The Sun.
London, England, 1851-02-10 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

THE BARDS OF THE BIBLE. By George
Gilfillan, A.M. London : Groombridge, 1851.
The title of this noble boek is well chosen. The
Bards of the Bible. Not THE BIBLE as an indivisible
whole, a work of spiritual architecture, a composition of
art. a poem, having a beginning, a middle, and an end,
pzooc, 7207), )skis, 'savoict, otliic, and p..EAorossa ;
but that sacred College of POETS, that grand brother-
hood of inspiration, at whose feet civilisation ham been
proud to sit; those " morning stars," who have " sung
together" upon the brightest dawn in human history;
that " company of angels," whose harps have so long
given the key-note to the music of the world. There is
a sense, indeed, in which the Bible, though the collected
compositions of various authors, writing in different
tongues, and living in separate ages, may be looked upon
nut merely as a volume of poems, but as a vast oriental
epic rendered uniform by singularity of purpose, simi•
larity of machinery, and identity of language.
To believe the Iliad to be the work of generations of
Rhapsodei is not necessarily to deny it the essentials of
Eros; and to admit the polyglot origin of the great Bi-
blical poem is to say nothing against its epic character.
Enough that it has successfully embodied the design of
our greatest example of the Epopee, and, despite its
multipaternity and its chaotic chronology, has main-
tained invariably— _ _

the height of that great argument
To justify the ways of God to men."
We have mentioned " identity of language" among
the simplifying dements of a book notoriously written in
two, probably in three, and possibly in four of the great
tongues of the globe, and chequered, in addition, with
the dialects of each. Various es are those tongues, the
book maintains its identity of language—a language an-
tecedent to every tongue, and independent of all. From
the first chapter of Genesis to the last of Revelations,
the Bible is one great picture, one transcendent hiero-
glyph. It hai often been remarked as a wonderfully pro-
vidential arrangement, that the ancient nurse-land of
religion and enlightenment was Palestine, the common
centre of the noblest races of the earth. Nut less notice-
able in Divine dispensation, is the tact that the records
which profess to contain the revelations essential to all
men, are inscribed in a language central to the common
intellect of mankind. Written not in words but things,
they are the only books which cannot become insigni-
ficant by age, which retain their vigour and beauty un-
impaired under every past variety of translation; and of
which we may predict with certainty, that into what.
soever unknown speech the missionary spirit of Chris-
tianity may yet carry them, they shall re-appear intact,
with undimmed brightness, undiminished grandeur, and
untarnished glory, in whatever land has hills and moun-
tains, light and darkness, winter and summer, sun, moon,
and stars. _

But not in the aspect of unity has Mr. Gilfillan chosen
to view his subjeet; and, perhaps, in acting upon the
programme conveyed in his title-page, and combining the
quantity and quality of Bible poetry with the nature
and characteristics of Bible poets, he is adopting a mode
of treatment which is at once more captivating to " the
general," more useful to the student, and more gratifying
to that passion for Biblical literature which in himself
has evidently extended to a personal affection for its
authors.
" What is poetry ?" is a question as universal as
" What is nature?" and" What is mind?" and when one
of these questions shall have been answered we may
look for the resolution of the others. But while each
further step of science, each deeper reverie of philoso-
phy, destroys some fancied truth, sinks us lower in the
slough of uncertainty, and exchanges more completely
the consciousness of ignorance for that of incapacity to
know, we must often be content to deal with facts and
the modes of their appearance, and to leave intangible
essences which we have no organs to detain, and princi-
pals of whose great circle we see but an inappreciable
arc, to the faculties of a more developed being, or the in-
structions of a more abounding grace. Sufficient for us
that poetry exists, that it is conversant with all per-
ceeh exmat
sivas abnt
sbea
eltseni
po tonahnsni
tndoalseasoniupnbselecyt.uchaloii
and
adr
mu
order
dnvt
iueeerrrasaotel
efl,
yd t,mbb
aaiynnt
dndi 6,0 ittrshhuaaf,otte uitonnord
it
rhhieeneemmi the
et,
by no care of consertion or inoculation, by no effort of
industry, no experience of manipulation, no "cunninge"
of art or man's device. " What is poetry in the ab-
atract?" therefore, the poet will be the last to answer;
but for poetry in the concrete his instinct is the unfailing
test. It is probable that the old prophets knew little of
the theory of inspiration, but they had no doubts as to
the criteria of divine sfflatus. And in any search
wherein the qurcsita are beyond the reach of acquired
knowledge and verbal description, we must depend alto-
gether upon intuitive perceptions. Till we have clearer
notions of magnetism see must be content to trust
the needle fur the north. The bewildered wanderer
in pathless deserts may commit his letter in faith to
the instinct of the dove, and though we know not the
signs of the time s, and cannot catalogue the symptoms
of the seasons, we may believe the swallow and the
cuckoo, and be sure " the winter is over and gone."
when " the voice of the turtle is heard in our land." Of
every criticism upon a peein, therefore, our first ques-
, Lion should be " 15 the critic a poet ?"
Fortunately, fur our time and space, that question has
been already answered in the case of the author before
us, and, at the expense o.f a very few quota!ions, can be
answered again. Mr. Gilfillanis not an author of yes-
terday, and there are old familiar sentences of his with
which any of his readers can lay the matter readily at
rest. (Who hes forgotten that line—seldom surpassed
in the whole range of poetry—
" The sea—the shadow and mad sister of the earth?"
His" Galleries" are sown broad-cast with such pearls.)
We shall, therefore, merely present a few passages from
the book before us, and leave our readers toc3tnel ner
these and other credentials with this hearty advice—that
whosoever, after due examination had, shall honestly
deny our author's right to a place in the genus rotrirric,
will throw aside a volume which, upon his assumption,
must be at least valueless, and if valueless, then auda-
cious to the very verge of profanity.
Take for majesty:--" We pause at Sinai, the centre of
the ancient system. There was enacted a scene fitted