embarrassing than useful, which they have invented. It is therefore not improbable, that they might have had some insight into this matter; and in distinguishing the parts of the sentence by accents might have had regard to the harmony of the period, and the proportion of the members, as well as to the strict grammatical disposition of the constructive parts. Of this, I think, I perceive evident tokens: for they sometimes seem to have more regard, in distributing the sentence, to the poetical or rhetorical harmony of the period, and the proportion of the members, than to the grammatical construction. To explain what I mean, I shall here give some examples, in which the Masoretes, in distinguishing the sentence into its parts, have given marks of pauses perfectly agreeable to the poetical rhythm, but such as the grammatical construction does not require, and scarcely admits. Though it is a difficult matter to know the precise quantity of time, which they allot to every distinctive point; for it depends on the relation and proportion, which it bears to the whole arrangement of points throughout the sentence; and though it is impossible to express the great variety of them by our scanty system of punctuation ; yet I shall endeavour to mark them out to the English reader, in a rude manner, so as to give him some notion of what I imagine it to have been their design to express. Thus then they distinguish the following sentences:

"And they that recompense evil for good ;*

Are mine adversaries, because I follow what is good."

"Upon Jehovah, in my distress; a

I called, and he heard me.”

Psal. xxxviii. 20.

"Long hath my soul had her dwelling; "

a

With him that hateth peace."

Psal. cxx. 1, 6.

"I love Jehovah, for he hath heard;" The voice of my supplication.

I will walk, before Jehovah;

In the land of the living.

What shall I return unto Jehovah ; a

For all the benefits which he hath bestowed on me?

My vows I will pay to Jehovah; a

Now in the presence of all his people.
Precious in the eyes of Jehovah; a
Is the death of his saints."

Psal. cxvi. 1, 9, 12, 14, 15,

"Yea the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof,b Shall not send forth their light :"

Isa. xiii. 10.

"In that day, shall his strongly fenced cities become,c Like the desertion of the Hivites and the Amorites."

Isa. xvii. 9.

a Athnac.

b Zakeph-katon.

Rebiah.

Athnac in the three metrical books, as the Jews account them, is but the third in order of power among the distinctive points; but, however, always takes place when the period is of two members only; in all the other books he is second in the latter therefore Rebiah and Zakeph-katon, which come next to Athnac, have nearly the same distinctive power, as Athnac has in the former, They will scarce be thought over-rated at a comma.

:

"For the glorious name of Jehovah shall be unto us,a A place of confluent streams, of broad rivers."

Isa. xxxiii. 21.

"That she hath received at the hand of Jehovah,d Double of the punishment of all her sins."

Isa, xl. 2.

Of the three different sorts of parallels, as above explained, every one hath its peculiar character and proper effect; and therefore they are differently employed on different occasions; and that sort of parallelism is chiefly made use of, which is best adapted to the nature of the subject and of the poem. Synonymous parallels have the appearance of art and concinnity, and a studied elegance; they prevail chiefly in shorter poems; in many of the Psalms; in Balaam's prophecies; frequently in those of Isaiah, which are most of them distinct poems of no great length. The antithetic parallelism gives an acuteness and force to adages and moral sentences; and therefore, as I observed before, abounds in Solomon's Proverbs, and elsewhere is not often to be met with. The poem of Job, being on a large plan, and in a high tragic style, though very exact in the division of the lines, and in the parallelism, and affording many fine examples of the synonymous kind, yet consists chiefly of the constructive. A happy mixture of the several sorts gives an agreeable varie

L

ty

and they serve mutually to recommend and set off one another.

I mentioned above, that there appeared to be two sorts of Hebrew verses, differing from one another in regard to their length: the examples hitherto given are all, except one, of the shorter kind of verse. The longer, though they admit of every sort of parallelism, yet belonging for the most part to the last class, that of constructive parallels, I shall treat of them in this place, and endeavour to explain the nature, and to point out the marks of them, as ́fully and exactly as I can.

This distinction of Hebrew verses into longer and shorter, is founded on the authority of the alphabetical poems; one third of the whole number of which are manifestly of the longer sort of verse; the rest of the shorter. I do not presume exactly to define by the number of syllables, supposing we could with some probability determine it, the limit that separates one sort of verse from the other; so that every verse exceeding or falling short of that number should be always accounted a long or a short verse all that I affirm is this; that one of the three poems perfectly alphabetical, and therefore infallibly divided into its verses; and three of the nine other alphabetical poems, divided into their verses, after the manner of the perfectly alphabetical, with the greatest degree of probability; that

these four poems, being the four first Lamentations of Jeremiah, fall into verses about one third longer, taking them one with another, than those of the other eight alphabetical poems. I shall first give an example of these long verses from a poem perfectly alphabetical, in which therefore the limits of the verses are unerringly defined:

"I am the man that hath seen affliction, by the rod of his anger :

He hath led me, and made me walk, in darkness, not in light:

Even again turneth he his hand against me, all the day long.

He hath made old my flesh and my skin, he hath broken my bones :

He hath built against me, and hath compassed me, with gall and travail :

He hath made me dwell in dark places, as the dead of old." Lam. iii. 1-6.

The following is from the first Lamentation; in which the stanzas are defined by initial letters, and are, like the former, of three lines;

"How doth the city solitary sit, she that was full of people!

How is she become a widow, that was great among the nations!

Princess among the provinces, how is she become tributary!

She weepeth sore in the night, and her tear is upon her cheek: