that according to our views the system of instruction there must be a grammatical one, if it is to produce fruit. The term grammatical we use in a broad sense, including in it an attention to the meaning of words and synonymes. The study of synonymes, however, must not be one which establishes, à priori, hair-breadth distinctions, which the least reading at once overthrows.

A course of school education which regards the Roman writers as compendiums of history, geography, archaeology and aesthetics must be absolutely ruinous to the young; for paradoxical as it may sound, it is nevertheless true, that we must seek in them compendiums of grammar, manuals of the form in which the Roman mind displays itself.

At the universities the lectures in which the Roman authors are interpreted are no longer regularly attended even by young philologists. A genial age seeks genial and philosophical modes of instruction, and prefers to erect a literary structure without foundation, or rather to take in ready-made, what can only be wrung out by painful industry; it would rather speculate than investigate. Under these peculiar circumstances we can bring this part of our subject to a speedy close, and need but to hint that if the gymnasium has properly followed and attained its aim, the university must attend to the development of the whole body of Roman literature, and must estimate every writer as the product of his age according to matter and manner, that the student now outwardly free-and free too he should be within, may learn to glance over the whole domain, that he may hereafter understand with more certainty the particular branch to which he devotes himself.

While the Roman represents the objective, the Greek represents the subjective. This is attested not only by the whole political system of this nation, by which it was divided into a multitude of little States with entirely different institutions, but also by the language of the nation. While all genuine Romans show a common form of language and style so that individual characters are hardly to be recognized, among the vast number of Greek writers not two are to be found alike. Each one appears in his own individuality so sharply defined, moulded so plastically, we may say, that we can compare with them in this respect none but the Teutonic writers, different as the reasons for this phenomenon may be among Greeks and the Teutonic race. Furthermore no other instance is to be found in the languages of civilized nations, of different dialects coëxisting with equal pretension, as

1848.]

The subjective Element in Greek.

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in the Greek, which was divided into four chief dialects, the Ionic, Doric, Attic and Aeolic. The language itself, finally, is so unrestrained, and moves so pliantly in its loose fetters, that it is a point of the highest difficulty for the grammarian to deduce its laws, which are all modified by the great number of exceptions, and often to such an extent, that the examples accompanying the exception are as numerous as those under the rule. The whole language is penetrated and animated by countless ramifications of nerve-like particles, with the nicest shades of meaning, which in many places altogether defy our attempts to understand them.

The wondrously organized Greek displays this subjective element in its ideal, art, whose source and main principle, beauty, can never be defined but always felt by the susceptible and refined. All arts, at least the greater number, by far, attained under his fostering hand the highest degree of perfection and splendor. We have but to think of the Greek architects, who built their temples, of the sculptors who chiseled their statues, of their gem-engravers, of their painters and of their poets, poets such as no after ages have produced or will produce. This universal feeling of beauty, this living and moving in its being is seen also in the Greek writers who devoted themselves to the serious tasks of philosophy and history, to say nothing of the orators to whom it is natural and necessary.

Since now the scholar must thoroughly comprehend himself and his age, we must admit that the study of the Greek is indispensably necessary for the acquisition of such culture, though it would prove injurious if begun before a certain knowledge of Latin were attained. The protestant gymnasia of Germany follow in this respect the proper course, prescribed by the nature of the case.

This fact ap

Though the Roman character is as peculiar and distinctive as that of the Greeks, it necessarily borrowed a multitude of Greek elements, as history sufficiently teaches in the settlement of Italy by Greeks and their constant influence in Italy. This is seen most immediately in the Latin language, which is not only a branch of that great eastern trunk from which the Teutonic too shoots forth, but is penetrated through and through with the Grecian leaven. pears likewise in Roman religion and mythology. have their foundation in Rome, Rome has hers in Greece; consequently, a knowledge of Greece is indispensably necessary to a knowledge of Rome. We need not here repeat what we have said above, in speaking of Rome; for mutatis mutandis it will all apply to Greece as the origin of Rome.

Modern times

Freedom is a union of the subjective desire with the outward law.

When the boy begins to learn Latin, he is at that stage of his being which is represented by the Greek, and then the aim is to awaken him to the existence and authority of the law. The Latin is therefore

in its proper place. But to reconcile the objective law with freedom, a second thing is necessary, a conscious recognition of his inner or subjective nature, that natural necessity, which begins to rule unperceived by him, with his first breath, and would accompany him, were it not checked, to his last hour. Alas! it does accompany many men even to their graves. This consciousness of his primeval nature nothing can impart better than the study of Greek. Experience speaks loud enough here for those who cannot penetrate deeper. In the Jesuit-schools and those of Catholic countries which do not participate in the protestant system of education, the confession of objective Christianity has of itself suppressed these studies, in spite of the zeal with which Greek was pursued in Italy at the restoration of letters. No isolated instance to the contrary, like that of Thiersch in Munich, is strong enough to refute this, as the necessary result, and no one that knows the earlier philologists of Italy will call them good Catholics.

