Neither is there any authority in the Pentateuch for the remark, which occurs in Hebrews xi, 24.

By faith Moses, when he was come to years, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter.

These circumstances make it probable that there were other original records in the time of St Paul, which have since perished.

This conclusion is supported by the admitted fact that many books, which have perished, are quoted in the Old Testament itself. Such are the books of Jasher, Enoch, the Wars of the Lord and many others. See page 25.

A perplexing train of argument opens to us from a consideration of these facts. If the books, which have perished, were of value, why have they perished? if they were of no value, why have valuable writers like St Paul, quoted them? It is supposed that they were of inferior authority, but this point has not been proved. If the existing books are genuine relics of a high antiquity, yet some of the lost books were more ancient still. The same Providence which has preserved the ones, has suffered the others to sink, even though those which have floated down the stream of time are imperfect on many points which the others would have supplied. I think these observations coincide with the opinion which has been advanced, that both are copied from more ancient sources.

CHAPTER 22.

GRAMMATICAL SUBTLETIES ARE A PROOF OF A LATER AGE.

Those who have studied the ancient history and literature of Greece and Rome, have observed that, when those countries began to exhibit signs of decay, the style of their writers began to decline and to exhibit certain symptoms of decrepitude and bad taste. In this particular, mind seems to be subject to the same law as the physical universe, for it blooms or withers in proportion to the favorable or adverse circumstances of its position. No one will venture to compare the grammatical and verbal subtleties which were introduced in later ages into the Greek poetry, with the noble simplicity of Homer, Æschylus or Pindar. A few instances of the bad taste, which always marks a degenerate age, may here be of use to those who have not time to read the Classics for themselves.

About the year 200 before Christ lived one Simmias, a native of Rhodes, who is generally considered the inventor of the style of versification to which I refer, for it does not appear to have existed before his time, and, indeed, it could hardly have been conceived except in an age, when the public taste had become exceedingly corrupt: it consists in arranging verses in such a way, as to form figures of various objects. Six such poems have been preserved, forming an axe, a pair of wings, two altars, an egg, and a pan-pipe. The last of these is sometimes ascribed to Theocritus, but, no doubt, erroneously: it consisted of twenty verses, arranged in ten pairs, each pair of the same length, but shorter than the preceding pair; the whole representing ten pipes, each shorter than the other.

The Latin poets indulged abundantly in conceits of this kind. The poet Ausonius was not free from the infection.

Among his Idyllia is a poem so constructed that the last word of every line is the first word of the following line. In our own country Venerable Bede improved upon this thought, and wrote an elegy, in such a manner, that the last half of each verse was the first half of the next verse. Ausonius also wrote poems in which every line ended with monosyllables, denoting the members of the body, the names of Gods, of the virtues, the letters of the alphabet, &c. &c. But Ausonius belonged to a declining age and is never placed on the same level in the list of poets with Virgil, Horace, or Juvenal.

These facts have their parallel in the Hebrew writings: Thus in the 3rd chapter of Zephaniah, verse 8, * are found all the letters of the Hebrew alphabet, together with the vowel points, and almost all the grammatical marks invented to facilitate the reading of the Hebrew language. It can hardly be supposed that this curious circumstance was the result of accident; and that not quite all the grammatical marks are found there, seems to imply that those which do not occur, have been invented since.

There are several other instances of this play on letters in the Old Testament. Its grand division into 22 books, corresponding to the number of letters in the alphabet, is the most striking, and it is notorious that the 119th psalm is divided into 22 parts, designated by the names of the letters, aleph, beth, gimel, daleth &c.

The twenty-fifth psalm contains 22 verses, each of which begins with a different letter of the alphabet, from aleph to

tau.

Psalm xxxiv contains 22 verses, besides the title A psalm of David &c. Each verse begins with a fresh letter; but vau is omitted, and to fill up the number the last verse begins with pe.

* See Lee's Hebrew Grammar, page 31.

Several other psalms are constructed on similar principles; for instance Ps. xxxvii, cxi, cxii, and cxlv: but in Ps. cxlv one letter is omitted; in Ps. xxxvii, is repeated and is omitted. This kind of composition is found also in Proverbs, where the last 22 verses of the thirty first chapter are also alphabetic; and still more remarkably in the first four chapters of the Lamentations of Jeremiah, where two, and sometimes three verses together begin all with the same letter.

This species of writing occurs, therefore, in four books of the Old Testament, Psalms, Proverbs, the Prophesy of Zephaniah, and the Lamentations of Jeremiah. In such late poets as the last two who are supposed to have flourished about the year 600 before Christ, (see page 8) this metrical conceit is less remarkable; but in the Psalms and Proverbs, the works of David and Solomon, who are represented as first-rate poets,—the former called the "sweet psalmist of Israel" we cannot believe that such puerile absurdities could be found. It will, possibly, be replied, that some of the Psalms were not written by David, and that some of the Proverbs were not written by Solomon; but it is worthy of notice that the 25th and 34th psalms, in which these alphabetic fancies occur, are superscribed "A psalm of David." We must, then, infer, either that the psalms in question were not written by David, or that the reputation of David as a poet was not so great as has been represented. But the consent of the whole Israelitish nation has awarded to David the same honours in Israel, which Homer enjoyed among the Greeks, Tasso in Italy, Aldhelm among the Anglo-Saxons, Taliessin in Wales, Ossian in Scotland, and many other bards, in different countries, whose songs have inspired their country men to deeds of valour in the field and of conviviality at the banquet. These psalms, therefore, were not composed by David, but rather by some imitator in a later age, when the glories of past

times had faded, and the increased facilities, which about the 5th and 6th centuries before Christ were opened by the more general use of writing, led to the composition of many pieces both in prose and verse, which were afterwards ascribed to the great masters of the heroic ages.

If it should be urged that the works, in which these devices occur, are not historical books, and therefore ought not to be adduced here, the reply is obvious. Although not strictly historical, yet they bear with great force upon the present inquiry. If the Psalms and Proverbs were not written till a later age,-ascribed as they are to King David and Solomon,—the historical books, into which some of these psalms are interwoven, must, a fortiori, be later still. Besides which such pedantic forms of writing, whether found in prose or verse, always imply a degenerate age; and, as it is not likely that they should frequently occur in prose, we are compelled to have recourse for them to the poetical books, on account of the valuable inferences which they furnish.