THE BOOK OF JOB.

Evening Post, Volume XXXV, Issue 87, 14 April 1888, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE BOOK OF JOB.

There is probably hardly a book in the Old Testament — if we except Genesis — which has been bo- full of charm for the people as the Book of Job, nor one in which we feel more vividly the whole import of the word" "inspiration." And yet, notwithstanding the fact that this book is, in the truest sense, a work of imagination, it is the book of all books in ¦which the meaning which we give to "inspiration" in modern criticsm falls most short of the meaning which wo give to the word when, we speak of the inspiration of the Book of Job. In modern criticism, when we speak of the inspiration of a poem, we mean that the poet's thoughts seem to rush from him with an unconsciousness, an unlaboured epontaneousness, and a rapidity thnt indicates a source, if not beyond himself, at least beyond his own power of deliberate control ; and, as a rule, we regard the art which a poet shows in his arrangement and grouping as rather derogating from his " inspiration," on the ground that art belongs to the reflective imagination as distinguished from that stream of improvisation the origin of- which seems, even to the singer himself, to be envolved in mystery. But in the Book of Job, we feel tliat inspiration belongs to the art as well as to the poetry, to the invenion of the story as well as to the passion of the religious lyrics, and none the less we re-

gard the meaning of the word inspiration " when applied to this poem, as coming much more nearly to what it means in characterising the "Magnificat" or the "Benedictus," than what it means in characterising the "Skylark" of Shelley or the " Hamlet " of Shakspere.— Spectaor.