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ous degrees of success, all respectable and some of distinguished excellence. Of the Prometheus, the most distinguished is perhaps that by the poetess Miss Barrett. Of the Agamemnon, by far the best, previously we mean to that placed at the head of this notice, is the poetical translation by Mr. Symmons. In our country, these two plays have also been much studied. Both have been published in the original, with English commentaries, and both have been translated the Prometheus twice and the Agamemnon once. Of all the translations which have yet appeared in English, Mr. Herbert's, recently published from the university press in our American Cambridge, is by far the best. Mr. Herbert is a gentleman of thorough classical education, known for many years as an able writer, long practised both in prose and poetry. Among his most distinguished productions, showing at once his genius and his learning, we may mention his classical romance, entitled the Roman Traitor, in which a bold, and we think a successful attempt is made to paint the times in which the gigantic plot of Catiline was formed, and the noble character of Cicero is the chief figure in the foreground. Mr Herbert, therefore, addressed himself to the task of rendering the lofty spirit of Aeschylus into English, thoroughly prepared for the difficulty of the work. How great that difficulty is, need not be said to any classical scholar; how admirably this difficulty has been overmatched in the volume before us, will be seen by any one who will take the trouble to compare a page or two with the original text. Mr. Herbert is thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the elder English writers. His style is uncorrupted by any of the meretricious neologians of the day. No man of his age has written more for the periodical journals, and for the daily consumption of an omnivorous reading public that many-headed helluo librorum - for whose insatiable appe

tite so many geese are plucked, and so many iron pens are busily at work. But his style has come out from all these perverting influences as chaste as the Lady passed amidst the rabble rout of Comus. Milton, Shakspeare, and the English Bible are the triple fountain from which the clear stream of his poetic language flows. Hence the unapproached felicity with which the solemn grandeur of Aeschylus is reproduced; the wonderful aptness with which each shade of Aeschylean thought is painted in the copy. We seem to read, not a translation, but an original work of some mighty master of the elder ages: and yet the English runs as closely with the words of the Greek as the version of the most toilsome interpreter in a College lecture room. In the poetic forms which Mr. Herbert has adopted, he shows the nice taste and tact of an artist. The iambic trimeters are rendered into the English ten-syllable blank-verse not only the rhythm of epic poetry, but fixed forever by the great masters of the drama, as the form for tragic dialogue. The anapaestic measures are given

in corresponding English anapaests, and the more complicated lyrical movements, whose rhythmical effect, in the original, depended upon a certain musical adaptation which we have forever lost, and which without that, are but faintly appreciable, he has wisely given in recognized English lyrical measures. In this respect, we think Mr. Herbert has been truer to the antique spirit than any of the German translators, who have undertaken the Sisyphean toil, as Menzel calls it, of rolling the rough rune-stone of German poetry up the Grecian Parnassus, by reproducing the original, syllable by syllable and beat by beat.

We do not always agree with Mr. Herbert, in his interpretation of doubtful passages, as for instance where, (l. 444 of his version, 1. 382 in Klausen's text) he renders Φάσμα δόξει δόμων ἀνάσσειν, Ghostlike through his house he stalks. We think the words refer to Helen, and we should translate them, her phantom shall seem to rule the house. To our minds this is more poetical, and more in harmony with the exquisite lines, which follow immediately after, describing the "dream-appearing visions, bringing an empty joy," and contrasting, as it were while introducing the haunting imagination of her being present still by day. We readily admit, ' however, Sir Roger de Coverley's formula that "a great deal may be said on both sides."

We trust Mr. Herbert will go on and finish the task he has so ably begun. If he does, he will make a permanent contribution to our literature, and erect a monument of his own learning and genius, which will stand the test of criticism and time.

