Besides, to call parallelism a coarse or uncouth rhythm, betrays an ignorance of its nature. Without entering at large on the subject of Hebrew versification, we may ask any one who has paid even a slight attention to the subject, if the effect of parallels such as the foregoing examples, perpetually intermingled as they are, be not to enliven the composition, often to give distinctness and precision to the train of thought, to impress the sentiments upon the memory, and to give out a harmony which, if inferior to rhyme in the compression produced by the difficulty (surmounted) of uniting varied sense with recurring sound, and in the pleasure of surprise; and to blank verse, in freedom, in the effects produced by the variety of pause, and in the force of long and linked passages, as well as of insulated lines, is less slavish than the one, and less arbitrary than the other? Unlike rhyme, its point is more that of thought than of language; unlike blank verse, it never can, however managed, degenerate into heavy prose. Such is parallelism, which generally forms the differential quality of the poetry of Scripture, although there are many passages in it destitute of this aid, and which yet, in the spirit they breathe, and the metaphors by which they are garnished, are genuine and high poetry. And there can be little question that in the parallelism of the Hebrew tongue we can trace many of the peculiarities of modern writing, and in it find the fountain of the rhythm, the pomp and antithesis, which lend often such grace, and always such energy, to the style of Johnson, of Junius, of Burke, of Hall, of Chalmers,-indeed, of most writers who rise to the grand swells of prose-poetry. SIMILARITY OF SOUND. There is a remarkable similarity of sound in a passage in the Second Book of Kings, ch. iii. v. 4, to the metrical rhythm of Campbell's Battle of the Baltic: A hundred thousand lambs, And a hundred thousand rams, With the wool. By each gun the lighted brand, And the Prince of all the land Led them on. PARALLEL PASSAGES BETWEEN SHAKSPEARE AND THE BIBLE. An English minister, Rev. T. R. Eaton, has written a work entitled Shakspeare and the Bible, for the purpose of showing how much Shakspeare was indebted to the Bible for many of his illustrations, rhythms, and even modes of feeling. The author affirms that, in storing his mind, the immortal bard went first to the word, and then to the works, of God. In shaping the truths derived from these sources, he obeyed the instinct implanted by Him who had formed him Shakspeare. Hence his power of inspiring us with sublime affection for that which is properly good, and of chilling us with horror by his fearful delineations of evil. Shakspeare perpetually reminds us of the Bible, not by direct quotations, indirect allusion, borrowed idioms, or palpable imitation of phrase or style, but by an elevation of thought and simplicity of diction which are not to be found elsewhere. A passage, for instance, rises in our thoughts, unaccompanied by a clear recollection of its origin. Our first impression is that it must belong either to the Bible or Shakspeare. No other author excites the same feeling in an equal degree. In Shakspeare's plays religion is a vital and active principle, sustaining the good, tormenting the wicked, and influencing the hearts and lives of all. Although the writer carries his leading idea too far, by straining passages to multiply the instances in which Shakspeare has imitated scriptural sentences in thought and construction, and by leading his readers to infer that it was from the Bible Shakspeare drew not only his best thoughts, but in fact his whole power of inspiring us with affection for good and horror for evil, it is certainly true that some hundreds of Biblical allusions, however brief and simple, show Shakspeare's conversance with the Bible, his fondness for it, and the almost unconscious recurrence of it in his mind. The following examples of his parallelisms will be found interesting: Othello.-Rude am I in speech.-i. 3. But though I be rude in speech.-2 Cor. xi. 6. Witches. Show his eyes and grieve his heart.—iv. 1. Dusty death alludes to the sentence pronounced against Adam: Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return.-Gen. iii. 19. Macbeth.-Life's but a walking shadow.-v. 5. Man walketh in a vain show.-Ps. xxxix. 6. Prince of Morocco.-Mislike me not for my complexion, The shadow'd livery of the burning sun.—Merch. Ven. ii. 1. Look not upon me, because I am black, because the sun hath looked upon me. Sol. Song, i. 6. Othello.-I took him by the throat, the circumcised dog, and smote him.v. 2. I smote him, I caught him by his beard and smote him, and slow him.1 Sam. xvii. 35. Macbeth.-Let this pernicious hour stand aye accursed in the calendar.iv. 1. Opened Job his mouth and cursed his day; let it not be joined unto the days of the year, let it not come into the number of the months.