towards his people, and their piety and fidelity to him, are expressed by an allusion to the solemn covenant of marriage. Ezekiel has pursued this image with uncommon freedom in two parables;* in truth, almost all the sacred poets have touched upon it. There was, therefore, no part of the imagery of the Hebrew poetry more established than this; nor ought it to appear extraordinary, that Solomon, in that most elegant poem the Canticles, should distinguish and depict the most sacred of all subjects with similar outlines, and in similar colours. It is not, however, sufficient, that the image be apt and familiar; it must also be elegant and beautiful in itself: since it is the purpose of a poetic parable not only to explain more perfectly some proposition, but frequently to give it more animation and splendour. The imagery from natural objects is superior to all other in this respect; for almost every picture from nature, if accurately drawn, has its peculiar beauty. As the parables of the sacred poets, therefore, consist chiefly of this kind of imagery, the elegance of the materials generally serves to recommend them. If there be any of a different kind, such as may be accounted less delicate and refined, it ought to be considered, whether they are not to be accounted among those the dignity and grace of which are lost to us, though they were perhaps wanting in neither to people of the same age and country. If any reader, for instance, should be offended with the boiling pot of Ezekiel,‡ and the scum flowing over into the fire; let him remember, that the prophet, who was also a priest, took the allusion from his own sacred rites: nor is there a possibility that an image could be accounted mean or disgusting, which was connected with the holy ministration of the Temple. It is also essential to the elegance of a parable, that the imagery should not only be apt and beautiful, but that all its parts and appendages should be perspicuous and pertinent. It is, however, by no means necessary, that in every parable the allusion should be complete in every part; such a degree of resemblance would frequently appear too minute and exact: but when the nature of the subject will bear, much more when it will even require a fuller explanation, and when the similitude runs directly, naturally, and regularly, through every circumstance, then it cannot be doubted that it is productive of the greatest beauty. Of all these * Ezek. xvi. and xxiii. Ezek. xxiv. 3, &c. excellencies, there cannot be more perfect examples than the parables which have been just specified. I will also venture to recommend the well-known parable of Nathan,* although written in prose, as well as that of Jotham,‡ which appears to be the most ancient extant, and approaches somewhat nearer the poetical form.§ To these remarks I will add another, which may be considered as the criterion of a parable, namely, that it be consistent throughout, and that the literal be never confounded with the figurative sense. In this respect it materially differs from the former species of allegory, which, deviating but gradually from the simple metaphor, does not always immediately exclude literal expressions, or words without a figure. But both the fact itself, and this distinction, will more evidently appear from an example of each kind. * 2 Sam. xii. 1-4. Judges ix. 7—15. § Poetry seems to me to be often strangely confounded with oratory, from which it is, however, very different. These instances appear to me only the rudiments of popular oratory, the ancient and unrefined mode of speaking, as Livy calls it and if the reader will be at the pains to examine Liv. l. ii. c. 32. I dare believe he will be of the same opinion. Poetry, as our Author himself has stated, is one of the first arts, and was in a much more perfect state than we should suppose from the passages in question long before the days of Jotham: oratory is of more recent origin, and was, we may well suppose, at that period in its infancy; as Cicero remarks, that it was one of the latest of the arts of Greece. Brut. c. 7.-M. See Essays Historical and Moral, p. 41. I think there is great judgment and taste in this remark, of which the parable of the Good Samaritan will afford a happy exemplification in the mention of the man's journeying from Jerusalem to Jericho, a circumstance that gives substance and reality to the parable. It may be observed, moreover, that in allegorical writing the literal sense may be sometimes suffered to obtrude itself upon the figurative with very good effect, just as the gold that betrays itself in glimpses from the plumage of the peacock, the scales of the dolphin, or (to illustrate my idea from Spenser) the texture of the loom, augments thereby the splendour of their colours. "round about the walls yclothed were With goodly arras of great maiesty, As faining to be hidd from envious eye; Through the green grass his long bright burnisht back declares." Faery Queene, B. iii. c. 11. s. 28. A fine poetical allegory of this kind may be seen in the first strophe of Gray's Ode on Poesy.