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VIEW OF PUBLIC AFFAIRS.

FOREIGN.

SPAIN. The king of Spain has at length issued what is called a general amuesty, but which expressly excepts the chief persons concerned in the insurrection of the isle of Leon; those members of Cortes who proclaimed the deposition of the king at Seville; the chiefs of the military insurrections in various parts of Spain; the assassins of Venuesa; the judges of Elio, and the authors of the massacres in the prisons of Grenada. The chief persons, therefore, who needed pardon are excluded from the grant; and converted into perpetual enemies to the existing order of affairs. Had, however, the amnesty been universal, few individuals, we presume, who had reason to dread the royal displeasure, would venture their lives on its promises, after the memorable examples before the world of the readiness with which Ferdinand can either bestow or rescind pledges, as may suit his inclination or convenience.

PORTUGAL The deceptive facility with which the late Constitution was admitted in Portugal, and its equally prompt subversion, shew how little there is of public spirit in that country, the measures of which appear to be the result of mere court intrigue, in which the people at large have no voice, and apparently take little or no interest. Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that the queen, who is sister to Ferdinand of Spain, and her son, the Infant Don Miguel, who has been educated in the arbitrary principles of his mother, and whose efforts, with hers, effected the counterrevolution, should have cherished hopes of subverting whatever small portion of liberal principles might have been retained either by the fears or the policy of the king and his ministers. Accordingly, under the pretence of putting down freemasonry, a plot has been constructed, and carried into effect, by the queen and her son; the latter usurping the command of the army, arresting his father's ministers and others suspected of liberalism, and even confining the king himself within the limits of his palace. By the intervention chiefly, it is said, of the foreign ambassadors in Lisbon, the king was promptly liberated; but he has seen fit to excuse, and in fact to countenance, his son's proceedings,

and it is probable the affair was concerted in order to pave the way for the restoration of pure ultra royalism. We the more deeply regret these encroachments of bigotry and arbitrary power among the nations of Europe, not only from their immediate evil effects, but also from an anticipation of the feuds and bloodshed which may ensue, when the progress of knowledge and public opinion shall again demand, as ultimately it must, the full restoration of publie liberty, and the extinction of all inordinate and irresponsible power.

DOMESTIC.

It is with extreme pain we allude to rumours which have been received from our settlements on the Gold Coast of Africa of a very afflicting nature. Our readers will recollect, that in 1821, on the dissolution of the African Company, the British settlements on the Gold Coast were annexed to Sierra Leone, and placed under the controul of the Governor of that colony. That excellent man, Sir Charles M'Carthy, whose services in Africa, in the cause of humanity and civilization, cannot be too highly appreciated, took the earliest opportunity of inspecting this new scene of his government, and of planning and proinoting the necessary measures of improvement and defence. The neighbouring warlike and predatory chief of Ashantee probably felt the check which the salutary measures of the Governor placed on his ambitious projects, and particularly the barrier which they raised to his prosecution of the slave trade; and he is alleged, on strong grounds, to have been further stimulated in his hostility to the British name, by the intrigues of European slave-traders, who had a fellow-feeling with him on this subject. At length. having seized on a Negro serjeant in the British service, and put him to death, Sir Charles considered it no longer right to delay noticing his conduct; and, in consequence, repaired again to the Gold Coast, to conduct the necessary operations against him. The rumours to which we have alluded state, that, on the 21st of last January, Sir Charles, with a few British officers, 400 Black regulars and militia, and 2000 native troops, had been attacked by 10,000 Ashantees, and defeated, eleven officers being killed,

wounded, or missing. Sir Charles himself, it is added, was both wounded and missing. As these rumours have not yet received the sanction of official authority, and as circumstances have excited a suspicion that they may have been exaggerated, we forbear from subjoining any of those reflections to which an occurrence so disastrous, and so deeply to be deplored, would naturally have led. in the mean time, we think it right to remark, that, whatever may have been the course of events on the Gold Coast, the settlement of Sierra Leone is too far removed from the scene of action to be affected or endangered by them. Ireland has continued to engross much of the attention of Parliament, but no measures of a comprehensive kind have hitherto been matured. Among other proceedings, Mr. Hume has moved for a committee to inquire into the state of the Irish church-establishment; and Lord Althorp, for another to inquire into the general condition of the country. The former, we need scarcely say, was outvoted by a large majority. For the latter was substituted, by Mr. Goulburn, the appointment of a committee for the more limited object of inquiring into the causes of the disturbances of those districts which have been subjected to the Insurrection Act.

