As from some rocky cleft the shepherd sees Clustering in heaps on heaps the driving bees, Rolling and blackening, swarms succeeding swarms With deeper murmur and more hoarse alarms; Dusky they spread, a close embodied crowd, And o'er the vale descends the living cloud: So from the tents and ships, a lengthened train Spreads all the beach, and wide o'ershades the plain: Along the region runs a deafening sound; Beneath their footsteps groans the trembling ground. Towards the end of the Book of Ecclesiastes (xii. 5) a comparison is made between an old man who gradually loses his white locks and an almond-tree that sheds its white blossoms. Anacreon has in one of his Odes (the eleventh) a few exceedingly pretty lines, which recall the foregoing figure. They run as follows:— Oft I am by women told, Poor Anacreon! thou grow'st old; Look how thy hairs are falling all: Poor Anacreon! how they fall! The Biblical story found in the fourth Book of Moses (xiv. 2–11) seems to have been known and partly reproduced by Virgil in the first book of the _Aeneid_, 148. There the following lines occur, which offer a most striking parallel:— As when in tumults rise the ignoble crowd, Mad are their motions, and their tongues are loud; And stones and brands in rattling volleys fly, And all the rustic arms that fury can supply: If then some grave and pious men appear, They hush their noise, and lend a listening ear: He soothes with sober words their angry mood, And quenches their innate desire for blood^[23-1]. The few observations offered here will no doubt give some idea of the importance attaching to a closer investigation of the whole subject^[23-2]. Many volumes are annually devoted to the study of the Old Testament, but these are almost exclusively written from a religious point of view. Surely, it could not but gain in popular estimation if its great literary worth attracted more general attention. Footnotes: [13-1] _De Sacra Poesi Hebraeorum_, Goettingae, 1758. [14-1] The words here quoted were found on the fly-leaf of Sir William's Bible. [15-1] Lecky, in his _History of European Morals_, vol. I, p. 366, refers to a modern writer, who maintains that Homer derived the noblest conception of his poetry from the Old Testament; and that its contents have greatly influenced Demosthenes and Plato. [15-2] _Annales_, ii. 85. [15-3] _Pro Flacco_, §§ 66–70. [15-4] _Satirae_, iii. 10. [15-5] _Satirae_, i. 4. [16-1] This omission of common courtesy is recorded in the following jocular Latin lines:- Si Lyra non lyrasset Lutherus non saltasset. “Had Lyra not furnished the music, Luther could not have danced.”