which for the most part has given occasion to the worst misapprehensions, for we may almost affirm it as a general rule "the bolder and more original a poetical conception and figure is, the more it is misunderstood and abused."

3. A personified object, so soon as it is represented in action, in a way that gives to a general sentiment a sensuous representation becomes a fable. The transition from the one to the other is by a single step, and the East abounds not more in personifications, than in fables.

When God brought the various brutes to Adam to see what he would call them, he placed man in a school of fable. In order to be able to designate an animal by a name he must know its character and instincts, and both were to be learned from the animal's actions and mode of life. The least reflection applied to these, since the man thereby brought them into connexion, and referred them to his own being, led to the perception of a general character in the conduct of the animal, and so, even when unexpressed a fable was already constructed in the mind of the observer. The first dialogue with the serpent, and the circumstance mentioned, that Adam found none like himself among all the objects of creation, pre-suppose this tendency of his mind. It is the

punctum saliens of fable. It might be said, indeed, that from it proceeded for the yet infant race of man, the first principles of morals and of prudence, and that the poetical conception, that brutes act from similar feelings with men, has had a forming influence in the cultivation of his reason. It is not only that in order to attain it, man must observe the animate creation in its various characters, he was necessitated also to notice the relations to himself of the actions and characters of the brutes, and what was deserving of imitation or otherwise. What we denominate the history of the fall

cient numbers. For the Hebrew of the words man, son, daughter, countenance, &c. the lexicons may be referred to.

was the first aberration of his reasoning faculty, the imitation according to an erroneous conception, of a brute, which the teaching of his paternal creator afterwards showed him in its true form, and thereby corrected his false conclusions. As we are now rendered skillful by experience, so then the understanding of man in his state of nature formed and guided itself by observing the contrivances of brutes. Their adaptive powers and propensities are fully developed, their character clearly determined, forcibly and distinctively expressed, and definitely fixed. Here then, man was placed in a school rich in instruction, and as tradition says that he learned most of the arts from the brutes, so it is certain also, that his first observations respecting differences of sense and understanding, and different modes of action, were taken from the brutes. The earliest names, by which distinctive characters among men were designated, are all derived from animals, as the first general maxims relating to manners and prudence for the most part show their origin in fable. This last remark we shall pursue more at large.

A general maxim or sentiment is an abstraction from particular occurrences, and many of these among the Orientals still include the particular case in the general expression, and with the sensuous image and compressed allegory form as it were, an abbreviated fable. So it is with many of the proverbs of Solomon, as in the lesson, which the ant gives to the sluggard, &c. and indeed with all the finest proverbs of ancient nations. The fable was constructed in view of an actual occurrence; the moral lesson was deduced from it, and to aid the recollection of it, and give point to the sentiment, was compressed into a metaphor, a proverb, or even an enigma. All these modes of representation are essentially one, and are all natives of the East, where they are peculiar favourites. There the fable was invented, and there proverbs, maxims, enigmas, even the radical forms of language are full of fable. The whole art of poetry has there a sententious

character, and a dress of fable, which separates it widely from our methodical style in prolonged and rounded periods. There too, those kinds of poetry, which are characterized by allegory and fable, are the most abundant and the most beautiful. In modern languages, on the other hand, for one simple Oriental fable drawn from the kingdom of beasts and of trees, we may furnish ten artificial narrations, which often contain neither fable nor history, and usually fall short of the former in richness of poetical invention. The strings of pearl, as the Orientals call certain collections of choice and well arranged sentences, are well known, and the beautiful tapestry of their instructive and more elevated poetry, which expands its richly ornamented flowers with so much magnificence, appears to them noble and godlike. But of these forms of poetry we shall speak more at large in their proper place; at present we proceed to remark,