The Unitarian marriage bill has been negatived in the House of Lords. The episcopal bench, as well as the lay lords, were strongly at variance on its merits. Among its most strenuous opposers were the Lord Chancellor and the Bishops of Chester and St. David's; and, among its advocates, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London and Exeter, Lord Lansdowne, Lord Calthorpe, Lord Liverpool, Lord Harrowby, &c.

We are happy to state, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer adheres to his pledge to abolish the whole of the salt duties.

The chief new topics in the annual budget, the other points having been already before the public, are the inteuded reduction of the interest on Exchequer Bills from twopence to three halfpence per day; and a limitation of annual deposits in savings banks, the rate of interest which they secure, and which is now considerably above the market price, affording an inducement to persons of larger property than those for whose benefit these institutions were designed, to invest their money in them, to the loss of the pub

lic. Instead of 100l. as a first year's deposit, and 50l. per annum afterwards, which the law now allows, the first deposit is intended not to exceed 50l. and the annual investments 30%. Intelligence has arrived of the death of Lord Byron. His lordship had embarked with great zeal in the cause of the suffering Greeks; and his death appears to have excited among them sensations of very deep regret. He expired at Missolonghi, April 19, after an illness of only a few days. Thus short was the warning which summoned to another world, in the prime of life, and in the midst of his busy projects, a nobleman born to the wealth and honours of a splendid earthly condition, and still more distinguished for those high mental endowments which the Supreme Creator designed to be devoted to his own glory, and the benefit of human society. In what manner those talents were too often employed, we would willingly forget; and we would most gladly impute to the defects of a lamentably unhappy education, to a most unfavourably long minority, or to mental obliquity itself, all that has pained and astonished his countrymen in the history and writings of this highly gifted but singularly unhappy man. But, amidst the tenderness due to the memory of an erring indi vidual, let not the lesson conveyed by his sad example be lost upon survivors. From the mournful tomb of one who possessed all that earth could bestow to make life happy, we hear re-echo the memorable warning, that birth, riches, genius, and public fane, are but empty sounds to sooth a conscience ill at ease with itself; and that "to fear God and keep his commandments, is the whole of man," his privilege, as well as his duty, his honour, his happiness, and his best reward. It has been affirined, that on the latest lucid day of his life, his lordship mentioned to a friend, that "his last thoughts were with his wife, his sister, and his child." This circumstance, and the honourable cause in which he may be said to have fallen, have rekindled in his favour some of those sympathies once so lavishly bestowed upon him by his admiring countrymen, and which nothing but his own acts and writings could for a moment have weakened. We could have wished to have heard, that among the objects of interest in his dying moments his thoughts had been directed to his God and Saviour.

ECCLESIASTICAL PREFERMENTS.

The Rev. Christopher Lipscombe, M.A., Fellow of New College, Oxford, has been appointed, under the new ecclesiastical arrangements for the West Indies, Bishop of Jamaica; and the Rev. William Hart Coleridge, M.A. Student of Christ Church, Oxford, and one of the Secretaries of the Society for promoting Christian Knowledge, Bishop of Barbadoes. Rev. Sam. Slade, D. D. Dean of Chichester.

Hon. and Rev. George Pellew, Prebendary of Osbaldwick, in York.

Rev. Archdeacon Wrangham, Preb. of York.

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Rev. R. Lockwood, Prebendary of Peterborough.

Rev. J. Brocklebank, B.D. Willingham R. co. Cambridge.

Rev. J. Brooke, Kilmahou R. in diocese of Cloyne.

Rev. Edw. Butt, Toller Fratrum R. Dorset.

Rev. Wm. Dowell, Home Lacy V. Herefordshire.

