Page images
PDF
EPUB

Our article must not be closed without adverting to the style style of which distinguishes this prophet. His language is as magnificent Isaiah. as his sentiments are elevated. It is such language as inspiration might be supposed to suggest; and leaves at an immeasurable distance all compositions merely human. It combines with argumentative force the loftiest flights of poetry: and while some critics, ancient and modern, have amused themselves in calling him the Demosthenes and the Homer of the Hebrews, we think every comparison instituted, where there is no actual equality, an injury offered to a man, the grandeur of whose expressions as far transcended the most illustrious poets and orators that ever lived, as the majesty of his thoughts surpassed their noblest conceptions. His style is evidently poetical; and while it has its own peculiar characteristic of sublimity, it participates all the singularities of Hebrew poetry. No one has been able to do full justice to this subject; but the writer who has most excelled in treating it is Bishop Lowth. The difficulty lies at the very threshold of every disquisition relative to it: since all men are not exactly agreed as to what is poetry; and every nation has its own forms of poetical composition, to which another nation, accustomed to other forms, can apply no correct standard. A marked difference subsists between the ancient poetry of Greece and of Rome, and the poetry of modern nations. The difference between the Hebrew and all other poetry is still greater. Hebrew But if sublimity of conception, loftiness of style, richness and fulness poetry. of imagery and measured cadences, constitute poetry, these cannot be denied to Isaiah.

On the question of Hebrew poetry at large, besides its general cadences, its claims are rendered evident by artificial arrangements, adapted to poetry, but altogether unsuitable to prose. Such are the alphabetical divisions so frequent in the Psalms, and apparent in various parts of the prophetical writings. The visible difference between the style and form of Isaiah's usual compositions, and the few chapters in his book which record historical occurrences, seems to decide the question with respect to his prophecies. And here it must be remarked, that while inspiration allowed every man to retain his own characteristic style, that peculiarity is nowhere to be traced more distinctly than in the compositions of the different Hebrew poets. There is not a greater distinction between Isaiah and Ezekiel, as prophets, than subsists between them also as poets. When God made the prophet, he did not unmake the man. Hebrew poetry consists of every possible species of poetical composition, and these are all carried to the loftiest pitch of excellence. It is elegiac, and the lamentation of David over Saul and Jonathan, stands unrivalled in this kind; it is didactic, and the Proverbs excel as much in this mode; it is pastoral, of which the Song of Solomon is a splendid specimen; it is devotional, of which the Psalms reach the highest elevation, while they furnish fine examples of the ode, in all

[ocr errors]

its varieties; nor must it be omitted, that the book of Job, as well as the Canticles, if not strictly speaking regular dramas, have evidently a dramatic form. But that which characterized the Hebrew poetry, and which the sages of Greece and Rome borrowed for their philosophy, was its parabolic form; as conspicuous in these compositions, as it is peculiar to the general style of the orientalists. The poetry of the Hebrews is founded upon their habits, and the features of their country. Arising from the former, it is chiefly pastoral, and borrowing from the latter, it surrounds us with the most awful features of grandeur. In every species of poetical composition, Isaiah excels, and specimens of almost the whole might be excellence. adduced from his prophecies. Encircled by the most sublime

Pastoral habits.

Isaiah's

objects in nature, he transfuses their spirit and character into his own powerful style; sometimes rushing like his own mountain torrent, when he pours his tide of eloquence against the sins of his people; and at others, when assailed by the hatred of an incensed multitude, standing himself as immoveable as the rocks which surrounded Jerusalem. Majestic as the towering Lebanon; he is fertile as his own vallies by the river-side; as awful as the thunder-storm which desolated his native forests, and splintered the pinnacles of his mountainous country; as irresistible as the whirlwind of the desert, which sometimes swept over its surface. But, as though the sensible forms of being were all too mean to clothe his conceptions, and the boundaries of the creation too limited for his faculties, he passes beyond all space, penetrates into the invisible world, and embodies the most awful forms of spiritual being. We follow him, with astonishment, through unexplored regions; beyond the margin of created nature, and the lines drawn by the eternal Architect around the material universe; until losing sight of sun, moon, and stars, other light breaks in upon the soul, and like him, we see Jehovah upon his throne. But we must no longer indulge in these delightful contemplations, or expatiate on a theme so full of grandeur; we shall be gratified if we have done any thing like justice to a character which surpasses all eulogy; and especially if our cursory remarks shall induce our readers to consult his matchless compositions for themselves.

CHAPTER XI.

NEBUCHADNEZZAR.

FLOURISHED ABOUT A.M. 3399, B.c. 605, to a.m. 3442, B.C. 562.

and

monarchies.

THE important name with which we have inscribed this page associates with it almost every thing that has been thought great in human destiny, and much that is obscure. This prince, in strict propriety of language, is the first of the Babylonian empire; the existence of which, although possibly more remote than that of most others, seems blended, until this time, with the destinies of the Assyrian monarchy, to which it was decidedly subordinate. The foundation of the Babylonian kingdom was laid, so far as can be Origin of the ascertained, at Babel-the plain of Shinar, the land of Chaldea, being Babylonian the ancient site of Nimrod's dominion; but, after his death, it is lost Assyrian amidst mightier states, and the first great monarchy, the Assyrian, occupies, for ages exclusively, the attention of the world. And here the obscurity begins. The Assyrian monarchy is so completely involved in fable, as to perplex the historian in reference to each of its dependencies. All the records of these early nations, with themselves, have perished; and the Grecian writers, into whose hands some portions of them must have fallen, from an unaccountable indifference, or more criminal pride, neglected to avail themselves of them; preferring to supply their own scanty knowledge from the Greek imagination, rather than to derive authentic information from any mostly other people, all of whom they regarded as barbarians, whatever were fabulous. their power, distinction, and science. The very few fragments which remain of these early historians, preserved to us in later works, establish a sentiment which we have distinctly avowed, and upon which we have unhesitatingly acted, that the Scriptures afford the only records of these remote periods that can be depended upon; for in none of the Greek writers, with the exception of Herodotus, Fidelity of can we venture to repose any confidence. This latter historian, however, we think, has been treated with as little justice, in some respects, as other Greek writers have been unduly estimated; and certain points of ancient history, which appeared most questionable in his narrative, have been rendered so far clear by subsequent researches, as to afford ground to conclude that he was influenced by a spirit of candour, to which his countrymen were generally strangers, and which induced him to avail himself, in many important instances,

[blocks in formation]

historians

Herodotus.

