Page:The spirit of the Hebrew poetry 1861.djvu/87

 refuse to be absolutely subjected to any formal requirements: greater is the individual man than circumstances of any sort; and greater is he far than materialists would report him to be—according to system. A Poet there may be, wherever Nature shall call him forth; but there will not be Poetry among a people that is not favoured by Nature, as to its home:—the imaginative tastes and the creative genius have been, as to the mass of the people, indigenous to Greece; but not to Egypt: to Italy; but not to France: to the British Islands; but not to Holland. And thus too, it was the ancient people of Palestine, pre-eminently, that possessed a poetry which was quite its own. But then we must be looking back a three thousand years, as to the people; and we must be thinking of the country, such as it was in the morning hours of Biblical time. In later ages—the people fallen! and the land mourning its hopeless desolation!

Palestine, rather than any other country that might be named, demands the presence, and needs the industry of man, for maintaining its fertility. Capable, as it has been, of supporting millions of people, those millions must actually be there; and then only will it justify its repute as a "very good land." A scanty population will starve, where a dense population would fatten. On this land, emphatically, is the truth exemplified—that "the hand of the diligent maketh rich:"—it is here that, if man fails of his duty, or if he misunderstands his