Exalt themselves for their stature,

Neither set their top among the thick boughs;
1 Neither the oaks stand up in their height,

Nor any trees that drink water;

For all of them are delivered to death,

Unto the lower parts of the earth

In the midst of the sons of mortal man,

Unto them that go down to the pit.—

At the sound of his ruin I made the nations to shake,
When I brought him down to the grave

With them that go down to the pit;

And all the trees of Eden,

The choice and best of Lebanon,

Even all that drank water,

Were comforted in the lower parts of the earth.
They also went down with him to the grave,

To them that were slain by the sword.

C. xxxi. 13-17.

In this passage, though we easily admire the novelty of the fiction, the variety of manifold art, and the fruitfulness of the writer's genius, yet we shall not be struck by sublimity.'

"I almost forgot to mention that Ezekiel lived at a time when the glory and majesty of the Hebrew tongue began to fade, and a silver age to succeed a golden one: which in a short interval was to bring on an iron one. If we compare him with the Latin poets of Rome in her decline, we shall find a similar old age of the poetic faculty gradually creeping on in very different nations."

To explain the character of the prophet Ezekiel still more distinctly, I shall add to these testimonies the sentiments of the learned Professor Eichhorn, in his introduction 2 to the Old Testament.

"§. 545 3. Ezekiel is distinguished by much originality. He commonly gives his relations in prose, and adds dignity to them by lively fictions of his inexhaustible imagination :-he creates great artificial images, and, by such means, new worlds: he passed his youth in his mother country:-here he gathered materials for his poems, which his rich imagination afterwards created.

"§. 547. The two first visions are so accurately polished, and demanded so much art to give them their last perfection and propor

1 The learned critic reads as the adorant reliquæ bibentes aquam. 2 3 vol. 8°. Leipsic. 1783.

text now stands; and paraphrases thus: illasque [Nomen est poeticum arborum.] 3 Of the third volume.

4 C. i-vii. viii.—xi.

tion, that they cannot possibly be an unpremeditated work. And if, according to the commonly received opinion, they were publicly read by Ezekiel as we read them now, he must have seriously designed them as a picture, and finished them in form. The intention of his visions might make this necessary. He designed, no doubt, to make deep impressions at first upon the people whom he was to guide, and, by highly labouring the divine appearances, to open their ears for his future oracles and representations. The more complete, sublime, and majestic the divine appearances were which he represented, the deeper veneration was impressed on the mind towards the prophet to whom such high visions were communicated. Most of the parts which compose Ezekiel, as they are generally works of art, are full of artificial and elaborate plans.

66

"§. 548. The peculiarities of language in the first chapter are to be found in the middle and at the end of the book. The same enthusiasm, which in the beginning of his prophecies produced the magnificent divine appearances, must also have built the temple of God at the conclusion. As in the beginning every thing is first proposed in high allegorical images, and afterwards the same ideas are repeated in plain words; thus also, in the middle and at the end, in every piece allegorical representation is succeeded by literal. Throughout the style is rather prose than verse; and rough, hard, and mixed with the Chaldee.

"§. 549. The division of Ezekiel into two parts has been adopted by several writers. They continue the former part to the xxxixth chapter; and consider the last nine chapters from the xlth as a separate book. This division is possible. From the xlth chapter a new elevated scene commences. Before there was nothing but oracles full of misfortunes, of punishments, of death, and ruin; visions concerning the destruction of the government, and concerning the flight and state of the last king; and pictures of the universal corruption, idolatry, and superstition of Israel. From the xlth chapter a new temple rises before the eyes of the holy Seer, he walks round about it in Palestine, he measures the city and country for their new inhabitants, he orders sacrifices, feasts, and customs. In short a Magna Charta is planned for priests, kings, and people, in future and latter times. Lastly, from hence prosaic expression predominates: at least, the prophet elevates himself by poetical colouring much more rarely than before.

"§. 550. A generally acknowledged character of Ezekiel is, that he minutely distinguishes every thing in its smallest parts. What the more ancient prophets brought together in one single picture, and to which they only alluded, and what they explained with the utmost brevity or shewed only from one side, that he explains and unfolds formally, and represents from all possible sides.

"Another character, and a principal one, which distinguishes his oracles is,—that no other prophet has given so free a course to his imagination. Almost every thing is dressed in symbolical actions, in fables, narrations, allegories, or in the still higher poetry of visions. And as they are very complicate,—there resound from all sides complaints of darkness.-Whoever can look on these things with the eye of an eagle, and is not disturbed from the principal object by what is not essential;—he alone is able to comprehend the sense of the whole composition, and he scarcely conceives how any one can complain of obscurity. Meanwhile, how different soever the species of composition are which he hazards, they are all worked out in the same general form. What he represents in one image, picture, or vision, in allegory, parable, or narration, is explained in a short speech, which God, who is at his right hand, enables him to pronounce.

