Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/62



HE attempt to bring the Poetry of the Hebrew Scriptures into metrical analogy with that of Greece and Rome has not been successful. This would demand a better knowledge of the quantity of syllables when the language was spoken, and of the number of syllables in words, and of its rhythm, than is actually possessed by Modern Hebraists. But that a people so pre-eminently musical by constitution should have failed to perceive, or should not have brought under rule, the rhythm of words and sentences could not easily be believed; yet to what extent this was done by them, or on what principles, it would now be hopeless to inquire.

There is, however, a metrical structure, artificial and elaborate, which gives evidence of itself, even in a translation: it does not affect the cadence, or musical adjustment of words; but it does affect the choice of words and the structure of sentences. To treat the Hebrew Poetry in any technical sense does not come within the purpose of the present