Ancient records.

Diodorus
Siculus.

Ctesias.

of that foreign intelligence which they despised. It is the more to be regretted that the Greeks should have been infected with the childish vanity of being supposed the first of people, and have either slighted or destroyed the literary monuments of other nations; since to them we owe (with the exception of the Bible) almost all that can now be collected of ancient history. The Chaldean records have perished; and those of Persia were destroyed by the Greeks, when they conquered that empire: the Egyptians alone seem to have excited their reverence; and they, in return, were very sparing in their communications. Diodorus Siculus prefers speculating himself, or adopting the fables of others, to using the information he might have acquired from Manetho and Borosus; and Ctesias, of all writers the least to be accredited, and the most palpably fictitious, seems to be the fountain whence the Greek historians generally derived their monstrous accounts. A few fragments of the ancient historians of other nations are preserved by Josephus, and some others; but these only serve to make us regret the treasures which we have lost, which Greece not only neglected, but of which, in certain instances, she was guilty of despoiling the world. We owe to Ctesias the fable of Semiramis. Semiramis; to whom are imputed many works and achievements utterly impossible to any individual, whatever resources were at her control, whatever enterprise was in her disposition, or however constant the prosperity which might attend her movements. We have admitted this celebrated name into our Biography, because it seems scarcely possible wholly to deny her existence; or, at least, it has been so long admitted, that we could not be justified in wholly discarding her from the ancient list of heroines, however little credit we attach to her exploits. We have been obliged to give her history, as it came to our hands, from the Grecian historians; but we have not hesitated to state our doubts as to most of the events handed down to us as facts; and we repeat our conviction, that the majority of them are palpable fictions. There is a remark by Bryant, in the second volume of his Ancient Mythology, which appears to us to throw considerable light upon this obscure subject, and to furnish the only probable solution of certain incontestible facts, which, when confined to the reigns of Ninus and Semiramis, assume the character of fable, because impossible to have been effected by them. His observations are of the greater moment, as they accord better with the account given of those transactions by Herodotus; and as they are perfectly reducible within the space which must be assigned to them, if they took place at all, in conformity with the Scripture list of Assyrian kings, which has been already given under the article Assumption SEMIRAMIS. Bryant says, "the whole of those histories, in their Assyrian common acceptation, is to the last degree absurd and improbable : histories are but if we make use of an expedient, which I have often recommended,

Bryant.

that the

allegories.

1 See Early Oriental History.

1

and for a person, substitute a people, we shall find, when it is stripped of its false colouring, that there is much truth in the narration." Upon this principle, he proceeds to strike out the names of the earliest supposed founders of states, and to transfer from individuals, whom he accounts fabulous, historical exploits to an entire nation; and he thus explains and justifies himself: "It was a common mode of expression, to call a tribe, or family, by the name of its founder, and a nation by the head of the line. People are often spoken of collectively in the singular, under such a patronymic. Hence we read in Scripture, that Israel abode in tents; that Judah was put to the worst in battle; that Dan abode in ships, and Asher remained on the seacoast. The same manner of speaking undoubtedly prevailed both in Egypt and in other countries; and Chus must have been often put for the Cuthites, or Cuseans; Amon for the Amonians; and Asur, or the Assyrian, for the people of Assyria. Hence, when it was said, that the Ninevite performed any great action, it has been ascribed to a person, Ninus, the supposed founder of Nineveh. And as none of the Assyrian conquests were antecedent to Pul and AssurAdon, writers have been guilty of an unpardonable anticipation, in ascribing those conquests to the first king of the country. A like anticipation, amounting to a great many centuries, is to be found in the annals of the Babylonians. Every thing that was done in later times has been attributed to Belus, Semiramis, and other imaginary princes, who are represented as the founders of the kingdom. We may, I think, be assured, that under the character of Ninus, and Ninyas, we are to understand the Ninevites; as by Semiramis, is meant a people called Samarim; and the great actions of these two nations are in the histories of those personages recorded. But writers have rendered the account inconsistent, by limiting what was an historical series of many ages to the life of a single person. The Ninevites and Samarim did perform all that is attributed to Semiramis and Ninus. They did conquer the Medes and Bactrians, and extended their dominions westward as far as Phrygia and the river Tanais; and to the southward as far as Arabia and Egypt. But these events were many ages after the foundation of the two kingdoms. They began under Pul, of Nineveh, and were carried on by Assur-Adon, Salmanassar, Sennacherib, and others of his successors. This learned writer here conducts us to safe ground, and the authentic records of these monarchs; at least so much of them as remains in the Scriptures, and are there preserved, from the connection of their conquests with the political and religious interests of the Jewish nation. He goes on- "Nineveh was at last ruined, and the kingdom Nineveh. of Assyria was united with that of Babylonia. This is the reason Assyria. that we find these kingdoms so often confounded, and the Babylonians continually spoken of as Assyrians, and sometimes as Persians.2

2 Βαβυλων Περσικη πολις. Steph. Byz.

Babylonia.

« PreviousContinue »