BY THE HEBREWS. 4S 



rarely met with except in Indian poetry. An old epic 

 of nearly three thousand lines, which is occupied with 

 the wars between the Fins and the Lapps, and the for- 

 tunes and fate of a godlike hero named Yaino, contains a 

 pleasing description of the rural life of the Fins ; especially 

 where the wife of the ironworker, Ilmarine, sends her flocks 

 into the forest, with prayers for their safeguard. Few races 

 present more remarkable gradations in the character of their 

 minds and the direction of their feelings, as determined by- 

 servitude, by wild and warlike habits, or by persevering 

 efforts for political freedom, than the race of Fins, with its 

 subdivisions speaking kindred languages. I allude to the 

 now peaceful rural population among whom the epic just 

 mentioned was discovered, to the Huns, (long confounded 

 with the Mongols,) who overrun the Roman world, and 

 to a great and noble people, the Magyars. 



We have seen that the vividness of the feeling with whici 

 nature is regarded, and the form in which that feeling mani- 

 fests itself, are influenced by differences of race, by the par- 

 ticular character of the country, by the constitution of the 

 state, and by the tone of religious feeling ; and we have 

 traced this influence in the nations of Europe, and in those 

 of kindred descent in Asia (the Indians and Persians) 

 of Arianic or Indo-Germanic origin. Passing from 

 thence to the Semitic or Aramean race, we discover 

 in the oldest and most venerable memorials in which the 

 tone and tendency of their poetry and imagination are dis- 

 played, unquestionable evidences of a profound sensibility 

 to nature. 



This feeling manifests itself with grandeur and animation 

 in pastoral narratives, in hymns and choral songs, in the 

 splendour of lyric poetry in the Psalms, and in the schools 



VOL. ir. E 



