LECTURE VII.

OF POETIC IMAGERY FROM COMMON LIFE.

Examples of poetical imagery from common life-The habits of life extremely simple among the Hebrews, whose principal employments were agriculture and pasturage-The dignity of these employments; and the splendour of the imagery which is borrowed from them: Threshing, and the threshing instruments The sublimity of the imagery which is taken from familiar objects results from its propriety— The poetic Hell of the Hebrews explained; the imagery of which is borrowed from their subterraneous sepulchres and funeral rites.

IN my last Lecture I explained three causes, which have enabled the Hebrew poets to preserve in their figurative style the most perfect union between perspicuity and sublimity. I remarked, in the first place, that they chiefly employed images taken from familiar objects, such I mean as were generally known and understood; secondly, that, in the use or application of them, they observed a regular track, method, or analogy; and, lastly, that they used most freely that kind of imagery which was most familiar, and the application of which was most generally understood. The truth of these observations will, I think, find further and more decisive confirmation, if those metaphors be considered which are taken from arts, manners, and common life. These, you will easily recollect, I before pointed out as another source of poetical imagery; and for this part of the subject a few general observations will suffice, with an example or two out of the great number which present themselves in the sacred writings. The whole course and method of common or domestic life among the Hebrews of the more ancient times, was simple and uniform in the greatest degree. There existed not that variety of studies and pursuits, of arts, conditions, and employments, which may be observed among other nations who boast of superior civilization; and rightly, indeed, if luxury, levity, and pride, be the criterions of it. All enjoyed the same equal

liberty; all of them, as being the offspring of the same ancient stock, boasted an equality of lineage and rank: there were no empty titles, no ensigns of false glory; scarcely any distinction or precedence but that which resulted from superior virtue or conduct, from the dignity of age and experience, or from services rendered to their country. Separated from the rest of mankind by their religion and laws, and not at all addicted to commerce, they were contented with those arts which were necessary to a simple and uncultivated (or rather uncorrupted) state of life. Thus their principal employments were agriculture and the care of cattle; they were a nation of husbandmen and shepherds. The lands had been originally parcelled out to the different families; the portions of which (by the laws of the country) could not be alienated by sale,* and therefore descended to their posterity without diminution. The fruits of the earth, the produce of his land and labour, constituted the wealth of each individual. Not even the greatest among them esteemed it mean and disgraceful to be employed in the lowest offices of rural labour. In the scripture history, therefore, we read of eminent persons called to the highest and most sacred offices, heroes, kings, and prophets, from the plough and from the stalls.+

Such being the state of things, we cannot reasonably be surprised to find the Hebrew writers deducing most of their metaphors from those arts particularly, in which they were educated from their earliest years. We are not to wonder

that those objects which were most familiar to their senses afforded the principal ornaments of their poetry; especially since they furnished so various and so elegant an assortment of materials, that not only the beautiful, but the grand and magnificent, might be collected from them. If any person of more nicety than judgment should esteem some of these rustic images grovelling or vulgar, it may be of some use to him to be informed, that such an effect can only result from the ignorance of the critic, who, through the medium of his scanty information and peculiar prejudices, presumes to estimate matters of the most remote antiquity; it cannot

* Lev. xxv. 13-16. and 23, 24. Compare 1 Kings xxi. 3.

+ See Judges iii. 31. vi. 11. 1 Sam. ix. 3. xi. 5. 2 Sam. vii. 8. Psal. Ixxviii. 72, 73. Kings xix. 19, 20. Amos i. 1. vii. 14, 15.

One would almost think that this keen remark was prophetically levelled at a late critic of a very extraordinary cast. It was a little unfortunate for that learned gentleman, that these Lectures were not translated previous to the

reasonably be attributed as an error to the sacred poets, who not only give to those ideas all their natural force and dignity, but frequently, by the vivacity and boldness of the figure, exhibit them with additional vigour, ornament, and beauty.

It would be a tedious task to instance particularly with what embellishments of diction, derived from one low and trivial object, (as it may appear to some), the barn or the threshing-floor, the sacred writers have contrived to add a lustre to the most sublime, and a force to the most important subjects: Thus, "Jehovah threshes out the heathen as corn, tramples them under his feet, and disperses them. He delivers the nations to Israel to be beaten in pieces by an indented flail,* or to be crushed by their brazen hoofs. He scatters his enemies like chaff upon the mountains,† and disperses them with the whirlwind of his indignation."‡

“Behold I have made thee a threshing wain;

A new corn-drag armed with pointed teeth:

Thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small,
And reduce the hills to chaff.

