfaring man, though of the idiotic class, might read and understand the Divine monition.

Inasmuch as the poetic and symbolic style draws its materials from the objects of sense, it is implied that the popular mind has a vivid consciousness of these objects, and is observant of the specific diversities of the natural world. This discriminative consciousness undoubtedly belonged to the popular Hebrew mind. The proof is this—that if we take as an instance any one class of natural objects—earth, air, water, the animal orders, or the vegetable world—we shall find, in the Hebrew Glossary, as large a number—as good a choice—of distinctive terms, thereto belonging, as is furnished in the vocabularies of other tongues, one or two only excepted. We may easily bring our affirmation