Rev. Hartley Dunsford, Fretherne R. Gloucestershire.

Rev. T. S. Escott, Combe Florey R. Somerset.

Rev. R. Gibson, Bolton-by-the-Sands V. Westmorland.

Rev. John Graham, Magilligan Living, in diocese of Derry.

Rev. R. Hamond, Beechamwell St. John R. Norfolk, with St. Mary annexed. Rev. T. T. Harrison, Thorp Morieux R. Suffolk.

Rev. Mr. Childers, Preb. of Ely.
Rev. W. Holland, Cold Norton R.
Essex.

Rev. Francis Lear, B.D. Chilmark R.
Wilts.

Rev. Wm. Mackenzie, Hascomb R. Surrey; and reinstituted to Burgish alias Burwash R. and V. Sussex.

Rev. D. M'Gillycuddy, Killough Living, co. Down.

Rev. M. Manly, Westwell, Godmersham, and Chatlock VV. Kent.

Rev. J. Mitford, Stratford St. Andrew R. Suffolk,

Rev. Rob. Nicholl, Lanmace R. Glamorganshire.

Rev. J. Pannell, Ludgershall R. Wilts. Rev. Dr. Phelan, Wexford Living, Ire

land.

Rev. B. Pope, Nether Stowey V. So

merset.

Rev. Richard Fortescue Purvis, Whitsbury V. Wilts.

Rev. Windsor Richards, St. Nicholas
Living, Glamorganshire.

Rev. R. Rose, Frenze R. Norfolk.
Rev. R. Stephens, Belgrave V. Leic.
Rev. R. S. Stevens, South Petherwyn
and Irewen V. Cornwall.

Rey. F. Swan, B.D. Swerford R. with
Showel Chapelry annexed, co. Oxford,

Rev. C. Tookey, Oddingley R. co. Worcester.

Rev. S. Turner, Chaplain to Lord Yarborough.

Rev. G. Deane, Chaplain to D. of Buckingham.

ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.

T. K.; F. W.; L. L. D.; CLERICUS; H. G.; J. M. W.; G. B.; H.; T. B. ; S. S.; J. B.; OTIS; MONITOR; and several "Constant Readers" and papers without signature, are under consideration.

We are much obliged to various friends of several religious charitable societies who have favoured us with accounts of their late anniversary meetings. We hope, as usual, on the publication of their annual Reports, to give an abtract of their proceedings; but a meagre list, which is the utmost that our pages would allow, of the speakers and resolutions at their anniversaries, could be of little benefit to the institutions, or interest to the public.

If A. Z. were a "Constant Reader,' as well as an Occasional Borrower of our work, he would find that we had often replied by anticipation to his query.

If J. W. will refer to the Preface to our volume for 1821, he will find a solution of his difficulty.

C. is respectfully informed that “indignissimus" does not mean "most indignant," but most unworthy."

ERRATA.

Page 273, col. 2, line 23 from bottom, for and read or.
Page 274, col. 2, line 14 from bottom, for first read just.
Page 301, col. 2, line 20 from bottom, for have read has.

Page 321, col. 1, line 7, (in a number of copies), for two read too.

THE

CHRISTIAN OBSERVER.

No. 270.]

IT

JUNE, 1824. [No. 6. Vol. XXIV.

RELIGIOUS COMMUNICATIONS.

For the Christian Observer.

SCRIPTURE PARALLELISM.

T was the felicity of Bishop Lowth to discover and to exhibit to the biblical student that remarkable peculiarity of Hebrew poetry to which has been given the name of " parallelism." According to this writer, there were four principal characteristics of Hebrew poesy: first, the acrostical or alphabetical commencement of lines or stanzas; secondly, the admission of foreign words, and of certain particles which seldom occur in prose composition, and which form a distinct poetical dialect; thirdly, sententious, figurative, and sublime language; and, lastly, parallelism, Bishop Jebb, however, in his elaborate work on "Sacred Literature," contends, that it is not the acrostical, or regularly alphabetical, commencement of lines or stanzas that characterises Hebrew poetry; for this occurs but in twelve poems of the Old Testament: it is not the introduction of foreign words, and of what grammarians call the paragogic, or redundant particles; for these licences, though frequent, are by no means universal, in the poetical books of Scripture; and they are occasionally admitted in passages merely historical and prosaic: it is not the rhyming termination of lines; for no trace of this artifice is discoverable in the alphabetical poems, the lines or stanzas of which are defined with infallible precision; and every attempt to force it on the text, has been accompanied by the most licentious mutilation of Scripture: and, finally, this grand chaCHRIST. OBSERV. No. 270.

