Following the current, we arrive at the pretty story of Joseph, who was sold (in "his coat of many colours,") by his false brethren to the Ishmaelites, but afterwards rose to be chief man under Egyptian Pharaoh, interpreting his dreams, and foretelling the famine which was to desolate the land. Then comes the history of the great lawgiver Moses, who wrought so many miracles-who heard the voice of God from the burning bush, and broke the tablets before the idolaters. He it was who smote Egypt with plague.—

("And Moses stretched forth his rod toward heaven, and the Lord sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along upon the ground; and the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt;")

and divided the waters with so mighty a hand. His song upon this event must not be entirely omitted. It is a grand hymn to victory and the Giver of victories.

"I will sing unto the Lord, for he hath triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider hath he thrown into the sea."

He proceeds to say what God has done upon his enemiesupon Pharaoh and his chariots and his hosts of soldiers-how he has cast them into the sea, and consumed them as stubble -and then adds

"And with the blast of thy nostrils the waters were gathered together: the floods stood upright as an heap, and the depths were congealed in the heart of the sea.

"The enemy said, I will pursue, I will overtake, I will divide the spoil my lust shall be satisfied upon them, I will draw my sword, my hand shall destroy them.

"Thou didst blow with thy wind, the sea covered them: they sank as lead in the mighty waters."

We pass by the laws and customs contained in the books of Exodus and Leviticus, as well as by the wanderings of the Israelites the various deeds of Aaron and Moses-and come to the address of the latter when he speaks "in the ears of the congregation of Israel." After alluding, in brief terms, to the corruption of the world, he inquires, Do ye thus requite the Lord, who separated the sons of Adam and looked down upon Jacob?

“He found him in a desert land, and in the waste howling wilderness: he led him about, he instructed him, he kept him as the apple of his eye.

"As an eagle stirreth up her nest, fluttereth over her young, spreadeth abroad her wings, taketh them, beareth them on her wings; "So the Lord alone did lead him, and there was no strange god with him."

But his descendants provoked God with strange idols, and thereupon he said, "I'will hide my face from them;"

"For a fire is kindled in my anger, and shall burn unto the lowest hell, and shall consume the earth with her increase, and set on fire the foundations of the mountains.

"I will heap mischiefs upon them, I will spend my arrows upon them.

"They shall be burnt with hunger, and devoured with burning heat, and with bitter destruction: I will also send the teeth of beasts upon them, with the poison of serpents of the dust.

"The sword without, and terror within, shall destroy both the young man and the virgin, the suckling also with the man of gray hairs. "I said, I would scatter them into corners, I would make the remembrance of them to cease from among men:"

This is surely very grand and imposing language, to say the least of it; but, considered as the decision of a deity, it is exceedingly awful.

We now hear of Joshua who made the Sun and Moon to stand still “in the sight of Israel"—saying,

"Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon, and thou Moon, in the valley of Ajalon.

"And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? so the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.

"And there was no day like that, before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man: for the Lord fought for Israel." and afterwards arrive at the delightful story of Ruth. She is a model for all daughters. Filial piety was never so sweetly represented, nor the fidelity of women more incontestibly manifested.

"And Orpah kissed her mother in law, but Ruth clave unto her. "And she said, Behold, thy sister in law is gone back unto her people, and unto her Gods: return thou after thy sister in law.

"And Ruth said, Intreat me not to leave thee, or to return from following after thee: for whither thou goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge: thy people shall be my people, and thy God my God:

"Where thou diest, will I die, and there will I be buried: the Lord do so to me, and more also, if ought but death part thee and me." The next thing that strikes us in this extraordinary book, is the famous history of Saul. His enmity towards David, and the cause of it, is so generally known, that we need not fatigue the reader's patience with any unnecessary detail of facts. We will, however, extract a couple of verses, in order to shew how exceedingly picturesque the narrative occasionally becomes. It

is impossible to bring any thing much more vividly before the sight, than in the following verses:

"And the evil spirit from the Lord was upon Saul, as he sat in his house with his javelin in his hand and David played with his hand.

"And Saul sought to smite David even to the wall with the javelin; but he slipt away out of Saul's presence, and he smote the javelin into the wall: and David fled, and escaped that night."

The lament-the tender and beautiful lament of David over the body of Jonathan, his friend, is far too well known to need quotation; yet it is difficult to pass it over altogether. How sadly it commences

"The beauty of Israel is slain upon thy high places; how are the mighty fallen!"

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Tell it not 'to Gath or Askelon,' lest the daughters of the Philistines rejoice upon the earth," he says, "and call forth barrenness.

"Ye mountains of Gilboa, let there be no dew, neither let there be rain upon you, nor fields of offerings: for there the shield of the mighty is vilely cast away, the shield of Saul, as though he had not been anointed with oil."

He then tells of their feats in war, and adds this gentle and melancholy epitaph. Nothing ever surpassed its pathos :

"Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided: they were swifter than eagles, they were stronger than lions.