4. That even history in the East, especially when it relates to the ancient patriarchal traditions, readily assumes the dress of fable, and becomes as it were, a poetical and traditionary representation of family history. Whoever reads the historical writings of the Old Testament, from the most ancient period, will scarcely deny this, and one, that is acquainted with the historical style of the Orientals, in other histories, will be still less disposed to do so. It is not merely, that here and there, in the simplest narrative, poetical forms of expression are inserted, because the voice of tradition perhaps transferred them from existing songs, or gave them for the sake of adding force to the expression; not merely, that the narrative itself affects the entire simplicity of the poetical style, in regard to the use of connectives and the repetitions of words; but for the most part also the form and outline of the whole narrative is poetical. Nor is this at all prejudicial to truth, but rather contributes to its clearness and force, by retaining and exhibiting in the tone and outward form of the narrative, as it were, the original impressions and images of

sense from which it was taken; only the interpreter must find and retain this point of view, or he will misapprehend the tone of the sentiment, the aim and general scope of the narrative. The history of Paradise, of our first parents, and of the subsequent patriarchs, of the flood, of the tower of Babel, &c. appear obviously in the character of family and national traditions, and so it continues downward to the history of the Jewish patriarchs. Tradition has formed into a sacred narrative, a sort of fabula morata, where in every line the favour of Jehovah to their fathers beams forth as the origin, from which they derive the glory of their race, their right to Canaan, and the prerogative which they claim before the nations, which inhabited it. What among other races bears the marvellous character of heroick and extravagant traditions, is here of divine and patriarchal authority, confirmed by genealogical registers and monuments, and exhibiting such simplicity of ornament, that the artificial forms of poetry are unsuitable to it. Among all nations history has grown out of tradition, and among the Hebrews it has remained even down to the period of the kings, in regard to the style, almost always traditionary in its character. To this the language, the modes of thought, which distinguished the people and the sacred writers, but especially the high antiquity of the age, has contributed.

5. I come now to fiction, or poetical invention properly so called, which consists in combining known, distinctly marked images, to form a new creation before unknown, and having its own distinctive character. Of this poetical creation the Cherub may serve as an example. The lion, the ox, the man, and the eagle are beings well known; the combination of them into a creature of symbolical import was the work of poetical invention. It will be observed, that I use poetry and poetical invention, not in the sense of groundless fiction or falsehood; for in the sphere of the understanding, the import of a symbol poetically constructed is truth. The parts themselves of

the composition are taken from nature, and I know no fiction, which has not received its elements from that source. Hence, the invention of fictions entirely new is so difficult, that the greatest poets copy each other, and nations farthest removed from each other coincide in the essential characters, and leading forms of those beings, with which they have peopled the world of their imaginations. One of these leading forms, the features of which are recognized among all nations, which have poetry, is the Cherub, perhaps the oldest of all poetical creations. It stands on the ruins of Persepolis, which, in the form of their inscriptions, and the style of their architecture, go back beyond the periods of recorded history, and, in the form of the Sphinx, lies before the ruins of numerous Egyptian temples. It is referred to in the marvellous tales of India, of Thibet, of China, of Persia and of Arabia, and occurs in the ancient traditions of the Greeks, as well as in the Northern Sagas, though in every nation under its own peculiar modifications of form. Even the poetry of the Middle Age has made use of it, and scarcely any poetry is unfurnished with winged beings of the same general character. The Hebrews, in my apprehension, have the oldest and purest traditions respecting it, and retain the natural and probable account of the origin of a composition in itself so strange and marvellous. According to their account it was a guardian of Paradise, and thus by consequence a symbol of things secret and mysterious, that is, of places sacred and unapproachable. From this, by an easy transition, it become itself, in its component parts, a mystery, a synthesis of the most noble and exalted of living creatures. It came to be attached to the ark of the covenant, as a guardian of the mysteries of the law, and thereby a sustainer of the Majesty of Jehovah, who watched over them. It was transferred also to the clouds, and became first a poetical, then a prophetical vision. These last applications of it, however, belong to the poetry of the Hebrews alone. The Cherub, in the char