Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/78

 it must be an artistic achievement: the Poem may be quite true in human nature generically; but it is never true as a real narrative:—it borrows a something from history; but it creates ten times more than it borrows. Scarcely then need we say why it is that the Hebrew literature possesses neither Drama nor Epic: the reasons, as we shall presently see, are distinctly two.

The Epic—which is history transmuted into fiction—for a forgone purpose, or in regard to a final cause, has stood foremost in the esteem of every people that has risen above the rudest barbarism—of every people— only excepted; and this one is a people whose literature, mainly poetic as it is, has taken hold of the sympathies of mankind more extensively, and more permanently, than any other. Reasons drawn from a consideration of the social condition of this one people might perhaps be brought forward in explanation of this unique fact; and there would then be room for much ingenuity in showing how we may solve the problem—in some way short of an admission which those who distaste the true reason will labour to exclude. But we take it otherwise.

This series of writers, through the many centuries of their continuous testimony, spoke not, wrote not, as if they possessed a liberty of discursive choice—now scattering the decorations of fiction over realities; and now striving to impart to fiction, in as high a degree as possible, the verisimilitude of