"Yedaughters of Israel, weep over Saul, who clothed you in scarlet, with other delights, who put on ornaments of gold upon your apparel."

The lament is then repeated, and the poet concludes:

"I am distressed for thee, my brother Jonathan: very pleasant hast thou been unto me: thy love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women."

"How are the mighty fallen, and the weapons of war perished!"

We shall forbear to expatiate upon the character of David, which, it must be confessed, had something of the low cunning and sensuality of an Israelite about it. His conduct towards Uriah needs no telling and is utterly beyond all kind of palliation. It is treacherous, cruel, adulterous, and base. He was repentant, it is true, and thankful, and it was in one of his better moments that he sung that sublime song of thanksgiving which is to be found in the 22d chapter of Samuel. After saying that, in his distress, he cried unto the Lord, who heard him out of his temple, he proceeds in this tremendous manner:

"Then the earth shook and trembled; the foundations of heaven moved and shook, because he was wrath.

"He bowed the heavens also and came down: and darkness was under his feet.

"And he rode upon a cherub, and did fly: and he was seen upon the wings of the wind.

"And he made darkness pavilions round about him, dark waters,' and thick clouds of the skies.

"The Lord thundered from heaven, and the most High uttered his voice.

"And he sent out arrows, and scattered them; lightning, and discomfited them.

"And the channels of the sea appeared, the foundations of the world were discovered at the rebuking of the Lord, at the blast of the breath of his nostrils."

We forbear to make any quotations respecting Elijah,-or the story of Naaman,-or Elisha,—or Ahab,—or the destruction of Sennacherib, and his one hundred and four score thousand Assyrians in one night, or even regarding Solomon, his magnificent temple and his profound and memorable Proverbs, (though each might justify some extract) in order that we may arrive without more ado at the celebrated verses of the prophets. These strange and inspired writings, upon which so much comment and eulogy has been poured by canonized priests and modern theologians, deserve in truth all their reputation. If there be a fault in them, or a thing which sounds like a fault to our critical ears, it is that they are somewhat diffuse and tautological, and, as a consequence of this last defect, monotonous. But the sublime does not always arise from brevity. "Let there be light, and there was light," appears, indeed, one instance, against our opinion; although we suspect that the value even of this famous sentence consists as much in its appositeness, as in any other quality. That the narrative of a rapid event should be itself not tedious, is a position which is almost selfevident. But there may be events of a different character, which require a solemn and more measured detail. In regard to the repetitions observable in the prophecies, it is to be remarked that these predictions were uttered or issued upon successive occasions, when the sins that were proclaimed, and the punishment that was to follow, wore the same character as at first, and demanded little more than a repetition of the original warning. It would not have been easy (had mere style been the object of the prophets) to have varied the same fact and the same menace into a dozen different rhetorical shapes; neither do we think that it would have gained any thing, by such change, which could have been considered an adequate compensation for the impressiveness which it must necessarily have lost.

Amongst the Hebrew prophets and poets, the principal

station is usually allotted to Isaiah. It is true, that he is, on the whole, perhaps, the most majestic. His style is more ample and imposing, and his verse has a richness of imagery and a magnificent exultation that is not to be found, or found more sparingly, in the others. But in pathos he is inferior to Jeremiah; in sweetness and tenderness, to David; in occasional splendour, to Ezekiel and others; in sublimity, to Job; and in the general display of intellect, immeasurably below the wonderful Proverbs of Solomon. The words of Isaiah-his visions 'which he saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem,'-his warnings, which he utters in the name of God himself-come forth in full and rounded periods. The march of his verse is stately, and his reproofs (of the children of men') are delivered in a lofty tone. He tells them that they have rebelled and forsaken him, that their cities shall be burned by fire, and their lands overthrown by strangers; that they shall be as an oak whose leaf fadeth, and as a garden that hath no water." Sometimes, he rises even to the sublime, as in the following verses, of which the third quoted (the 9th) is very grand.

"The whole earth is at rest and is quiet: they break forth into singing.

"Yea, the fir-trees rejoice at thee, and the cedars of Lebanon, saying, Since thou art laid down, no feller is come up against us.

"Hell from beneath is moved for thee, to meet thee at thy coming; it stirreth up the dead for thee, even all the chief ones of the earth; it hath raised up from their thrones all the kings of the nations!

"All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become like unto us?

"Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee.

"How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! how art thou cut down to the ground, which didst weaken the nations!

"For thou hast said in thine heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God: I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north.

"I will ascend above the heights of the clouds, I will be like the most High."

-Ezekiel is glittering and confused. There is a prodigality, and, if it may so be said, an ostentation cf imagery in his writings, which often defeats the object that is intended to be attained. We are lost in a maze of visions. The living creatures' winged like angels, and with the faces of lions and men, and which run and return like the flash of the lightningthe stones of beryl, the firmaments of chrystal and the sapphire throne, on which sate the APPEARANCE of a man" (a grand expression, which Milton did not forget)-the abominable

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