While be from high his rolling thunder throws, THE learned reader hath now both defcriptions fairly before him, and will fupply, from his own better judgment, what is defective in each tranflation. I fhall beg leave to point out the beauties of both; and when I have done fo, the reader will determine for himself. Ver. 6. He heard my voice out of his temple. Can there be a nobler idea, than to confider the heavens as the temple of GOD! This temple encompaffes the univerfe, and there the whole creation are in the presence of their Maker. Ver. 7, &c. He was wroth, and the earth trembled and hook. -He bowed the heavens, and came down. He rode upon a cherub. He flew upon the wings of the wind. He made darkness his pavilion. At the brightnefs before him his clouds paffed away. THE grandeur of thefe ideas is much eafier conceived than explained WHAT poetry ever equalled the magnificence of this flyle! What ideas of the Divinity does it infpire! What must we think of that mighty Being, at whose wrath the earth trembles, and the heavens are humbled at his feet! Angels and winds his vehicles! His voice is thunder; and lightnings the kindling of his breath! His Majetty veiled in darkness; and yet even fo, the F 3 clouds clouds paffing away, at the glory that went before him! IN Virgil, Jupiter, in the dark centre of his fhowers, deals about his thunders with his flameing right-hand earth trembles at the mighty motion; the beafts of the foreft fly; and humble fear proftrates the haughty heart of man. NOTHING can be more nobly terrible, than the former part of this defcription, nor more affecting and touching than the laft! For my own part, I never read it, but my blood was curdled, and my pride quelled. He goes on:" He (that is Jupiter) beats "down Atka, or Rhodope, or the lofty Cerau"nian promontory, with his red-hot boits: "The winds double, and the fhowers thicken; "the forefts and the fhores refound." You fee the lightnings fly, in this description. You hear the rattling of the thunder in that noble line (and the beginning of the next); Aut Atho, aut Rhodopen, aut alta Ceraunia tela Dejicit: You hear the crafh of the falling mountains; the thickening fhower patters in your ears, and the tempeft roars. ALL this is, unquestionably, noble :—but the reader will obferve this effential and truly poetic difference between the two defcriptions; that in Virgil, every thing but the thunder is natural action; and even that is acted and wielded with dreadful force, the effect of which motion is an earthquake. IN David, the whole universe is animated at the presence of GOD, affrighted at his wrath, and obedient to his beck! God is angry; and the earth trembles; and coals kindle at his breath; and hail-ftones fly before him. VIRGIL'S Jupiter wields his thunders: JEHOVAH Commands his, and they obey. Jupiter deals about his bolts in the attitude of an heated hero; or, to speak more properly, a giant of refiftless ftrength! JEHOVAH but fends out his arrows; they know what to do; they tear and difperfe, and his lightning confounds. JUPITER is angry, and he beats down a mountain! JEHOVAH is Wroth, and the earth feels it; and the foundations of the mountains are toffed to and fro, tremble and shake like the joints of an affrighted man! At one blast of his breath the ocean opens to her deepest chanels; and the foundations of the earth are bared before him. In a word; Virgil's description is truly noble; but David's beyond all expreffion grand! To all this may be added, that David wrote first and if Ovid read Mofes, poffibly Virgil read David. I believe he read David, because I am fure he read Ifaiah. THIS, at least, must be allowed, that earthquakes are not the natural effects of thunder. They are united in David's description, and so they are in Virgil's: they are the effect of God's wrath, in David; they are the effects of the angry motion of Jupiter's right hand, in Virgil, Ir must also be owned, that Virgil's Jupiter, in a night of clouds, is very like David's JEHOVAH, encompaffed with darkness in the waters of the clouds of heaven! In this, indeed, JEHOVAH has the advantage, that his glory cannot be wholly fhrouded; fome gleams of it ftill flash out as he paffes, and difpel the clouds. I BEG to conclude with one fhort obfervation, and that is, that the painting in the 12th and 13th verses of this pfalm, is, to my imagination, by much the finest I ever faw in poetry: At the brightness before him his clouds paffed awy; hail ftones and coals of fire. And the Lord thundered in the heavens, and the Most High gave his voice; hail-ftones and coals of fire. The poet was too transported to wait for auxiliary verbs, and connecting particles! The defcription is to me a noble picture, in which the gufts of hail, and flashes of fire, burft out from the clouds with as much spirit and force as in a real tempeft. Ir is now time to return, and refume the thread of our history. WHEN Saul found, that David had intirely efcaped the purfuers, he fummoned a council, (whether the fanhedrim, or what is now underflood by a privy council, or a more general council of the flates, is hard to say) that he might opprefs him more fecurely under the fanction of their judgment: they met accordingly, and made no fcruple to ratify the pleasure of their prince by their wicked decifions. This decifion, as Dr. Patrick thinks, and the title of the pfalm imports, is what David reproves in the first verse of the Iviiith pfalm: Do ye indeed fpeak righteousness, congregation? Do ye judge uprightly, O ye fons of men? FROM David's calling them the congregation, it is probable, that this was a general council of the people; and, from this time, all Saul's attempts and machinations against David had all the warrant and authority of a public national prosecution. CHAP. X. David flies to Samuel to Ramah. Saul purfues him thither. What enfued thereupon. David returns to Jonathan at Gibeah, and is again obliged to fly. Their folemn Covenant and exquifite Diftrefs at parting. DAVID, once more delivered, flies to Ra mah to Samuel; by whom, in all probability, he hoped to be protected, or, at least, concealed for a feason. FLYING to the prophet, was flying to the more immediate protection of Almighty God; and GOD, in whom he confided, failed him not; for Samuel, to whom he related the whole train of Saul's treacheries, and the divine deliverances, received and returned with him to his prophetic college |