birth, attributed to that fabulous personage, to restrain the audience from throwing their shells at his head, and hooting him out of their company as an impudent liar. They must have been sufficiently acquainted with the rivulets of Glencoe to know that he had seen nothing of the kind; and have known enough of mountain torrents in general to know that no such effects are ever produced by them; and would therefore have indignantly rejected such a barefaced attempt to impose on their credulity."
Perhaps the best answer to such an attack is its own subtlety. Mr. Knight, besides, has named almost the only passage in all the translations which is open to such objection. But the critic's own statement as to the scrupulous exactness in descriptions of nature by the ancient bards may itself very well be questioned. Poets of all eras have magnified the phenomena of nature in their search for tremendous images; and the imagination of the early ages, wild and undisciplined, was especially prone to exaggeration. There exists a school of students of Semetic literature and modes of thought who consider descriptions such as that of the Red Sea dividing before Israel, and that of the sun standing still above Joshua, to be simply powerful figures of speech. To remain upon solid ground, however, does not David in the
