artificialness of the French stage. "It has no plot, not even of the
simplest kind," says Dr. Lowth. It has a plot,--not an external and
visible one, but an internal and spiritual one; its incidents are its
feelings, its progress is the successive conditions of mind, and it
terminates with the triumph of virtue. If it be not a record of actual
conversation, it is an embodiment of a most wonderful ideality. The
eternity of God, the grandeur of Nature, the profundity of the soul,
move in silent panorama before you. The great and agitating problems of
human existence are depicted with astonishing energy and precision, and
marvellous is the conduct of the piece to us who behold it as a painting
away back on the dark canvas of antiquity.

We said the Jews had no drama, no theatre, because they would not
introduce the Divinity upon the stage. Yet God appears speaking in the
Book of Job, not bodily, but ideally, and herein is all difference. This
drama addresses the imagination, not the eye. The Greeks brought their
divinities into sight, stood them on the stage,--or clothed a man with
an enormous mask, and raised him on a pedestal, giving him also
corresponding apparel, to represent their god. The Hebrew stage, if we
may share the ordinary indulgence of language in using that term, with
an awe and delicacy suitable to the dignity of the subject, permits the
Divinity to speak, but does not presume to employ his person; the
majesty of Infinitude utters itself, but no robe-maker undertakes to
dress it for the occasion. In the present instance, how exalted, how
inspiring, is the appearance of God! how free from offensive diminution
and costumal familiarity! "Then the Lord answered Job out of the
whirlwind, and said." Dim indeed is the representation, but very
distinct is the impression. The phenomenon conforms to the purity of
feeling, not to the grossness of sense. Devotion is kindled by the
sublime impalpableness; no applause is enforced by appropriate acting.