pancy, even the latter testifying, through its very irreverence, to the arrowy momentum and tenacity of these winged words.

As instances of an average sort of allusion, remarkable neither for elevation nor smartness, I select two or three from a single volume of Matthew Arnold's essays (the italics are mine).

He [Wordsworth] is one of the very chief glories of English Poetry; and by nothing is England so glorious as by her poetry. Let us lay aside every weight which hinders our getting him recognized as this.

What we have of Shelley in poetry and prose suited with this charming picture of him; Mrs. Shelley's account suited with it; it was a possession which one would gladly have kept unimpaired. It still subsists, I must now add; it subsists even after one has read the present biography; it subsists, but so as by fire.

It [society] looked in Byron's glass as it looks in Lord Beaconsfield's, and sees, or fancies that it sees, its own face there; and then it goes its way, and straightway forgets what manner of man it saw.

When a writer, with a native. vigor, lightness, and rapidity of his own, has become wholly permeated, as it were, with the thought and diction of the Bible, so that he has acquired its tone and manner, and yet kept himself above the condition of the mere servile and mechanical copyist, we have from him such a clear, simple, and picturesque style as that of Bunyan. Such writing has an archaic flavor, yet is intelligible to the meanest capacity; may be full of quotation, yet perfectly assimilates all that it quotes; abounds in allusion which it never degrades; but is best in that it seems to have drawn from the same perennial fountains as the Bible itself, instead of merely standing to it in a dependent and derivative relation. One or two familiar extracts from Bunyan will serve as illustrations.

As I walked through the wilderness of this world, I lighted on a certain place, where was a Den; and I laid me down in that place to sleep: and as I slept I dreamed a Dream. I dreamed, and behold I saw a man clothed with Rags, standing in a certain place, with his face from his own House, a Book in his hand, and a great burden upon his back. I looked, and saw him open the book, and read therein; and as he read, he wept and trembled; and not being able longer to contain, he brake out with a lamentable cry, saying, What shall I do?

Now I saw in my Dream that these two men went in at the Gate; and lo, as they entered, they were transfigured, and they had Raiment put on that shone like Gold. There were also that met them with Harps and Crowns, and gave them to them, the Harp to praise withal, and the Crowns in token of honor. Then I heard in my Dream that all the Bells in the City Rang again for joy, and that it was said unto them, Enter ye into the joy of your Lord. I also heard the men themselves, that they sang with a loud voice, saying, Blessing, Honor, Glory, and Power be to Him that sitteth upon the Throne, and to the Lamb for ever and ever.

In such examples as these we can study the Biblical style to better advantage, perhaps, than in the Bible itself. While preserving the essential qualities of Hebraic diction, Bunyan presents them at one remove from antiquity and its aloofness. Bunyan is a man of our own race, living but yesterday, as it were, in comparison with the centuries which separate us from the authors of the Bible. Moreover, in studying Bunyan we are not only studying Biblical style in English, but we are studying English itself at an epoch when, according to one of the most accomplished of foreign critics, it reached its best estate. Let us hear what Villemain has to say upon this topic. The time he is speaking of is the Restoration, and of it he affirms: "English idiom then attained its happiest epoch; it was taking on refinement without becoming impoverished; it still, like the ancient Northern languages, had its whole rich supply of native, energetic, concise expressions. With these it had blended a strong tincture of Biblical imagination. Besides, though it appropriated in passing many French words, it only employed them, so to speak, as proper names and fashionable phrases, and in no respect changed the primitive originality of its exact and elliptical constructions, and the energy of its numberless metaphors. In this respect it did not model itself upon less regular and less poetic tongues; it remained in possession of its own physiognomy and of all its vigor."

We now approach our subject proper. What is the literary quality which the Bible possesses, and which it has therefore been communicating to English for nearly thirteen hundred years? In

1 Tableau de la littérature au XVIIIe Siècle, I. 88.

asking this question, we refer to the Bible as if it were a single book, instead of being, as its very name signifies, a collection of books, each with its own peculiarities, and differing as widely as an impassioned lyric from a mere genealogy, as the detached aphorisms of the Book of Proverbs from the intricate arguments of the Epistles by Paul. But the term is convenient, and, after all, there is little danger of misunderstanding. Every one recognizes the main characteristics of Bible diction in general, though he may never have been at the pains to define to himself just what those characteristics are. To my mind they may be summed up in a very brief phrase. Whatever their number or variety, I think they may all be comprehended under a single term, noble naturalness.