-Job iii. 1, 6. Hamlet.-What a piece of work is man! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculties! In form and moving, how express and admirable! In action, how like an angel! In apprehension, how like a God! The beauty of the world, the paragon of animals !—ii. 2. What is man, that thou art mindful of him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honor. Thou madest him to have dominion over the works of thy hands.Ps. viii. 4, 5, 6. Macbeth.-We will die with harness on our back.-v. 5. Nicanor lay dead in his harness.-2 Maccabees xv. 28. In the great hand of God I stand; and thence Against the undivulged pretence I fight Of treasonous malice.-Macbeth ii. 3. Thou hast also given me the shield of thy salvation; and thy right hand hath holden me up.-Ps. xviii. 35. Hermia and Lear both use an expression derived from the same source: Hermia. An adder did it; for with doubler tongue Than thine, thou serpent, never adder stung.-Mid. N. Dream, iii. 2. Lear.-Struck me with her tongue, Most serpent-like, upon the very heart.-ii. 4. They have sharpened their tongues like a serpent; adder's poison is under their lips.-Ps. cxl. 3. Lear.--All the stored vengeances of heaven fall on her ungrateful top.ii. 4. As for the head of those that compass me about, let the mischief of their own lips cover them.-Ps. cxl. 9. Fool to King Lear.-We'll send thee to school to an ant, to teach thee there's no laboring in the winter.—ii. 4. The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer.-Prov. xxx. 25. See also Prov. vi. 6. WHO IS THE TRUE GENTLEMAN? The answer to this question will afford one of numberless instances that may be adduced to show the superiority of sacred over profane composition. Compare Bishop Doane's admired definition with that of the Psalmist : A gentleman is but a gentle man-no more, no less; a diamond polished that was a diamond in the rough: a gentleman is gentle; a gentleman is modest; a gentleman is courteous; a gentleman is generous; a gentleman is slow to take offence, as being one that never gives it; a gentleman is slow to surmise evil, as being one that never thinks it; a gentleman goes armed only in consciousness of right; a gentleman subjects his appetites; a gentleman refines his tastes; a gentleman subdues his feelings; a gentleman controls his speech; and finally, a gentleman deems every other better than himself. In the paraphrase of Psalm xv. it is thus answered :— 'Tis he whose every thought and deed By rules of virtue moves; Whose generous tongue disdains to speak The thing his heart disproves. Who never did a slander forge, His neighbor's fame to wound, Nor hearken to a false report, By malice whispered round. And piety, though clothed in rags, Who to his plighted vows and trust Has ever firmly stood; And though he promise to his loss, His treasure to employ; Whom no rewards can ever bribe The guiltless to destroy.. MISQUOTATIONS FROM SCRIPTURE. "God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb."* From Sterne's Sentimental Journey to Italy. Compare Isaiah xxvii. 8. "In the midst of life we are in death." From the Burial Service; and this, originally, from a hymn of Luther. "Bread and wine which the Lord hath commanded to be received." From the English Catechism. "Not to be wise above what is written." Not in Scripture. "That the Spirit would go from heart to heart as oil from vessel to vessel." Not in Scripture. "The merciful man is merciful to his beast." The scriptural form is, "A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast."-Prov. xii. 10. "A nation shall be born in a day." In Isaiah it reads, "Shall a nation be born at once?"-lxvi. 8. "As iron sharpeneth iron, so doth a man the countenance of his friend." "Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend." Prov. xxvii. 17. "That he who runs may read." "That he may run that readeth."-Hab. ii. 2. "Owe no man any thing but love." "Owe no man any thing, but to love one another."-Rom. xiii. 8. "Prone to sin as the sparks fly upward." "Born to trouble as the sparks fly upward."-v. 7. "Exalted to heaven in point of privilege." Not in the Bible. Eve was not Adam's helpmate, but merely a help meet for him; nor was Absalom's long hair, of which he was so proud, the instrument of his destruction; his head, and not the hair upon it, having been caught in the boughs of the tree. (2 Samuel xviii. 9.) In a collection of proverbs published in 1594, we find, "Dieu mesure le vent à la brebis tondue," and Herbert has in his Jacula Prudentum, "To a close shorn sheep God gives wind by measure." † A London periwig-maker once had a sign upon which was painted Absalom suspended from the branches of the oak by his hair, and underneath the following couplet: If Absalom hadn't worn his own hair, |