to a new translation of this psalm, which appeared in the volume for 1810, of the Christian Observer. That translation, it is but fair to add, was neither prepared, nor intended, for the press it was sent for insertion to the respectable journal just mentioned, without my knowledge, from the partial estimate of a clerical and classical friend near London. (4) For he hath satisfied the craving soul.] That is, the thirsty soul. In the fifth verse, where a state of suffering was to be exclusively and strongly expressed, thirst, as implying the more violent torture, was placed emphatically at the close of the line, hunger having preceded it: here, where relief is the grand feature, the former order is reversed: that sensation which was the most grievous, was naturally the most craving; therefore, first the thirsty soul, then the hungry soul, is satisfied. Plutarch, in his Symposiacs, (Book vi. quest. 1.) makes enquiry, "why famished persons are more affected with thirst, than with hunger?" and Virgil has been praised by one of his commentators, for the scientific accuracy with which he makes thirst, not hunger, the craving appetite of the ravening wolf: 66 Lupi ceu Raptores atra in nebula, quos improba ventris Faucibus exspectant siccis. Eneid, ii. 355. (5) The original order of the words.] On the advantage which, in the collocation of words, Hebrew poetry enjoys above the poetry of the classics, somewhat has already been said, in sect. I. note 9. In the present section, some examples have been given of happy verbal distribution : it may not be out of place here, to notice an opposite blemish, in one of the finest classical descriptions; a blemish manifestly occasioned by the predominance of sound over sense, in classical versification: Permitte divis cætera: qui simul HOR. lib. 1. Od. ix. 9. To do full justice to this noble thought, the effect should have instantaneously followed the cause; the winds once laid, every word should have breathed a calm: as it is, after the tempest has been put down, we have the winds still warring with the fervid ocean; and while this elemental conflict is raging, we are told by the poet, that not even the sensitive mountain-ash is agitated. Had prosody permitted, the following would have been the proper order of the words: "qui ventos æquore fervido depræliantes, simul "stravere, nec cupressi, nec veteres agitantur orni." In strictly metrical composition, faults of this kind repeatedly occur; while, perhaps, in the whole range of Hebrew poetry, not one such instance can be found: such, on the one hand, are the advantages of an unfettered distribution of words; such, on the other hand, is the rigid enthralment of metrical jurisprudence. It is probable, that the ancients erred in this manner, both against their judgement, and against their will. No man, for example, was better acquainted, or better pleased, tnan Horace, with the force and beauty of a well-chosen word, placed to the best advantage. I never can read the following passage,. without being deeply affected with the last word of it: so placed, it is one of the finest examples extant of the Changed his hand, and checked his pride:" 66 Nec quidquam tibi prodest Aërias tentasse domos, animoque rotundum HOR. lib. i. Od. xxviii. 4. (6) The epanodos noted by commentators and critics.] On this subject, I gladly acknowledge considerable obligations to Dr. Hammond on St. Matt. vii. 6.; also to several valuable remarks dispersed through the Gnomon of Bengel, an elegant critic, always ingenious, generally instructive; and, if occasionally fanciful, not likely to mislead a careful reader: for, by his close analysis of the context, he commonly affords a clue for the detection of his own errors. In the minutiae of the Greek language, he does not appear to have been skilled; and, accordingly, in this department he now and then hazards a remark, at which the goodnatured scholar will smile, and quietly pass on. But no writer has more successfully, and with greater freedom from all parade of words, exhibited the less obvious niceties and beauties of Scripture, than the learned Bengel; and none has more invariably made the attainments of the critic and philologist ancillary to pure and elevated piety. Of late years, his Gnomon has been rising in public estimation; and, if I mistake not, it will rise yet higher. A work of a very different, and far inferior order, though not without classical merit, has afforded some coincidences, rather than hints, on the subject of epanodos. See Mr. Gilbert Wakefield's New Translation of S. Matthew; especially his remarks on ch. vii. 6. (7) The epanodos sometimes occurs in classical authors.] By way of additional illustration, a few classical examples may be given: ενθαδ' άμ οιμωγη τε, και ευχωλή, πελεν ανδρων Ном. Iliad, A. 450. It was manifestly the poet's design to make and to leave a melancholy impression: he begins, therefore, with wailing or groans, and ends with the dying; placing less conspicuously, in the centre, the exulting shouts of the victors: the force of owyn at the commencement, and oλλvuɛvwv at the close, is certainly inimitable in our rhyming couplet: but Mr. Pope seems to have been quite unaware of it; he inverts the order, both of the lines and of the terms: Victors and vanquished join promiscuous cries; The epanodos might, in some degree, have been preserved, by transposing the words victors and vanquished. τον περι HOм. Odyss. . 63. In celebrating the affection of the muse for Demodocus, Homer properly begins and closes with her bounties.; ayadov — nderar aodny: her less enviable gifts, the result of studious application, κακον — οφθαλμων αμερσε, are placed in the centre. Though too paraphrastic, Dr. Broome's translation tolerably preserves the epanodos: he was a riper scholar than his more poetical employer: Dear to the muse! who gave his years to flow, Theognis delivers a prudential maxim, opposed to the morality both of the law and of the gospel. See Eccles. xi. 1. S. Luke, vi. 34, 35. He delivers it in an epanodos, placing his dogma first and last; his illustration of it in the centre; and thus giving his conclusion the entire force, such as it is, of the preceding illustration: the morality is detestable, but the composition skilful: δειλους δ' ευ ερδοντι, ματαιοτατη χαρις εςινα ούτε γαρ αν ποντον σπειρων βαθυ ληϊον αμως· Tvæμ. lin. 105. Who benefits the base, is kind in vain: Go, cast thy seed upon the hoary deep; From seed there sown, small harvest wilt thou reap: Give to the bad, and nought wilt thou receive again. Hesiod, on the contrary, in accordance with the law and the gospel, is desirous to impress the comfortable truth, that God is very specially the guardian of the poor and undistinguished; this he does in two fine epanodoses; giving, in each of them, the most distinguished place, the first and the last, to those whom the world commonly disregards; to the nameless and uncelebrated; to the humble, whom God exalts; and to the obscure, whom God beholds with the light of his countenance: while the men of rank and reputation, the applauded and renowned, are consigned, in the verses of the old Ascræan, to the obscurity of the middle station. The similarity is striking between this passage, and the song of Hannah, as well as the hymn of the Blessed Virgin: Μουσαι πιερίηθεν αοιδησι κλείουσαι, δευτε Δι' εννεπετε, σφέτερον πατες ὑμνειουσαι· Εργ. και ήμερο 1. Pierian Muses, ever-tuneful choir, Much praised or praiseless, by Jove's mandate came; Our own Spenser has an epanodos, in which prominence is given, not to the elevation of the lowly, but to the depression of the exalted, and the impoverishment of the wealthy: |