ther peoples to fill out the story; the whole worked
over many times by many hands in many generations.

Just as Thirlwall and Grote give us studies of Grecian history from the
standpoint of Monarchism and Republicanism, so in the Kings and
Chronicles we have studies of Hebrew history from a prophetic and priestly
point of view.

The legislation of the Pentateuch, supposed formerly to have been drawn up
by Moses, appears, as it now stands, to be a codification, made as late as
the period of the Babylonian exile, under the influence of the
hierarchical and ritual system, then crystallizing into the form familiar
to us all. This codification, like its famous parallel in Roman history,
the code of Justinian, collated the decisions and decrees already in
existence from various periods, and reissued them as one body of laws.

It brings together the "Judgments" of early days upon questions of civil
life--the decisions of tribal heads concerning the rights of person and
property, the counterparts of the "Dooms" of English history; the moral
rules of the local priests in a simple state of society; and the ritual
and discipline of a late ecclesiastical age. The compilation is not very
skilfully done, so that we pass from the minutiae of a priest's _vade
mecum_ in a highly developed hierarchical period to the civil statutes of
a rude patriarchal society, whose very crimes are archaic.

The prophecies break up into fragmentary collections, in which the words
of many different and obscure prophets are grouped under the name of some
great prophet, as was quite natural in an uncritical age; the whole mass
being arranged with little chronological order.

The Psalter separates into several books of sacred song, dating from
different periods. They repeat the same Psalm, and divide one Psalm into
two and join two into one, on principles by no means apparent to us. Some
of these Psalms are of a highly artificial and mechanical structure. There
are acrostics, in which the couplets begin with the successive letters of
the Hebrew alphabet; double acrostics, and other refinements of literary
ingenuity; the sure signs of a flamboyant and decadent literature.

The other writings of the Old Testament and the books of the New Testament
have yielded similar general results to the touchstone of criticism;
concerning which it is needless to speak further.

Our critical glasses bring out, clear and strong, the fact of a human,
literary craft in