But the phrase, noble naturalness, may be vague enough to stand in need of further definition. By 'natural' in its application to men and women, and the books which concern men and women, I mean 'conformable to human nature,' and by 'unnatural,' 'contrary to human nature, either in whole or in part.' Human nature may, for this purpose, be regarded as made up of sensibility, intellect, imagination, and will. A book whose arguments are an insult to intelligence is unnatural; but so is also, in some sense, a book which does not address the intellect at all. The latter sort of book may be called unnatural through defect. With this qualification, no book can be said to be thoroughly natural which does not address the whole man. The predominance of any one element of human nature to the virtual exclusion of the rest is sufficient, in a man or a book, to constitute a kind of unnaturalness. It is in this sense, therefore, that the Bible possesses eminent naturalness, as I shall attempt to show more at length in the sequel; and if to this naturalness be added an accent of dignity or elevation, the product will be what I have called noble naturalness.

Matthew Arnold has devoted a large part of his admirable essay On Translating Homer to the proof and elucidation of four statements concerning the style of Homer. In one place, by way of summary, he says: "Homer is rapid in his movement, Homer is plain in his words and style, Homer is simple in his ideas, Homer

is noble in his manner."

An expansion of his thought is found in

another passage, as follows: "The translator of Homer should above all be penetrated by a sense of four qualities of his author;

that he is eminently rapid; that he is eminently plain and direct, both in the evolution of his thought and in the expression of it, that is, both in his syntax and in his words; that he is eminently plain and direct in the substance of his thought, that is, in his matter and ideas; and finally that he is eminently noble."

Let us assume that the fact is as Matthew Arnold alleges, and that, viewed in relation to most authors, Homer's narrative is uniformly rapid, plain, simple, and noble. How does the Homeric narrative compare in these respects with those of the Bible? Evidently it is with respect to narrative that Homer and the Bible should be compared, if they are compared at all, for it is this department of literature that Homer represents. For the answer to this question I may refer to Chateaubriand's parallel on p. lxiii. I do this with the more confidence, as I am assured by my colleague, Professor Seymour, whose authority on the subject of Homer is not likely to be impugned on this side of the Atlantic, that Chateaubriand has in no respect misrepresented the Homeric style, and that an objection on this score cannot be made to lie against his paraphrase of the verses from Ruth. But, leaving Chateaubriand's parallel out of consideration, and appealing to the consciousness of what the old Morality calls Everyman, did any one ever think a New Testament parable too long, too involved, or too mean? Did any one ever think so of any Gospel narrative whatever, of the Offering of Isaac by Abraham, or the Story of Joseph ? Here, then, we might rest the claim for the noble naturalness of the Biblical style. What can be more natural than that which, without demanding conscious effort, calls up a grateful echo in the heart of every man, and offends no one by the excess of any quality in itself good?

But to pursue the subject somewhat further into detail. I have referred above to a division of human nature into sensibility, intellect, imagination, and will. To each of these corresponds a species of writing which is addressed to it, and constitutes its

aliment. Thus mathematics, and philosophy viewed in one aspect, appeal chiefly to the intellect; certain kinds of poetry affect almost exclusively the sensibilities, or the imagination, or both conjointly. Again, exhortations to resolve and action are primarily directed at the will, though they may call in the aid of the allied faculties. French critics, particularly those of the classical school, are wont to assert that in French literature the intellect, or reason, is supreme, other faculties being kept in strict subordination to this one. In Carlyle, on the other hand, we might say that the pure intellect is somewhat in abeyance; in much of Shelley's verse that both the intellect and the will are comparatively disregarded. With the Bible it is otherwise. Speaking broadly, it is pervaded at once by a rational element, a sensuous element, an imaginative element, and an animating or motive element. It is the union of these in due proportions which constitutes full and perfect naturalness, and such union we have in many parts of the Bible.

There is

The Scriptures everywhere postulate intellect -or the absence of it; but only in a small minority of instances is it dealt with in what may be called the way of argument, or reasoning. no attempt to convert men from their errors by ratiocinative or philosophical processes. A right state of mind is denoted by such words as understanding, or wisdom. This is conceived as the direct gift of God, and connotes much besides clearness of intellectual vision. To the perfection of wisdom a right state of the will and affections is assumed as necessary, and thus we are led back to a consideration of human nature in its totality.

The presence of imagination in the Bible will need no proof. Who that has read the Psalms, or the Prophets, or the Apocalypse, can doubt it for a moment? And who will have any more hesitation in recognizing that the guidance of the will is perhaps the primary purpose which underlies history and precept, proverb, hymn, and vision of seer?

The sensuous element is perceptible in the metaphoric language and in the rhythm. However lofty or sublime be the sentiment, the diction is concrete, never abstract. Every chapter — with