mourning without the sun, a brother to dragons, a companion to owls; while his harp and organ are turned into the voice of them that weep.' I must transcribe one-half of this holy book, if I would show the grandeur, the variety, and the justness of his ideas, or the pomp and beauty of his expression: I must copy out a good part of the writings of David and Isaiah, if I would represent the poetical excellencies of their thoughts and style; nor is the language of the lesser prophets, especially in some paragraphs, much inferior to these. Now while they paint human nature in its various forms and circumstances, if their designing be so just and noble, their dispositions so artful, and their colouring so bright, beyond the most famed human writers, how much more must their descriptions of God and heaven exceed all that is possible to be said by a meaner tongue? When they speak of the dwelling-place of God, He inhabits eternity, and sits upon the throne of his holiness, in the midst of light inaccessible. When his holiness is mentioned, the heavens are not clean in his sight, he charges his angels with folly he looks to the moon, and it shineth not, and the stars are not pure before his eyes: he is a jealous God, and a consuming fire.' If we speak of strength, Behold, he is strong he removes the mountains, and they know it not: he overturns them in his anger: he shakes the earth from her place, and her pillars tremble: he makes a path through the mighty waters, he discovers the foundations of the world: the pillars of heaven are astonished at his reproof. And after all, these are but a portion of his ways: the thunder of his power who can understand?' His sovereignty, his knowledge, and his wisdom, are revealed to us in language vastly superior to all the poetical accounts of heathen divinity. Let the potsherds strive with the potsherds of the earth; but shall the clay say to him that fashioneth it, what makest thou? He bids the heavens drop down from above, and lets the skies pour down righteousness. He commands the sun, and it riseth not, and he sealeth up the stars. It is he that saith to the deep, be dry, and he drieth up the rivers. Woe to them that seek deep to hide their counsel from the Lord; his eyes are upon all their ways, he understands their thoughts afar off. Hell is naked before him, and destruction hath no covering. He calls out all the stars by their names, he frustrateth the tokens of the liars, and makes the diviners mad: he turns wise men backward, and their knowledge becomes foolish.' His transcendent eminence above all things is most nobly represented, when he sits upon the circle of the earth, and the inhabitants thereof are as grasshoppers: all nations before him are as the drop of a bucket, and as the small dust of the balance: he takes up the isles as a very little thing: Lebanon, with all her beasts, is not sufficient for a sacrifice to this God,' nor are all the trees sufficient for the burning.' This God, before whom the whole creation is as nothing, yea, less than nothing, and vanity.' To which of all the heathen gods then will ye compare me, saith the Lord, and what shall I be likened to? And to which of all the heathen poets shall we liken or compare this glorious orator, the sacred describer of the Godhead? The orators of all nations are as nothing before him, and their words are vanity and emptiness. Let us turn our eyes now to some of the holy writings, where God is creating the world; how meanly do the best of the Gentiles talk and trifle upon this subject, when brought into comparison with Moses, whom Longinus himself, a Gentile critic, cites as a master of the sublime style, when he chose to use it; and the Lord said, let there be light, and there was light; let there be clouds and seas, sun and stars, plants and animals, and behold they are: he commanded, and they appear and obey by the word of the Lord were the heavens made, and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth this is working like a God, with infinite ease and omnipotence. His wonders of providence for the terror and ruin of his adversaries, and for the succour of his saints, are set before our eyes in the Scripture with equal magnificence, and as becomes divinity. When he arises out of his place, the earth trembles, the foundations of the hills are shaken because he is wrath: there goes a smoke up out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth devoureth, coals are kindled by it. He bows the heavens, and comes down, and darkness is under his feet. The mountains melt like wax, and flow down at his presence.' If Virgil, Homer, or Pindar, were to prepare an equipage for a descending God, they might use thunder and lightning too, and clouds and fire, to form a chariot and horses for the battle, or the triumph; but there is none of them provides him a flight of cherubs instead of horses, or seats him in chariots of salvation. David