racteristic is not the adoption of metre, properly so called, and analogous to the metre of the heathen classics; for the efforts of the learned to discover such metre in any one poem of the Hebrews, have universally failed; and, while we are morally certain, that, even though it were known and employed by the Jews, while their language was a living one, it is quite beyond recovery in the dead and unpronounceable state of that language, there are also strong reasons for believing, that even in the most flourishing state of their literature, the Hebrew poets never used this decoration. Further, he considers it is equally certain, that the proper characteristic of Hebrew poetry is not elation, grandeur, or sublimity, either of thought or diction. In these qualities, indeed, a large portion of the poetical Scriptures is not only distinguished, but unrivalled: but the Right Reverend author maintains, that there are also many compositions, indisputably poetical, which, in thought and expression, do not rise above the ordinary tone of just and clear conceptions, calmly, yet pointedly delivered. He contends, that the grand, and indeed the sole, characteristic of Hebrew poetry is what Bishop Lowth calls Parallelism; that is, a certain equality, resemblance, or relationship, between the members of each period; so that in two lines, or members of the same period, things shall answer to things, and words to words, as if fitted to each other by a kind of rule or measure. This is certainly the general strain of Hebrew poetry; instances of which occur in almost 2 Y

every part of the Old Testament, particularly in the ninety-sixth Psalm; and it is in a great measure owing to this form of composition that our admirable Authorised Version, though executed in prose, retains so much of a poetical cast: for that version, being strictly word for word after the original, the form and order of the original sentences are preserved; and this artificial structure, this regular alternation and correspondence of parts, make the ear sensible of a departure from the common style and tone of prose.

This principle of composition asserted by Bishop Lowth in the poetry of the Old Testament, Bishop Jebb applies to the New. It is the opinion of the most judicious biblical critics of the age, that his lordship's hypothesis is in the main founded in truth, and is also of considerable utility for understanding the structure of the more poetical parts of the New Testament: but it seems also to be felt that the Right Reverend author has carried it, in some instances, to say the least, to the extreme verge of probability; and that a single step further, by an incautious follower, would be at the imminent risk of precipitation into a gulph of incongruities. Whether even the learned prelate himself may not have urged his theory somewhat too far, is a point which I will not undertake to determine; though I confess that I never rise from the perusal of his fascinating pages without soberly asking myself, whether, after all, I have not, in part at least, been indulging a delightful reverie, and whether in truth the Evangelists and Apostles seriously sat down to write parallelisms, or did more in this respect than occasionally fall into the antithetical habits to which they had been accustomed in the poetry of the Old Testament. Indeed, the Bishop himself accounts for this peculiarity of their writings, on the very ground of its being almost their natural style of composition; a style which they could scarcely have laid aside without an effort. To Europeans,

such a style requires elaboration: we are not accustomed to think or write in the manner of Dodsley's Economy of Human Life, or the Oriental Tales in our Ramblers and Spectators, which are but caricature imitations of this species of composition; but, to the Jews, whether under the Old or the New Testament dispensation, this style was familiar, and was connected with many solemn and interesting associations. The chief point, therefore, on which I should venture to disagree with the learned prelate, is only as to the extent to which he seems to suppose this system of writing intentionally carried, especially by the New-Testament writers. I can conceive a general antithetical feeling pervading the mind of a sacred penman, in some of the poetical parts of his composition; but it appears too much to imagine him drawing up rank and file a whole series of thoughts or expressions for the sake of opposing them one by one in well-set parallelisms. He might, with a very natural antithesis, write,

My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord,

Nor faint when thou art rebuked of him; For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, But scourgeth every son whom he receiveth.

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