"§. 551. It is evident that he has shewn an inexhaustible imagination, and power of invention, throughout all the pages of his book. He uses all sorts of phrophetical poetry, to appear always great and magnificent: and it cannot be denied that he has given all kinds of excellent pieces both in design and execution. Particularly, he is so used to ecstasies and visions, that he adopts the language proper to these even where he has no visions to describe.

"If the dress of vision fitted any prophet, it was certainly Ezekiel : he was even naturally led to it by his situation, and by the subjects which he was to represent. He was to describe, and foretel to his fellow captives, several facts which happened in Palestine, in Jerusalem, and in the king's palace. A narration and description in simple prose could not possibly suit a prophet: he must give his objects the requisite prophetic dignity by a particular dress.

"He therefore brought the scene of events nearer: for this purpose he chose high ecstasies, such as the Greek and Roman poets pretended to in their flights of enthusiasm: the hand of Jehovah came upon him,

c

and carried him to that place where what he intended to propose to his countrymen in their exile might be seen and considered. All ecstasies, in my opinion, are nothing but dresses, nothing but poetical fictions and a poet of another age, and of another tone, of an inferior imagination and poetical endowments, would have given the same ideas quite another dress.

:

"Accustomed to this kind of poetry,—he represented the restitution of the Jewish state in a sublime vision: his imagination placed him upon graves, where he stood on decayed bones of the dead. He saw how the graves opened, the bones were clothed with flesh, and the dead came forth by a new creation. Could there be a more lively fiction for this case? Another poet would have represented the restoration of the Jews in simple words, and would have only compared it to a resurrection, or given it some other ornamental delineation. To view this intuitively in an example, compare Ezek. xxxvii. 1—14, and Isaiah xxvi. 19:

Thy dead shall live, their dead bodies shall rise:
Awake, and sing, ye that dwell in the dust:
For thy dew is as the dew of herbs ;

And the earth shall cast forth the mighty dead.

"And however numerous the fictions of Ezekiel are, they all appear in a magnificent dress, and each in its peculiar splendid one. Lustre shines in him on every side. And if the poet has here and there overloaded his subject with ornaments, we shall be unable to refuse our admiration to his genius, notwithstanding these defects.

"The first part of his book may be an instance. The barren genius of Moses was gone, when God appeared only in a fiery bush in the wilderness: and, as the world improved in cultivation, a more luxuriant one succeeded in its place, which in process of time demanded wonderful figures and giant forms, that the representation of the divine appearance might please. Isaiah had already appeared in a higher style than Moses. To him God manifested himself in the pomp of an oriental king; and this 1 piece makes a strong impression by its unity, and gains on us by elevated simplicity, majesty, and dignity. But Ezekiel differs widely. Before him stands the chariotthrone of God with wonderful forms. He summons all the pomp that

1 Isai. vi.

nature and art can furnish, he abundantly employs fiction and composition, to give his divine appearance dignity, elevation, and majesty, and thus to make a suitable impression. The whole creation must lend him its most noble forms. Men, oxen, lions, and eagles support the throne. The Hebrew history must furnish all its wonderful scenes, to surround the chariot-throne with the greatest pomp imaginable. I admire the master hand of the artist, who knew how to compose in such a manner. I am astonished at the richness of his imagination that could give dignity to all the exalted scenes of the Hebrew history, and could combine them in one body. But, notwithstanding this, the scene in Ezekiel is far from making the same deep and heart-striking impression with that of Isaiah. A short view of the whole in Isaiah does wonders: in Ezekiel the prospect is dispersed; and, as it is not rounded, it astonishes rather than impresses. In Isaiah there is a majestic silence, which is only interrupted by the heavenly cry of the seraphs: in Ezekiel the noise of the restless wheels and moving wings confounds us. In Isaiah the eye is delighted with artless majesty: in Ezekiel it is consumed by the brightness of the fire which shines round about the chariot-throne.

"It almost seems that the poet himself felt the hurtful consequences of his ample representations; and that he endeavoured to prevent them by first giving a general sketch, and then every thing more determinate and in detail. But I doubt whether he has thus prevented them. This method is rather productive of another hurtful consequence; that he occasionally seems to correct himself, but really does not; that he occasionally seems to retract something, which, when accurately considered, is not the fact.

"The author of the Revelation, whose poetry is in the same style with that of Ezekiel, and full of imagination, for the most part has avoided the rocks on which his predecessor stranded; and for the most part has happily cut off the wild shoots of a heated imagination. He also has fictions of wonders and giant forms: but he has produced them only so far as to give the reader a full image before his eyes; he does not pursue them minutely, and he does not distract or pain his reader.

"But as Ezekiel describes, designs, paints, and exhausts all minutiæ, he sometimes injures his poems. According to my feeling, he should have broken off after he had given the chariot-throne restless wheels,

1 Isai. vi. 3.