Pilkington, on this passage, remarks, that several beasts are spoken of in Scripture by words, whose appropriated meanings we cannot now discover. In our version we find no less than five different sorts of lions; which, on the face of it, is absurd: three of them were probably beasts of different species. Parkhurst thinks otherwise, and has affixed the meaning of lion or lioness to all of them. But the term shekel, shacal, or jackal, plainly points to another creature. In the original Hebrew the five names all differ. "In chap. x. 16, 17, Elated like a lion, thou springest upon me; And again thou showest thy power over me,' &c. there is an allusion to the manner in which the feline tribe torment their victims and protract their sufferings. "The dog, named in chap. xxx. 1, is plainly the shepherd's dog; proving that it was used in Arabia at that early period, and was perhaps the only animal of that species in the country. "The mountain goat is mentioned in chap. xxxix. 1. This animal, called also the iber, is a native of Arabia, and is also found in Tartary, and in some parts of Europe. It is larger than the common goat, and possesses great strength and agility. It climbs the highest precipices, and bounds from rock to rock, where man could not set his foot. Their horns are sometimes three feet long. The difficulty with which these creatures bring forth their young is noticed by Pliny, (Nat. Hist. lib. viii. 32,) as Grotius remarks. "The wild ass (chap. xxxix. 5,) is a well known inhabitant of the deserts of Arabia, and is a gregarious animal. This variety of the ass tribe is still met with in Tartary and other parts of Eastern Asia. It is a much more dignified animal than the domestic ass; beautiful, wild, and excessively swift, "In chap. xxiv. 5, robbers and plunderers are compared to the wild ass, not that it is a rapacious animal, but simply on the ground that it lives in the desert, like the Bedouins and wandering Arabs, whom their extortion and violence had driven from society." Mr. Wemyss and others suppose that the behemoth of Job is the mammoth, the remains of which have been found in Yorkshire, and that the leviathan may have been one of those enormous marine lizards called by naturalists the iguanodon. We shall now quote a specimen of the present new version of one of the most sublime passages that ever were penned. Indeed it has no parallel in all ancient or modern poetry; the apparition of Creusa in the Æneid, the phantom of the Cape of Good Hope, in Camoens, and the Ghost in Shakspeare's Hamlet, though all more or less terrific, failing, it is truly said, when placed in comparison with the vision of Eliphaz : "A matter was imparted to me secretly; U At the time when deep sleep falleth upon men, A shuddering went through all my bones; The hair of my flesh stood on end. It stood still-but I could not distinguish its form. A spectre stood before mine eyes There was stillness-so that I heard a hollow murmur saying: "Shall mortal man be just before God? Shall a man be pure in the sight of his Maker? Behold, He cannot confide in those who serve him; Even his angels he chargeth with defection. What then are the dwellers in tenements of clay, Whose foundation is in the dust? They are crushed before the moth, They are destroyed from morning to evening; Their fluttering round is soon over; They die, quite destitute of wisdom." The following are remarks upon this sublime passage: ་་ A celebrated writer has remarked, and that justly, that one source of the sublime is obscurity. If so, it is impossible to produce a truer example of the sublime, than that in the 4th chapter in this book, the amazing sublimity of which consists chiefly in the terrible uncertainty of the thing described. We are first prepared with the utmost solemnity for the vision; we are alarmed before we have discovered the cause of our emotion. It was in the dead hour of the night, all nature lay shrouded in darkness, and every creature was buried in sleep. Profound silence reigned over all. Eliphaz, wakeful and solitary, is musing on his couch. A supernatural being enters his apartment; its appearance is sudden and unexpected. It is an image, but formless and undefined. It is an image, and yet no image;-a mere gliding spectre, its voice is hollow, like the whispers of the wind. The hair of the patriarch's flesh stands erect with fear, and the scene passes before him with an abruptness and terror truly appalling. It does not flit away; it stands still. The patriarch is all attention. It makes a solemn pause, to prepare his mind for some momentous message. At length a voice is heard-a low, murmuring voice, with utterance slow and solemn, and the sentiments awfully impressive. Its message delivered, it vanishes, and leaves the patriarch overwhelmed with awe." Mr. Wemyss appends a very long list of authors whose works he has perused on the book of Job, characterizing several of them. One of these was a translation by Elizabeth Smith, which appeared in 1810, written before she had completed her twenty-sixth year, and which obtains his praise. Of Professor Lee's work on the same subject, he does not entertain a high opinion. It shows the linguist, he says, but is very little creditable to his taste or judgment. From the instances of his renderings quoted, the Doctor's style is as fanciful as the version before us is plain and simple. We observe that there is preparing for the press by Mr. Wemyss, another work, "Daniel and his Times," a fine field for the occupation of a mind so deeply imbued with a love and a knowledge of the Old Testament Scriptures. ART. XIII.—Arts and Artisans at Home and Abroad. By JELLINGER SYMONS. Edinburgh: Tait. 1839. MR. SYMONS, as Assistant-Commissioner of the Hand-loom Inquiry, gained for himself high consideration when employed in the northern parts of the kingdom, and also was in a situation to collect a great number of most interesting statistical facts so as to be able to pronounce upon the state of arts and the condition of artisans at home. He has at a later period been engaged in making researches "into the relative circumstances of the artisans of France, Belgium, Austria, and Switzerland," and consequently is prepared to present a report upon foreign matters akin to those which engaged his statistical investigations at home. Not that his post octavo book contains a parliamentary report, or has in any way the shape or spirit of a party work to serve the views of any faction or particular class; but it offers the unbiassed results of extensive inquiries, and deliberate reflection,-the analysis and the summary evidently of a liberal as well as an enlightened mind. A considerable portion of the volume is necessarily devoted to the dryer statistical facts of the subject, such as the sums in the way of wages paid at different places and countries for work of similar kinds, in the manufactures of soft and hard articles,-cotton, silk, and iron,-the prices of the necessaries of life,-the average profits, and the like. We are then presented with a view