beholds him riding upon the heaven of heavens, by his name JAH: he was mounted upon a cherub and did fly, he flew on the wings of the wind and Habakuk 'sends the pestilence before him.' Homer keeps a mighty stir with his Νεφεληγερετὰ Ζεὺς, and Hesiod with his Ζεὺς ὑψιβρεμέτης. Jupiter, that raises up the clouds, and that makes a noise, or thunders on high. But a divine poet makes the clouds but the dust of his feet; and when the Highest gives his voice in the heavens, hailstones and coals of fire follow.' A divine poet discovers the channels of the waters, and lays open the foundations. of nature; at thy rebuke, O Lord, at the blast of the breath. of thy nostrils. When the Holy One alighted upon Mount Sinai, his glory covered the heavens; he stood and measured the earth: he beheld and drove asunder the nations, and the everlasting mountains were scattered: the perpe. tual hills did bow; his ways are everlasting.' Then the prophet saw the tents of Cushan in affliction, and the curtains of the land of Midian did tremble.' Hab. iii. Nor did the Blessed Spirit which animated these writers forbid them the use of visions, dreams, the opening of scenes dreadful and delightful, and the introduction of machines upon great occasions: the divine license in this respect is admirable and surprising, and the images are often too bold and dangerous for an uninspired writer to imitate. Mr. Dennis has made a noble essay to discover how much superior is inspired poesy to the brightest and best descriptions of a mortal pen. Perhaps, if his Proposal of Criticism had been encouraged and pursued, the nation might have learned more value for the word of God, and the wits of the age might have been secured from the danger of deism; while they must have been forced to confess at least the divinity of all the poetical books of Scripture, when they see a genius running through them more than human. Who is there now will dare to assert, that the doctrines of our holy faith will not indulge or endure a delightful dress? shall the French poet affright us by saying, 'De la foy d'un Chrétien les mystéres terribles. But the French critic, † in his Reflections upon Eloquence, tells us, "that the majesty of our religion, the holiness of its laws, the purity of its morals, the height of its mysteries, and the importance of every subject that belongs to it, require a grandeur, a nobleness, a majesty, and elevation of style suited to the theme: sparkling images and magnificent expressions must be used, and are best borrowed from Scripture: let the preacher that aims at eloquence, read the prophets incessantly, for their writings are an abundant source of all the riches and ornaments of speech." And, in my opinion, this is far better counsel than Horace gives us, when he says, -Vos exemplaria Græca Nocturna versate manu, versate diurna. As in the conduct of my studies with regard to Divinity, I have reason to repent of nothing more than that I have ⚫ Boileau. + Rapin. not perused the Bible with more frequency; so if I were to set up for a poet, with a design to exceed all the modern. writers, I would follow the advice of Rapin, and read the prophets night and day. I am sure the composures of the following book would have been filled with much greater sense, and appeared with much more agreeable ornaments, had I derived a larger portion from the Holy Scriptures. Besides, we may fetch a further answer to Mons. Boileau's objection, from other poets of his own country. What a noble use have Racine and Corneille made of Christian subjects, in some of their best tragedies! What a variety of divine scenes are displayed, and pious passions awakened in thosc poems! The Martyrdom of Polyeucte, how doth it reign over our love and pity, and at the same time animate our zeal and devotion! May I here be permitted the liberty to return my thanks to that fair and ingenious hand that directed me to such entertainments in a foreign language, which I had long wished for, and sought in vain in our own. Yet I must confess, that the Davids, and the two Arthurs, have so far answered Boileau's objection, in English, as that the obstacles of attempting Christian poesy are broken down, and the vain pretence of its being impracticable is experimentally confuted.t It is true indeed the Christian mysteries have not such need of gay trappings as beautified, or rather composed, the heathen superstition. But this still makes for the greater ease and surer success of the poet. The wonders of our religion, in a plain narration and a simple dress, have a native grandeur, a dignity, and a beauty in them, though Philomela. + Sir Richard Blackmore, in his admirable preface to his last poem entitled Alfred, has more copiously refuted all Boileau's arguments on this subject, and that with great justice and elegauce, 1723. I am persuaded that many persons who despise this poem would acknowledge the just sentiments of that preface. |