450 LECTURES AND ESSAYS [1874- 



the twenty-fourth, which appears to have been sung as 

 the ark was led by David into Zion, it is impossible, 

 without undue scepticism, to ignore a peculiar adaptation 

 for performance by answering choirs. From the anti- 

 phonal psalms, or from rhetorical passages of so dramatic 

 a structure as the sixth chapter of Micah, there is but a 

 short step to such lyrical dialogue as the Song of Solomon 

 presents ; and though this dialogue falls far short of the 

 complexity of the Occidental drama, it seems reasonable 

 to acknowledge the dramatic complexion of a poem in 

 which the author does not simply give scope to his own 

 feelings, but represents two or more characters side by 

 side. Nor is it likely, in an age when all lyric was com 

 posed to be sung, not read, that the same singer took the 

 part both of Solomon and the Shulamite. If we may not 

 suppose a stage with all its accessories, it is yet probable 

 that the victory of pure affection over the seductions of a 

 corrupt court and the temptations of a king was sung in 

 the villages of the northern kingdom by several answering 

 voices. Or if we hesitate to accept the attractive theory 

 which sees in Solomon, not the hero, but the baffled 

 tempter of a drama of pure pastoral love, the demand for 

 more unambiguous proof of the power of the Hebrew 

 poets to discriminate and depict in action various types of 

 character is simply answered by the Book of Job, in which 

 every interlocutor not merely upholds a distinct argument, 

 but does so in consistent development of a distinct person 

 ality. If we have difficulty in classing this masterpiece 

 of the Hebrew muse under the category of dramatic 

 poetry, our difficulty has its source not in the absence 

 of dramatic motives in the book, but in the marvellous 

 many-sidedness with which this quintessence of the 

 religious poetry of Israel combines the varied excellences 

 of every species of Hebrew art. The study of the Book of 

 Job is the study of the whole spirit of the Old Testament, 

 so far as that spirit can be expressed in pure poetry without 

 introduction of the peculiar principles of prophecy. The 



