Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/81

 tional conception of what these qualities should be. Among the thousand themes of poetry, this one—the imaging of a godlike magnanimity and virtue—has held the highest place.

The Hebrew literature gives the several elements of virtue and piety in precept; but nowhere is it presented in the concrete. In place of the dazzling Ideal—the romance of humanity—we find only the real human nature of history—vouched for as such by the presence of those conditions of human frailty which the Idealist would have taken care to exclude. A circumstance full of meaning it is, that, in these writings, all that we learn of the acts, and of the personal qualities of the prominent persons of the national history, is found in the narrative and prosaic books, or portions of books:—none of it appears in the poetic books, or in those passages the style of which is figurative and impassioned; and which, as to its form, is metrical. What then is the import of these facts, which have no parallels in the national poetry of other countries? It is this, that whenever the individual man comes forward in these writings—whenever it is he who draws upon himself the eyes of his fellows, whether chief or prophet, he must do so—such as he is:—if his virtue, his wisdom, his valour, are to attract notice, so do his sins, his weaknesses, his falls, in the moments of severest trial; all these things make their appearance also, and proclaim the veraciousness of the record.