tory of
those books. I shall begin with those two, reserving, what I have to say
on the general character of the men called prophets to another part of
the work.

Whoever will take the trouble of reading the book ascribed to Isaiah,
will find it one of the most wild and disorderly compositions ever put
together; it has neither beginning, middle, nor end; and, except a short
historical part, and a few sketches of history in the first two or
three chapters, is one continued incoherent, bombastical rant, full of
extravagant metaphor, without application, and destitute of meaning; a
school-boy would scarcely have been excusable for writing such stuff;
it is (at least in translation) that kind of composition and false taste
that is properly called prose run mad.

The historical part begins at chapter xxxvi., and is continued to the
end of chapter xxxix. It relates some matters that are said to have
passed during the reign of Hezekiah, king of Judah, at which time Isaiah
lived. This fragment of history begins and ends abruptly; it has not the
least connection with the chapter that precedes it, nor with that which
follows it, nor with any other in the book. It is probable that
Isaiah wrote this fragment himself, because he was an actor in the
circumstances it treats of; but except this part there are scarcely two
chapters that have any connection with each other. One is entitled, at
the beginning of the first verse, the burden of Babylon; another, the
burden of Moab; another, the burden of Damascus; another, the burden of
Egypt; another, the burden of the Desert of the Sea; another, the burden
of the Valley of Vision: as you would say the story of the Knight of the
Burning Mountain, the story of Cinderella, or the glassen slipper, the
story of the Sleeping Beauty in the Wood, etc., etc.

I have already shown, in the instance of the last two verses of 2
Chronicles, and the first three in Ezra, that the compilers of the Bible
mixed and confounded the writings of different authors with each other;
which alone, were there no other cause, is sufficient to destroy the
authenticity of an compilation, because it is more than presumptive
evidence that the compilers are ignorant who the authors were. A very
glaring instance of this occurs in the book ascribed to Isaiah: the
latter part of the 44th chapter, and the beginning of the 45th, so far
from having been written by Isaiah, could only have been written by some
person who lived