of the comparative comforts of the artisans in different parts, their habits, and their prospects. Another department of his subject and matter consists of the broader views to which his facts are supposed to guide, in the science of political economy; as, for example, in regard to the doctrines of free-trade in corn, as well as other articles,-the effects of combinations, and questions connected with an extension of suffrage. The result of the whole inquiry and details, although of a mixed nature as respects the comparative condition of the arts and artisans at home, is of a more cheering description than many will anticipate. He finds, for instance, that the operatives in England are more prosperous than the same class is in France. In Switzerland there seem to exist the greatest advantages for the working man; but the manufacturing and social condition of that country is by no means analogous to that of Great Britain. In Belgium too, 1 something like English superiority may be witnessed; but the restrictions in France are ruinous to the labourer, where poverty is as generally severe as among the Scotch hand-loom weavers. In parts of Prussia the artisans are flourishing; and throughout Germany there seems to be a prevalent inclination to be satisfied with the condition of things as they exist, rather than a superabundance of wages, or a prospect of greater prosperity than is experieneed at home. We gather from the volume that while there is less fluctuation abroad than in this country, there is also more equality amongst the different trades as to modes of living, wages, and profits. We are also led to conclude that the transference of English skill and capital to foreign parts is large and on the increase. This is, we think, the most disheartening information in the book. That English. machinery and hands to superintend it are withdrawn from us and smuggled to rival states admits not of a doubt; and that the supplies manufactured by such means, as well as the transported knowledge, example, and stimulus are perniciously affecting the home interest in neutral marts, is a truth that stares us broadly in the face. Having in the above very general way glanced at the nature, purpose, and contents of the publication in which so much that is important to our national welfare is plainly and with singular condensation detailed, it only remains for us to transcribe some of those details or statements that possess an interest which all will at once appreciate. We have mentioned that in France the condition of artisans is exceedingly depressed; clothing, lodging, and food being inadequate, the operation of protective measures having the very opposite effect to that intended by them : In France almost every trade robs the other and the consumer to boot, by way of making everybody richer; and France, neverthelesswonderful to relate—is getting poorer. Take the cotton-spinning as an example. In order that the cotton-spiners may be protected, our yarns under No. 170 are prohibited, and all above that number are admitted at a protecting duty. The weavers have got similar protection; and of course nearly all cotton goods in France are sold at a high price. This, one would imagine, must be at least highly profitable to the fortunate monopolists: no such thing; no class complained more bitterly to me of their wofully distressed condition. They had, it is true, their paws in their neighbour's platter; and everybody in France pays dear for their calicoes and muslins; but their right to protection being of course no greater than other people's, there are other monkey monopolists who claim a similar immunity to pilfering. The iron-masters have got their protecting duty of 25 per cent on all foreign iron, and force the cottonspinners in their turn to buy their bad iron at high prices for spinning machinery. It was certainly an edifying spectacle to see the cottonspinner, with his left hand in the pocket of all the consumers of cottons, lifting up his right hand in the fervour of virtuous indignation at the atrocious pilfering of the unprincipled iron-master. The iron-master in his turn proved to be an equally injured individual, and assured me that if the horrible rascality of that protecting duty on coals was to be continued, and the thievish coal-masters protected by that iniquitous duty on cheap foreign coal, he firmly believed that the destruction of commerce was inevitable." Look to Switzerland and compare France with a country so unequally situated and favoured by nature: "If we look to Switzerland, we shall see the far more potent influence of free trade in spite of territorial sterility. Look again at France. France, in spite of her great skill in some of the arts-in spite of her fertile soil, producing more food than her population can consume-and in spite of her natural facilities in many branches of production, is by many degrees less forward in manufactures, and is, in proportion to her population, at least one-third less wealthy than Switzerland, which possesses not one-half the food necessary for her population, which is placed under every topographical disadvantage, and whose soil furnishes the raw material of hardly one single manufacture in which she excels. I know of no country so flourishing as Switzerland, and there are few in Europe less so than France; and that while she possesses abundant facilities for commercial wealth. I trace the cause of this signal difference to the fact, that while the shores and frontiers of France, bristle with custom-houses, and she possesses the highest protective tariff in Europe, Switzerland has not a single custom-house, levies not a single duty, and has not one protection to commerce among her laws. The result is, that capital and industry flow solely in the most productive channels. Skill and enterprise seek the field in which they have the greatest natural capacity to excel; and not being weakened by having to furnish protective props for trades which cannot support themselves, they realize a far greater amount of exchangeable produce than could possibly be effected were they obliged, first, to purchase the other commodities of life at a protected price and secondly, to have their foreign market cramped by the custom-houses which bar out the foreign purchaser." We have made some allusion to the very different posture socially, and between the manufacturing relations and practices of Great Britain and those of Switzerland,-the latter being essentially an agricultural country, where trade and commerce are subservient and far less systematized so as to be able to compete with the regularity and the speed of our immense establishments. Unless it be in the case of the few hundreds of poor Highlanders that are wont to repair to the south and eastern parts of Scotland, and to the north of Engtand in autumn, to gain a few shillings to carry them over winter, where shall we find anything analogous to the arrangement and practice now to be explained? "The Voralberg, containing about 90,000 inhabitants, sends out ma |