Thou shalt winnow them, and the wind shall bear them away;
And the tempest shall scatter them abroad."§

Of these quotations it is to be remarked, first, that the nature of this metaphor, and the mode of applying it, are constantly and cautiously regarded by the different authors of the sacred poems; and on this account, notwithstanding the boldness of it, both chastity and perspicuity are preserved, since they apply it solely to exaggerate the slaughter and dispersion of the wicked. The force and aptness of the image itself in illustrating the subject, will also afford a very proper and ready apology for some degree of freedom in the application of it, particularly if we advert to the nature and method of this rustic operation in Palestine. It was performed in a high situation exposed to the wind, by bruising the ear, either by driving in upon the sheaves a herd of cattle, or else by an instrument constructed of large planks, and sharpened underneath with stones or iron; and sometimes by a machine in the form of a cart, with iron wheels or axles

publication of his book: if they had, he certainly would never have laid himself open to the application of so pointed a sarcasm.-T. *Hab. iii. 12. Joel iii. 14. Jer. li. 33. Isa. xxi. 10. Psal. Ixxxiii. 14. 16. Isa. xvii. 13.

+ Mic. iv. 13.
§ Isa. xli. 15, 16,

indented, which Varro calls Pœnicum,* as being brought to Italy by the Carthaginians from Phoenicia, which was adjacent to Palestine. From this it is plain (not to mention that the descriptions agree in every particular) that the same custom was common both to the Hebrews and the Romans; and yet I do not recollect that the latter have borrowed any of their poetical imagery from this occupation. It is proper however to remark, that this image was obvious and familiar to the Hebrews in a high degree, as we learn from what is said of the threshing-floor of Ornan the Jebusite,† which was situated in an open place (as were all the rest) in Jerusalem itself, and in the highest part of the city, in the very place, indeed, where the Temple of Solomon was afterwards erected.

Homer, who was uncommonly fond of every picture of rural life, esteemed that under our consideration so beautiful and significant, that, in a few instances, he draws his comparisons from the threshing-floor, (for even he was fearful of the boldness of this image in the form of a metaphor). Two of these comparisons he introduces to illustrate light subjects, contrary to the practice of the Hebrews; but the third is employed upon a subject truly magnificent; and this, as it approaches in some degree the sublimity of the Hebrew, it may not be improper to recite:

"As with autumnal harvests cover'd o'er,

And thick bestrown, lies Ceres' sacred floor,
When round and round, with never-wearied pain,
The trampling steers beat out th' unnumber'd grain;
So the fierce coursers, as the chariot rolls,

Tread down whole ranks, and crush out heroes' souls."§ This comparison, however, though deservedly accounted one of the grandest and most beautiful which antiquity has transmitted to us, still falls greatly short of the Hebrew boldness and sublimity. A Hebrew writer would have compared the hero himself with the instrument, and not his horses with the oxen that are harnessed to it, which is rather too apposite, and too exactly similar. But custom had not given equal license to the Greek poetry: this image had not been equally familiar, had not occupied the same place as with the Hebrews; nor had acquired the same force and authority by long prescription.

De Re Rust. 1. 52. § Pope's Iliad, xx. 577.

+2 Chron. iii. 1. See Iliad, v. & xiii. 588. This will be more fully explained in Lect. 12.

I ought not in this place to omit that supremely magnificent delineation of the divine vengeance, expressed by imagery taken from the wine-press; an image which very frequently occurs in the sacred poets, but which no other poetry has presumed to introduce. But where shall we find expressions of equal dignity with the original in any modern language? By what art of the pencil can we exhibit even a shadow or an outline of that description in which Isaiah depicts the Messiah as coming to vengeance?*

"Who is this that cometh from Edom?
With garments deeply dyed from Botsra?
This that is magnificent in his apparel;
Marching on in the greatness of his strength?

I who publish righteousness, and am mighty to save.
Wherefore is thine apparel red;

And thy garments, as one that treadeth the wine-vat?
I have trodden the vat alone;

And of the peoples there was not a man with me.

And I trod them in mine anger;

And I trampled on them in mine indignation;

And their life-blood was sprinkled upon my garments;
And I have stained all my apparel."

But the instances are innumerable which might be quoted of metaphors taken from the manners and customs of the Hebrews. One general remark, however, may be made upon this subject, namely, that from one simple, regular, and natural mode of life having prevailed among the Hebrews, it has arisen, that in their poetry these metaphors have less of obscurity, of meannesss or depression, than

* See Isa. lxiii. 1-3. Our author, in his excellent Commentary on Isaiah, has a very long note, proving, against some learned interpreters, (I suppose Jewish), that Judas Maccabeus could not be the subject of this prophecy. He asserts very properly, that the glorious but fruitless effort of the Maccabees, was not an event adequate to so lofty a prediction; and he adds another very material circumstance, which he presumes entirely excludes Judas Maccabeus, and even the Idumeans properly so called; for the Idumea of the prophet's time was quite a different country from that which Judas conquered. To the question, "To whom does it then apply?" he answers, To no event that he knows of in history, unless perhaps the destruction of Jerusalem and the Jewish polity, which in the Gospel is called the coming of Christ, and the days of vengeance. He adds, however, that there are prophecies which intimate a great slaughter of the enemies of God and his people, which remain to be fulfilled those in Ezekiel and in the Revelation are called Gog and Magog; and possibly this prophecy may refer to the same or the like event.-T. In one manuscript this word stands, "the announcer of righteousness." See Bishop Lowth's Notes on Isaiah.