Writers like Cicero and Caesar were a thing impossible in Greece. Though we confine ourselves to these two authors in studying the genius of the Roman people, we must allow and even require a wider choice in the study of Greek. Above all, the poets deserve our attention, because in them we see the clearest manifestation of real Greek culture, as we do that of the Romans in the historian Caesar, and the orator Cicero. Here too the gymnasia must unfold the language, and the university the literature in its representatives. For the antiquities of both nations the studies at any classical school will suffice; but it would be more profitable if the historical lessons were immediately connected with the grammatical, since the language and the history of a nation are one.

As to writing Greek,-for most institutions have abandoned all attempts at speaking it,—our age is returned to the proper point of view; for it is only practised for the purpose of impressing on the student the most essential principles of grammar, including etymological and syntactical forms; though some years back, a noble enthusiasm, well enough in itself, carried it beyond this point, and fancied it possible for pupils to write and for teachers to correct original compositions and orations in Greek.

The above-mentioned protestant gymnasia have also, in our opinion, established a proper proportion between the Greek and Latin; it is not right to make the number of lessons equal, as is done in many Swiss schools. And he who feels called to devote his after years ex

1848.] The Classics necessary for a knowledge of English.

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clusively to Greek studies, will find sufficient preparation under the arrangements of the protestant schools.

As the Christian Teutonic character proceeds from this union of the subjective Greek with the objective Latin, a truth which cannot be fully demonstrated here; the Teutonic languages, which are the impress of the Teutonic mind, must each unite in itself the Greek freedom and the Roman formality. After the establishment of Christianity, which is the religion of freedom, guiding the whole will of man to the fulfilment of the law, and thus soaring above the law, the various German nations were united under the German emperor, and are now again united by the German Confederation; consequently, particular dialects are no longer employed by men of education in writing and speech; they are merged in the High German; and this High German blends the formality of the Latin with the suppleness of the Greek in such a way that every writer of character and originality can impress his individuality upon the common Teutonic basis. But we must refrain from expatiating on other points, the arts, for instance, which in their various kinds among the Teutonic race approach in their perfection those of the Greeks, though they do not equal them, and jurisprudence and law, which is not far behind the Roman law. Thus much is certain-that Latin and Greek must be retained, if we would properly understand our own glorious tongue. As a State of southern Germany has lately inquired into the expediency of making Greek elective, and requiring it only of philologists and theologians, it is to be hoped that the answers to this question will satisfactorily show, that the proposed limitation would cut off an essential element of scientific culture. Its loss would soon be generally felt and gratify that false liberty, or radicalism that offers death for life. From this may our country be preserved, and not be deterred by any foolish clamor from proceeding by the safe path of history to a more glorious. development and a clearer understanding of itself.

ARTICLE III.

STUDIES IN HEBREW POETRY.'

By Prof. B. B. Edwards.

AGE OF THE ALPHABETICAL POEMS.

WHEN We investigate the unknown forms of ancient poetry, it must be regarded as an advantage if we meet with anything, proceeding from the authors or their times, which exhibits an authentic division of the verses. Dispensing with conjecture and experiment as to the manner in which the text is to be separated into members, we can at once examine the condition of the single divisions of the verses, the incidental grouping of them into strophes, and the entire external structure of the poem; and from these observations, we can look at the other poems and see how far the same or similar forms may be revealed in them, and thus enlarge and complete our inquiries. Such an advantage is furnished to the student in the field of ancient Hebrew poetry by those alphabetic poems whose external form is distinguished by the alphabetic arrangement regularly appearing at the beginning of each verse or group of verses. We have no inconsiderable number of them. They are Psalms 9 and 10, 25, 34, 37, 111, 112, 119, 145, Prov. 31: 10—31, Lam. 1—4. Hence an inquiry on the form of Hebrew poetry has to begin with these; especially the preliminary question, whether the Hebrew poets in general composed in prescribed forms, must here first find its solution. Still, before we proceed to the examination of these poems, it will be proper to ascertain the age of this alphabetic structure, since on this may depend the utility of the results. If the alphabetic Psalms as such belong to the latest period of Hebrew poetry, then the conclusion in respect to the forms of these pieces, in relation to those of the older poems, would be the more doubtful from the fact that they have been assigned to a period when true poetry was extinct, and an artificial structure had usurped the place of a free poetic inspiration, and thus a form foreign to the old poetry may have been introduced. Certainly in this respect modern critics have passed a judgment on this species of poems in

1 Condensed and translated from a volume published at Bonn in 1846, entitled, "Biblische Abhandlungen von J. G. Sommer, Licentiaten v. Theol. u. Privatdocenten an der Rhein. Universität zu Bonn," pp. 373.