ESSAY I.

CHAOS and CREATION.

PASSAGE.

AND THE EARTH WAS WITHOUT FORM, AND VOID, AND DARKNESS WAS UPON THE FACE OF THE DEEP; AND THE SPIRIT OF GOD MOVED UPON THE WATERS.

THE

HE true fublime of language opens upon us in this paffage. It is Truth arrayed in the decorations of oriental poetry.. The earth was without form: it was the reign of Chaos and old Night; matter and motion were in the utmost disorder; no difftinction,

VOL. I.

B

ftinction, no harmony, no regularity; all thofe materials, which were presently commanded to compofe an according fyftem, were void. In this verfe, as through a mirrour, methinks I fee this now delightful universe, in a state of anarchy: I look, as it were, into the regions of the past, and am ftruck with a view of things, before the beginning. How wide, how infinite the confufion! a promifcuous mifcellany of atoms, and all the treasures of a world tumbled together, without use or beauty. But the thick gloom obftructs my furvey, and yet I behold, or think I behold, the mighty and immor

tal SPIRIT, moving upon the waters. The waters hear and obey; the mighty work of wonders is begun; let fuch, therefore, as are able to feel the aweful scene exhibited in this verfe, indulge their admiration by reading the next, which difplays at once omnipotence and benignity!

AND GOD SAID LET THERE BE LIGHT, AND THERE WAS LIGHT.

There is no reading this without a tremor of veneration: there is no thinking upon it, without aftonishment! It is, at once, fo amazing an inftance of power and kindness, of tenderness and authority, that, В 2

one

4

one knows not which attribute moft to reverence. It is one of the fhorteft paffages in the whole Bible, exhibiting, at the fame time, the nobleft image, with magnificence and fimplicity and, indeed, the best moderns have copied and imitated, at whatever distance, the graces of the fcriptures. Thofe authors relate actions which are to excite inftantaneous admiration, by a fingle line, and very frequently by a fingle expreffion. It was not to be fuppofed, that the fubject before us fhould efcape poetical imitation.-Let us look at certain paffages in fome of our

Eng

English bards, to fee with what fuccefs.-Milton takes the lead:

Let there be light, faid God, and forthwith light

Etherial, first of things, quinteffence pure,
Sprung from the deep; and from her na-
tive eaft

To journey thro' the airy gloom began:
Sphear'd in a radiant cloud.

Let us clear the road of criticism,
as we go along. Is not this,
at beft, beating poetically, about
it and about it? We confefs,
we feel, the fcenery of the east,
the airy gloom, the radiant cloud,
&c. but ftill, the second verfe * is
a verse of mere epithets; it delays

Etherial, firft of things, quinteffence pure.