III. BAHR ON SOLOMON'S TEMPLE.1

This book is a sequel to an earlier work of the same author on the symbolic character of the Mosaic ritual. (Symbolik des Mosaischen Cultus. 2Bde. 1837. 9.) Its design is to show the religious significancy of Solomon's temple, in its architectural plan and various furniture. The description which is given in the Bible of the outward appearance of the temple is too meagre to allow of any attempt to present a drawing of it. On the contrary the description of the interior is very minute and leaves scarcely anything to be desired. The outward form, however, a precise knowledge of which is indispensable to the artist who would give us a picture of the temple, is of comparatively little importance as it respects its religious significancy. The house was simply rectilinear in its form,

1 Der Salomonische Temple mit Berücksichtigung seines verhältnisses zur heiligen Architectur überhaupt. (The Solomonic Temple considered in its relation to sacred Architecture generally). Von Dr. Carl. Chr. W. F. Bähr. Svo. Carlsruhe 1848 pp. 352.

60 cubits in length, 20 cubits in breadth, and the height thereof was 30 cubits. But in 6: 20, the height of the Holy of Holies is said to be 20 cubits. The author enters into a long examination of the various attempts made to account for this difference. He thinks there is no sufficient evidence that there was a chamber over the oracle. It is only in 1 Kings 6: 2 that the height of the house is stated to be 30 cubits. In the parallel passage 2 Chron. 3: 2 the length and breadth of the house are given as in 1 Kings 6: 2, but the height is not mentioned. This omission was hardly to be expected, if the height were really 30 cubits, for this would be a change from the proportions of the tabernacle, while in every other respect the proportions of the temple were analogous to those of the tabernacle. In the temple of Zerubbabel, the height and breadth were equal, and the description in 1 Kings vi. subsequent to v. 2, implies that the height of the temple was but 20 cubits. For there we read that Solomon measured off 20 cubits upon the sides of the house for the oracle, so that 40 cubits remained for the holy place, and the oracle or most holy place was 20 cubits in length and 20 cubits in breadth and 20 cubits in the height thereof. Probably in the original manuscripts numerals were designated by letters and not written out in words, and in this way a mistake may have been made by copyists in 1 Kings 6: 2 respecting the height of the temple. The porch was probably no higher than the main body of the house (the number 120 in 2 Chron. 3: 4 incorrect); it was 20 cubits in breadth, covering therefore the entire front of the temple, and was 10 cubits deep. Its front was entirely open. Before it and quite near were the two pillars Jachin and Boaz, and the lily work upon the top of the pillars extended to the roof of the porch.

The fundamental idea of the temple is, that it is a house of God, the dwelling place of Jehovah. 1 Kings 8: 13. 2 Chron. 6: 2. At the first glance this seems to rest upon an anthropopathic conception of the nature of God, as if God like a man needed a house to dwell in. That however Solomon was free from any such conception, appears from his subsequent declaration, 1 Kings 8: 27. 2 Chron. 6: 18. What then did Solomon mean by God's dwelling in a house while at the same time he confesses the infinity of God? The answer is plain if we review the history of the Israelitish people. They had been chosen by God from among the other nations of the earth to be his peculiar people, and on the conclusion of the covenant made upon Sinai followed the command of Jehovah. Ex. 25: 8-Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in the midst of them. This dwelling in the midst of them was a sign and pledge of the covenant made with them. Cf. Lev. 26: 11. Ez. 37: 26, 27. Rev. 21: 3.

The temple is called the dwelling of the name of the Lord. 1 Kings 8: 16, 20, 29. 2 Chron. 6: 5, 6. This implies that the temple was a place