-S. H. The Psalmist, (whoever he was), describing the people of Israel as a vine,* has continued the metaphor, and happily drawn it out through a variety of additional circumstances. Among the many beauties of this allegory, not the least graceful is that modesty with which he enters upon and concludes his subject, making an easy and gradual transition from plain to figurative language, and no less delicately receding back to the plain and unornamented narrative: "Thou hast brought a vine out of Egypt; Thou hast cast out the nations, and planted it, After this follow some figurative expressions, less cautiously introduced; in which when he has indulged for some time, how elegantly does he revert to his proper subject! "Return, O God of Hosts! Look down from heaven, and behold And visit this vine; And the branch which thy right hand hath planted; By the rebuke of thy countenance they perish. Let thy hand be upon the man of thy right hand; § Upon the son of man, whom thou madest strong for thyself." You may easily perceive, Gentlemen, how, in this first kind of allegory, the literal may be mingled with the figurative sense; and even how graceful this practice appears, since light is more agreeably thrown upon the subject in an oblique manner, without too bare and direct an explication. But it is different, when the same image puts on the form of the other sort of allegory, or parable, as in Isaiah. Here is no room for literal, or even ambiguous expressions; every word is figurative; the whole mass of colouring is taken from the same palette. Thus what, in the former quotation, is expressed in undisguised language, namely, "the casting out of the nations, the preparation of the place, and its destruc * Psal. lxxx. 9-18. If I am not mistaken, all the old translators, the Chaldee excepted, seem to have read in this place Ben Adam, the Son of Man,' as in ver. 18. Dr Kennicott affirms also that he found this same reading in one manuscript." H.-Author's Note. § That is, the man who is joined to thee by a solemn covenant. The orientals all swear by lifting up the right hand. Hence also, among the Arabs, jamin is to swear.-M. Chap. v. 1-7. tion from the rebuke of the Lord," is by Isaiah expressed wholly in a figurative manner:-" The Lord gathered out the stones from his vineyard, and cleared it: but when it deceived him, he threw down its hedge, and made it waste, and commanded the clouds that they should rain no rain upon it." Expressions which in the one case possess a peculiar grace, would be absurd and incongruous in the other; for the continued metaphor and the parable have a very different aim. The sole intention of the former is to embellish a subject, to represent it more magnificently, or at the most to illustrate it; that, by describing it in more elevated language, it may strike the mind more forcibly: but the intent of the latter is to withdraw the truth for a moment * from our sight, in order to conceal whatever it may contain ungraceful or disgusting, and to enable it secretly to insinuate itself, and obtain an ascendency as it were by stealth. There is, however, a species of parable, the intent of which is only to illustrate the subject: such is that remarkable one of Ezekiel, which I just now commended, of the cedar of Lebanon: than which, if we consider the imagery itself, none was ever more apt or more beautiful; if the description and colouring, none was ever more elegant or splendid; in which, however, the poet has occasionally allowed himself to blend the figurative with the literal description: Whether he has done this because the peculiar nature of this kind of parable required it, or whether his own fervid imagination alone, which disdained the stricter rules of composition, was his guide, I can scarcely presume to determine. LECTURE XI. OF THE MYSTICAL ALLEGORY. The definition of the Mystical Allegory-Founded upon the allegorical or typical nature of the Jewish religion- The distinction between this and the two former species of Allegory; in the nature of the materials: it being allowable in the former to make use of imagery from indifferent objects; in this, only such as is derived from things sacred, or their opposites: in the former, the exterior image has no foundation in truth; in the latter, both images are equally trueThe difference in the form or manner of treating themThe most beautiful form is when the corresponding images run parallel through the whole poem, and mutually illustrate each other-Examples of this in the iid and lxxiid Psalms The parabolic style admirably adapted to this species of allegory; the nature of which renders it the language most proper for prophecy-Extremely dark in itself, but it is gradually cleared up by the series of events foretold, and more complete revelation; time also, which in the general obscures, contributes to its full explanation. These THE third species of Allegory, which also prevails much in the prophetic poetry, is when a double meaning is couched under the same words; or when the same prediction, according as it is differently interpreted, relates to different events, distant in time, and distinct in their nature. different relations are termed the literal and the mystical senses; and these constitute one of the most difficult and important topics of Theology. The subject is, however, connected also with the sacred poetry, and is therefore deserving of a place in these Lectures. In the sacred rites of the Hebrews, things, places, times, offices, and such-like, sustain as it were a double character, the one proper or literal, the other allegorical; and in their. writings these subjects are sometimes treated of in such a manner as to relate either to the one sense or the other singly, or to both united. For instance, a composition may treat of David, of Solomon, of Jerusalem, so as to be under |