•296 



Monthly Review of Literature. 



[March, 



" The law of Jehovah is perfect, converting the 

 soul; 

 Tlie testimony of Jehovah is sure, making wise 



the simple ; 

 The precepu of Jehovah arc right, rejoicing tlie 



heart; 

 The commandment of Jehovah is clear, enlighten- 

 ing the eyes," &c. 

 Bishop Jebb was the first who discovered 

 the introverted parallels : a discovei^ of 

 such importance, that it may be termed a 

 master-hey to the obscurities of the sacred 

 volume. ' It is a literaiy diamond of inesti- 

 mable value, which cannot be sufficiently 

 jiraised — we say nothing of reward — we 

 should have preferred the honour of the 

 discovery to the wealth of Golconda. This 

 parallel is so constmcted, that whatever 

 may be the number of the lines, the first is 

 parallel to the last, the second to the lust 

 but one, the third to the antepenultimate, and 

 so on. 



1. " And it shall come to pass on that day ; 



3. The great trumpet shall be sounded : 



5. And those shall come, who were perishing in 



the land of Assyria ; 

 C And who were dispersed in the land of 



Egypt; 



4. And they shall bow themselves down before 



Jehovah ; 



2. In the holy mountam in Jerusalem." 



Our limits will not permit us to enter 

 farther into this noble subject : we refer 

 the reader to Lowth, Jebb, Home, &c., 

 for illustrations of the Quatrain, stanzas 

 of various lengths, and all the varieties of 

 the Hebrew parallels. We must now en- 

 deavour to point out the degree of claim 

 due to jNIr. Boys for discoveries in the 

 same line. IMr. Boys lays claim to the 

 discovery of "parallels <f the first order," 

 wliich we imderstand, from the introduc- 

 tion of the Tactica Sacra, to be, reducing 

 whole epistles, or psalms, or chapters, to 

 one introverted parallelism, making all 

 other parallelisms the " second order." 

 This is a great claim, and may be termed 

 an extended view of the discovery of Dr. 

 Jebb. Kennicott, Archbishop Newton, 

 and Jebb, had recommended the mode of 

 printing adopted by Mr. Boys. 



" The stanzas or paragraphs should be so ranged, 

 as, by typographical indentures, to make the paral- 

 lelism of line with line, however remote from each 

 other, at once apparent to the eye." 



Bishop Jebb thus gives three verses of 

 the I. 35th Psalm: — 

 1. " The idols of the heathen are silver and gold : 



2. The work of men's hand ; 

 3. They have mouths, but they speak not ; 



4. They have eyes, but they see not ; 



5. They have ears, but they hear not ; 



C Neither is there any bre ith in their mouths ; 



7. They who make them arc like unto them : 

 8. So are all they who put their trust in them." 



" The parallelisms here marked out, will, it is 

 presumed, be found accurate. 1. Idolatrous hea- 

 then: fi. Those who put their trust in idols 2. The 



fabrication : 7. The fabricators.— 3. Mouths without 

 articulation : ti. Mouths without breath — 4. Kycs 

 without vision : o. Ears which hear not." 



The learned prelate adds, 



" Perhaps it may be no unreasonable conjecture, 

 that this, and similar instances of obviotti though ex- 

 tended parallelism, may have been provided, anions 

 otiicr purposes, as so many nwiftds and forms, b;/ 

 means of which, shape and consistency may hereafter 

 be given to passages, at present, if not wholly unin- 

 telligible, at least, ' liard to be understood.' " 



3Ir. Boys has certainly followed up this 

 conjecture ; we are, therefore, sur])rised at 

 not finding in his works the acknowledg- 

 ment in due form. It is true, that he says 

 in page 8, of " Tactica Sacra," 



" / am not going to show, though this I would un- 

 dertake to do, tfiat many long passages consist of a 

 succession of parallelisms : — sometfiing to that ^ect 

 has been already advanced by others .'" 



And in page 5-t of the introduction to 

 the work under review, he says : — 



" In referring to the more delicate task of sub- 

 division, ' Sacred Literature' is the work to which 

 our attention is naturally directed ; a work to which . 

 we are particularly indebted, for exhibiting with so 

 much originality, power and conviction, the Impor- 

 tant doctrine of the introverted parallelism." 



Unless we are much mistaken, the reader, 

 whose object is truth and justice, will ac- 

 cord with us, after reading the above quo- 

 tation from Dr. Jebb, that Mr. Boys has 

 not fully acknowledged the instruction lie 

 received from the prelate, and that Mr. 

 Boys cannot justly lay claim to the dis- 

 covery, but has only laboiu'cd with some 

 degree of success in establishing the truth 

 of the conjectures of Dr. Jebb. We do 

 not on any account wish to depreciate Mr. 

 Boys' industry or learning ; but he might 

 accuse us of " carelessness," if we acknow- 

 ledged the validity of his claim to tliis dis- 

 covery. We think that Mr. Boys has, with 

 sincerity and zeal for our religion, endea- 

 voured to establish his system ; but we also 

 think, that his zeal has led him beyond 

 those limits wliich arc stenily philosopliical. 

 He appears to us to have overlooked that 

 kind of structure called E))anodistic, and 

 which Dr. Jebb has so ably illustrated, and 

 to have sometimes mistaken that structure 

 for the introverted parallelism. 



Every well -arranged composition corres- 

 ponds (in the sense in which this word is 

 used by IMr. Boys) in the different parts of 

 its subject, certainly not in so marked a 

 manner as many portions of the sacred 

 writings, but so completely as to be ca- 

 pable of a somewhat similar analysis. We 

 think that one of Sherlock's discourses — 

 one of Pearson's dissertations on the 

 clauses, of the Creed — or a sermon of Bi- 

 shop Bull would be found capable, or verj' 

 nearly so, of being divided into " this pa- 

 rallelism of the first order." 



In i)age 90, Psalm Ixxxviii should not 

 have been written in eight paragraphs of 

 prose ; it comjiletely prevents the beauty of 

 the structure from being perceived. The 

 first paragraph is an alternate quatrain .■— 

 verses 3 and l are in the jiroqressive ax/nale 

 jjaralitls :. — the ath is an alternate ^iwiirain : 