where God would reveal himself, for the name of a person is that by which he is known, the name of God is God so far as he reveals himself. The rectangular form of the temple with its front towards the east was typical of heaven, as appears from the well known expression "four ends of heaven." The length is thrice the breadth. Three is the number of true and complete totality. The length, breadth, and height are in their dimensions divisible by ten. Ten appears as a determining number in the measurements of whatever belongs to the temple. In the Holiest, the cherubim were ten cubits high, and from the uttermost part of one wing to the uttermost part of the other wing were ten cubits. In the temple were ten candlesticks, and ten tables; in the court ten lavers. The altar was ten cubits in height and twice ten cubits in breadth and length. The brazen sea was ten cubits in diameter, and of the flowers which adorned its brim there were ten to every cubit. The brazen pillars bear on their capitals two rows of pomegranates, each of which consists of ten times ten. The porch is ten cubits in breadth and twice ten in length. The chambers on the side of the temple in their breadth and height show the ten broken, the half ten, and are thereby denoted as subordinate parts of the building. If it be asked, why is ten the determining number, the answer is plain, viz. that the decalogue is the fundamental constitution of the nation, and ten is therefore the number of the covenant, and the various parts of the temple are to point to this, like radii to a centre.

The walls of the house within were not smooth and plain, but presented in relief the forms of cherubim, palm trees and flowers. The cherubim signify the entire creation as revealing the perfections of the Creator. The palm tree is one of the noblest trees of the East, and moreover was a symbol of the land of Palestine. On the medals struck in commemoration of the overthrow of Jerusalem by Titus, there was a palm tree with the inscription, Judaea capta. The meaning of the flowers is the same that they have among all people. They denote a condition of joy and prosperity, which condition in all languages is denoted as a flourishing

one.

The ark of the covenant is to be regarded as the heart of the entire sanctuary, and because of it, the apartment in which it was kept, was called the most holy place. The mercy seat upon it was the throne of Jehovah, and the thick darkness in which Jehovah dwelt was a significant symbol of the mysterious nature of his being.

The vessels of the temple were essentially the same as those of the tabernacle, and the reader is referred to the author's earlier work for a fuller exhibition of their symbolic meaning. The significancy of the two brazen pillars, Jachin and Boaz, is determined from the etymology of the words.from, to make firm, and 1, compounded of 12 and 15,

in it is strength. Both names are grounded in one idea, that of firmness or durability, and mark the contrast between the temple and the tabernacle.

The subject last treated of in this volume is the relation of Solomon's temple to the sacred buildings of other religions. It was not made in imitation of any other temple of antiquity. Its plan grew out of the religious idea which it was to express, and was as different from that of any heathen temple as the Jewish religion was different from that of any other nation of the earth. Its essential principle was also different from that of Christian architecture. Solomon built God a house, and the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies was a local throne of Jehovah. But the early Christians rejected the idea that a building erected by human hands could be regarded as a dwelling place of God. Yet as Christianity was no mere negation of Judaism, but its fulfilment, it did not entirely destroy the temple of the former theocracy, but in its place erected a new and living temple. Ye, says the apostle to the Christian church, ye are the temple of God, ye are God's building. Only indirectly, therefore, through the medium of the church could the building in which a Christian congregation met together to worship God, be called a Domus Dei.

IV. THE JORDAN AND THE DEAD SEA.

We have condensed some of the more material facts in relation to the Jordan and the Dead Sea from Lieut. Lynch's explorations. We are not surprised to learn that the work has a rapid sale, six editions, with an aggregate of 11,000 copies, having been published. The proceeds are most laudably devoted to the orphan children of Lieut. Dale.

Lieut. Lynch commenced his passage down the Jordan on the 10th of April 1848, at 3. 40 P. M, and on the 18th at 3. 25 P. M., entered the Dead Sea. In a space of sixty miles of latitude and four or five of longitude, the Jordan was found to traverse at least 200 miles. The river was then in the latter stage of a freshet. Twenty-seven threatening rapids were passed besides many of lesser magnitude. The course on the first day, April 10th, after leaving the lake of Galilee, varied from S. to N. W. by N., the general inclination west. The current was two and a half knots, the water clear and sweet. The lake was concealed, though very near. The soil of the banks is a dark rich loam, luxuriantly covered with flowers. Large boulders of sandstone and trap are scattered over the surface. The party stopped just below the ruins of an old bridge, el-Jisr Semakh. These ruins consist of two entire and six partial abutments, and the ruins of another on each shore. The scenery, as they left the lake and advanced into the Ghor, which was here about three

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