metimes the same, but thej a differ. Both kinds of verse an' mixed in tl : I) order t.> carry out these rules, tiny are sup-
i.l.ni. nted by one which gives to the \ <r-iii<r the widest Words and verses an- contracted or lengthened at will, by Byucope, elision, '■!<•. In addition to this. the bishop was under the necessity of maintaining that all grammarians had hitherto erred in laying down the rules ..i' •. r.linary punctuation. His Bystem, if it may led, carries it- own refutation with it. but was considered by Lowth to hi- worthy a reply under the till., of Metrica Hariana Brevis ConfiUatio, printed at the end "t his /'■ Sacra /'.».■••. //</<. Pralectumes, etc.
Anton Metro Heb. Ant-. Lips. 1770), admit- ting tin- metre !•• be regulated by the accents, endeav- ored to prove that in tin- Bebrew poems there was a highly artistic ami regular system, like that of the Greeks and Romans, consisting of strophes, antistrophes, epodes, and tin. like; but his method is as arbitrary as I rhe theory of Lautwein ( Vt rsuch < iner richlir u vonderbibl. !'./>/».-. I ilb. 177.. is an im- provemenl upon those of his predecessors, inasmuch as • the measurement oi verse by long and short syllables, and marks the Bcansion by the tone accent. 1 !ii than a free rhythm : the verses are distinguished by a certain relation in their contents, and connected by a poetic euphony. Sir W. Jones .Poet. Isiat. 177 1 1 attempted to apply the rules of Arabic metre to Bebrew. Be regarded as a long syllable one which terminated in a consonant or lettei n. ~. ■. : but he did not develop any system. The present Arabic prosody, however, i- of comparatively modern invention; and it is nol consist- ent with probability that there could be any syste f
tion among the Hebrews like that imagined by
Mr \V. Jones, when in the example he quote a of i lant.
first clause of the verse to the second,
i the tit nth kind of Arabic metre.
Jobi, etc., 1791) believed that in
1 and Syriac, there was a n* tre,
• d by the false orthography of
Hi i In r. fore assumed for the Bebrew
and with this modification he
: i . and tetrameters to be
1 i lays down the
rdingly. Bellermann
thi last who ai- r»rth the old Hebrew mi tres. He "''"I'1, ' i I vocalization,
rmined thequ i
h in." de-
miisi have three
yUable whii h has the t accent maj
her four ..r two, but g< nerally three,
nu ar. |
Bbort vowel, one; every consonant, whether single or double, ha Shiva .simple or composite is
not reckoned. The quiescent letters have no more. Dagesh forU compensative has one; so has metheg. The majority of dissyllabic and trisyllabic words, hav- ing the accent on the last syllable, will thus form iam- bics and anapaests. But as many have the accent on the penultimate, these will form trochees. The most en mm. .n kinds of leet are iambics and anapaests, inter- changing with trochees and tribrachs. • n vi rsea com- feet, though not uniform as regards the numbers of the feet, consist, according t.i Bellermann, the poems of the Bebrew Scriptures.
Among those who believed in the existence of a He- brew metre, but in the impossibility of recovering it. were Carpzov, Lowth, Pfeiffer, Berder to a certain ex- tent,Jahn, Bauer, and Bnxtorf. The opinions of Lowth, with regard to Bebrew metre, ar.- summed up byJebb (Sacr. Lit. p. 16) as follows: "He begins by asserting that certain of the Hebrew writings are not only ani- mated with the true poetic spirit, but in some degree couched in poetic numbers; yet he allows that the quantity, the rhythm, or modulation of Hebrew poetry. not only is unknown, hut admits of no investigation by human art or industry; lie states, after Aharhanel. that the Jews themselves disclaim the very memory of met- rical i position; he acknowledges that the artificial
conformation of the sentences is the sole indication of metre in these poems; he barely maintains the credi- bility of attention having been paid to numbers or feet in their compositions; and at the same time he con- fesses the utter impossibility of determining whether Bebrew poetry was modulated by the ear alone, or ac- cording to any definite and settled ruh- of prosody." The opinions ofScaliger and Vossius have already been referred to. Vitringa allows to Isaiah a kind of orato- rial measure, hut adds that it could not on thi- account he rightly termed poetry. Michaelis (Not. 4 in Prml. iii), in his notes on Lowth, held that there never was luetic iii Bebrew, hut only a free rhythm, as in recita- tive, though even less trammelled. He declared him- self against the Masoretic distinction of long and short vowels, and made the rhythm to depend upon the tone syllable; adding, with regard to fixed and regular me- tre, that what has evaded such diligent .-.arch he thought had no existence. On the subject of the rhythmical character of Bebrew poetry, as opposed to metrical, the remarks of Jebb an- remarkably appropri- ate. " Bebrew poetry," he Bays I Sacr. I'd. p. 20), •• is universal poetry; the poetry of all languages, and of all peoples: the collocation of words (whatever may have been i be sound, for of thi- we are quite ignorant I i- pri- marily directed to secure the best possible announcement and discrimination of the scum-: 1. 1. then, a translator only be literal, and. so far as the genius of his language will permit, let him preserve the original order of the words, and he will infallibly put the nader in possession i.l all, or nearly all. thai the Bebrew text ^:.\\ give tO