to him inaccessible. No comparison can be instituted successfully betweeen the Koran
the Tragedy persons—Jehoyah, Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar, his friends; Elihu, a young man; Satan, Job's Wife, Messenger. The scene exhibits Job lying in the dust, covered with sores, and a potsherd in his hand, His wife is urging him to suicide, the three princes, with all the signs of grief, attend in silence. The Prologue is in prose, necessary to the introduction of the speakers. The Poet has employed the usual parts of tragedy; but the dialogue is singular, and Speaks the simplicity of the first age. Job complains, and is answered in order by his three friends. After thrice speaking thus, (when distress is at the height) Eliha prepares for the catastrophe, which ends favourably. An Epilogue in prose concludes: the dialogue—the protasis, or beginning of distress; Job speaks and Eliphaz answers, then Job and Bildad, then Job and Zophar: in the epitasis or increasing, Job speaks and Eliphaz answers, then Job and Bildad, then Job and Zophar; in the catastasis preparatory to the catastrophe, Elihu addresses the three friends; then Job, then the three friends; in the catastrophe or conclusion, Jehovah addresses Job.
Gibbon has the following remarks on the Koran: "In the spirit of enthusiasm or vanity, the prophet rests the truth of his mission on the merit of his book, audaciously challenges both men and angels to imitate the beauty of a single page, and presumes to assert that God alone could dictate this incomparable performance. This argument is most powerfully addressed to a devout Arabian, whose mind is attuned to faith and rapture, whose ear is delighted by the music of sounds,
