the Hebrew people is strongly dramatic. Yet the
natural instrument for the expression of dramatic creations--the
theatre--is not a Hebrew institution. Accordingly the dramatic instinct,
denied its readiest outlet, is found to leaven all other literary forms.
We have already noticed dramatic wisdom in Job. Dramatic lyrics are
found, not only in some of the psalms, but on a larger scale in the love
songs of Solomon.[1] But there is a more important type of dramatic
literature in the sacred Scriptures. The prophets of Israel were not
only statesmen and preachers, they were also poets, and from them has
come down to us a form of spiritual drama to which may be given the name
'Rhapsody.'

[Footnote 1: This Lyric Idyl of 'Solomon's Song,' together with some
narrated stories of the same idyllic spirit, are united in a single
volume of this series under the name of Biblical Idyls.]

These spiritual dramas of the prophets are occupied with that
fundamental topic of Hebrew thought which is expressed by the word
'judgment': the eternal contest between good and evil, and the Divine
overthrow of wrong. They are dramas which no actual theatre could ever
express, for their action covers all space and all time. Their
personages include not only the prophet and the nation of Israel, but
also God himself and the celestial hosts. The working of events towards
the judgment is brought out before us with the general impression of
dramatic movement; but the means by which this movement is realised go
beyond the machinery of drama: not only dialogue and monologue, but song
and even discourse are made to bear their part in the total effect. The
grand example of rhapsody which covers the latter part of our Book of
Isaiah can be represented in the present volume only by its prelude and
one of its seven acts or 'visions.' But some of the shorter, and hardly
less splendid, rhapsodies are given in full; and the selections further
illustrate how a prophecy may set out as a simple discourse, and
suddenly rise to the level of rhapsodic presentation.

I believe few people realise what an immense addition has been made to
the literary patrimony of the English reader by the Revised Version of
the Bible, and such other presentations of the sacred Scriptures as this
Revised Version has made possible. The language of Biblical writers, and
the sentences of which their writings are made up, have long been
familiar through the earlier versions; the Revisers,