But whatever may have been achieved by his pred- ecessors, there can be no question that the delivery of Lowth's lectures on Hebrew poetry, and the subse- quent publication of his translation of Isaiah, formed an a?ra in the literature of the subject more marked than any that had preceded it. Of his system we have already given (§ i) a somewhat detailed account, which we here slightly expand ; for whatever may have been done since his time, and whatever modifications of his arrangement may have been introduced, all subsequent writers have confessed their obligations to the two works above mentioned, and have drawn their in- spiration from them. Starting with the -alphabetical poems as the basis of his investigation, because in them the verses or stanzas were more distinctly marked, Lowth came to the conclusion that they consist of verses properly so called, " of verses regulated by some observation of harmony or cadence ; of measure, num- bers, or rhythm," and that this harmony does not arise from rhyme, but from what he denominates parallelism. Parallelism he defines to be the correspondence of one verse or line with another, and divides it into three classes — synonymous, antithetic, and synthetic.
(a.) Parallel lines synonymous correspond to each other by expressing the same sense in different but equivalent terms, as in the following examples, which are only two of the many given by Lowth :
POETRY
324
POETliV
"O-Jehovnh, in-thv-strength thc-king ehnll-rej And-in-thy-salvatlon 1 ill-ne-exu!t I
inted unto-him ; Am: is-lipe thoa-hast-not denied"
" For th tnent :
And-the-worra ehall-eat-them like v
Bnt-m] -ever:
And-my-salvation to-l ,7, - .
It will be observed from the examples which Lowth giv< - thai the | ..ir.i 11»-1 lines Bometiraea consiBl ol three <ir more Byi ymous terms, sometimes "i two, some- times only of one. Sometimes 1 1 j • - line- coi of ■ double member, <>r two propositions, as Psa. cxliy, . Ixv, 21, 22. Parallels are formed also by a repetition "i part of the iir~t - Lxxvii, l.
II. 16; [sa. xxvi, 6, 6; II"-. \ i. I : and sometimes a pari has to be supplied from the formi r to complete the - m. wii. II: Job \wi. •'•: [sa. xli, 28). Parallel triplets occur in Job iii, I. 6, 9; Psa. cxii, 10; i : Joel iii, 13. Examples of parallels of four lines, in which two distichs form one stanza, are Psa. xxxvii, 1,2; [sa.i,8; xlix. l: Amos i, 2. In periods of five lines the odd fine sometimes comes in between two distichs, as in Job viii, 5, 6 ; [sa. xlvi, 7 ; I los. xiv, . 16; or after two distichs closes the stanza, . xliv, 26. Alternate parallelism in stanzas of four lines is found in Psa.ciii, II, 12; [sa.xxx, 16; bul the most striking examples of the alternate quatrain are Deut xxxii, 25, 12, the first line forming :i contin- •■■ uiili the third, and the second with the fourth (comp. [sa. xxxiv,6; Gen. xlix, 6). In [sa. 1, 10 we find an alternate quatrain followed by a fifth this lir-t division of Lowth's Jebb objects thai the name synonymous is inappropriate, for the second clause, with few exceptions, "diversifies the preceding clause, and generally so as to rise above it, forming a sort "i climax in the Bense." This peculiarity was rec- ognized bj Lowth himself in his Ith Preelection, where "idem iterant, variant, augent," thus marking a cumulative force in this kind of parallelism. The same was observed by Apb. Newcome in his Preface ic. Ezekiel, where examples .-ire given in which "the following clauses bo diversify the preceding ones as to ■ them" il-a. xlii. 7; xliii. 16; lVa.xcv.L': <-iv. I ). Jebb, in Bupporl of his own opinion, appeals t.. the passages quoted by Lowth (Psa. xxi. 12; cvii, . and suggests as a more appropriate i parallelis I this Kind. cognaU parallelism
.\ ill - second division i- antitlietic parallelism; when two lines correspond with each other by an oppo- sition "t terms and m ntiments; when the second is con- trasted with the first, sometimes in expressions, some- times in sense only, s,i thai the degrees of antithesis are various. As rr i sample:
rejolceth ids father; 1 sou la the grief of his mother"
\ . x, 1). lory of Ihe jnsl i- a blessing;
1 the Hi brews abounds with illus-
irallelism. Other examples &r£
f Jehovah om <iod will bestrontr
- in in."
10, i i : [sa. liv, I": Lx,
irallelism Jebb appropri-
\tUhttic parall ' Berves to
lnnrk ,!" ti ith and false-
1
the more difficult and more critical fundi f
''"""""' '""■' truth and
I .hi the
here the parallel "consists only in the similar form ol
lien: in which word does not answer to word and sen- tence i" bi utence, as equivalent or opposite; but there is a correspondence and equality between different prop- ositions, in respeel of the shape and turn of the « hole sentence, and of the constructive parts — such as noun answering to noun, verb to verb, member to membi r,
negative i igative, interrogative to interrogative."
One of ile i samples of constructive parallels given by Lowth is [sa. I, 5, 6 :
1 Jehovah bath opened mine ear, And l was not rebellious; Neither did I withdraw myself backward —