Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/136



T was upon no such bright themes as those of the Paradisaical era—it was upon no subjects so well adapted to the purposes of Poetry as those of the Patriarchal era—that the Hebrew Prophets employed themselves. It was far otherwise: leaving subjects of this order open and unoccupied to the genius of distant ages, these witness-bearing men, in long succession, addressed the men of their times upon matters of more immediate concernment, and in a mood and style adapted to the people with whom they had to do. If it be so—and on this point there can be no reasonable question—then it must be true in this instance, as in every similar instance, that a correct notion of the people who were so addressed, as to their degree of culture, as to their moral condition, and their social advancement, and as to their comparative intelligence, may with certainty be gathered from these remains of their literature:—the literature being regarded as the mirror of the national mind. Yet if we so regard it, and so use