Where is the assessor? where is the weigher ?*| where is he that counted the towers? t

Thou seest no more the fierce people, the people of a dark speech that thou canst not perceive, of a stammering tongue that thou canst not understand.‡

Look upon Zion, the city of our solemnities; thine eye shall see Jerusalem a quiet habitation, a tabernacle that shall not be taken down; not one of the stakes thereof shall ever be removed, neither shall any of the cords thereof be broken.

Then the note of Immanuel joins the note of The remnant shall return, and is blended with it:

But there the glorious Lord will dwell with us; a place of broad rivers and streams, where: in shall go no galley with oars, neither shall gallant ship pass thereby.§

For the Lord is our judge, the Lord is our lawgiver, the Lord is our king; he will save us! Yet once more the note to remind of Spoil specdeth and of "the terror," finishing and merged, however, in the notes of victory:

Thy tacklings are loosed; they hold not firm their mast, they keep not spread the sail; but then is the prey of a great spoil T divided! the lame take the prey!

And the inhabitant shall not say: I am sick! the people that dwell therein shall be forgiven their iniquity.

Of this fine chapter the rendering in our Bibles is often inaccurate, and I have had to alter it. But I have altered it as little as I possibly could, and I should rejoice if the reader happily failed to notice that I had altered it at all. No; decidedly the revisers must not hope to make us enjoy Isaiah by giving us as a rendering of him: For every boot of him that trampleth noisily.

MATTHEW ARNOLD.

Of the tribute paid to Assyria. ↑ In order to besiege them.

The Assyrians spoke a Semitic dialect not intelligible to the Hebrews.

SNo earthly waters, but the river of the peace of God. To Judah.

TOf the retreating Assyrians.

From The Nineteenth Century. THE LAND OF PROMISE: A FABLE.

BY LORD LYTTON.

I.

A PILGRIM FOLK, o'er leagues of pathless sand
Long journeying patiently from far away,
Lured by the promise of a fairer land,
Reach'd ere the close of one eventful day

The craggy shore of a capacious stream: And lo! the Promised Land before them lay All in a golden sunset, whose last gleam Reveal'd between the rovers and their rest No barrier save that river's bridgeless breast.

II.

Each sufferer, sick and footsore from the waste, Hail'd with reviving hope the blissful sight. About the river-beach they pitch'd in haste Their evening tents, and roam'd in dreams all night

The Land of Promise. At the dawn, however,

The signal trumpet sounded, summoning
The tribe to council. For that rock-bound
river

Was broad, and deep, and rapid. The first
On which their pilgrim parliament decided
thing
Was to preserve intact, to a community
Whose best opinions might be much divided,
And so it ruled that they should all agree
The necessary strength of social unity.
To recognize as final the authority
Of whatsoever plan might chance to be
Adopted by the vote of the majority.

III.

Scarce was this salutary rule laid down,
Ere one brisk leader of the emigration
(Whose dauntless spirit was to all well known)
Sprang forward with a shout of exultation;
And, from the shoulder of the stony shore
Pointing where every gaze instinctive turn'd,
"Brothers," he cried, "procrastinate no more!
The Promised Land, long arduously earn'd,
Before us lies. Why linger, then, the brave?
What need of projects and of plans? To me
Nature hard muscles and a man's heart gave,
Nor need I more to grasp the good I see.
Forward! Who follows? Fate befriends the

bold!"

VL

All

Were husht with horror. In the silence said That old grey-headed watcher of the tide, Friends, let us mourn for the untimely dead, Whom impulse fair, with precept false allied And inexperience, to their doom hath led. They err'd in seeking, but they sought, the truth;

And we shall miss the force their fervor caught From full hear's glowing with the fire of youth.

That generous warmth, alas, no longer ours,
We must replace by clear, if frigid, thought,
And toil that trains for triumph temperate
powers.

Yon ravenous and remorseless element
Us from our promised rest doth still divide.
Let us, O friends, some dexterous dyke invent
To curb the current or divert the tide.
A faithless and a formidable foe

We have to deal with. No concessions vile,
No haste incautious! Grudge not labor slow.
Complete the plan ere you begin the pile.
To work!"

"Surely enough of perils and privations, Of trust betray'd, and labor lost, enough, And hopes deferr'd, whose fraudulent invitations

Have we seen perishing the brave, the bold,
The young, the beautiful, who sought in vain
That better land. The selfish and the old,
Who, to augment our wretchedness, remain,
Now on our faint and weaken'd faith have laid
A heavier burden. What have we to gain
By laboring longer? And what right have they
To disregard the rule themselves have made?
Let them make good their promise.
To obey
'Tis now their turn, and ours to be obey'd,
For we are the majority. Whate'er
The yet unpeopled Land of Promise be,
One thing, at least, is certain: everywhere
The wretchedest are the most numerous.
Are both nor need we any further fare
To find a refuge from the ills we flee.
After life, death; and after labor, sleep :
They do but live to toil who toil to live.
One gift, whose promise earth is bound to
keep,

We

He turn'd upon his heel, The remaining few accents low and grave

'What, without us, would be the common

weal?

Mere common woe," they murmur'd. "Let us

save,

In spite of its own self, society."

And slow they rear'd, with unimpetuous zeal,
Rock-shoulder'd ramparts, fencing flood-gates
high,
And sluices deep.

X.

"Astray is all your skill, Nor ever will the work you do succeed!" A meagre mocking voice exclaim'd one day. It was a little, thin, dry, crooked man, Who had from the assembly stolen away When first the feud 'twixt young and old began, And now, as furtively, return'd. "I know That river. It is mischievous and mad: But there's some good in it, if you knew how To make the best of what is not all bad. Your dyke anon the rising flood will break, And deluge all." They answer'd, "Other dykes

If needed, other sluices, we will make :
The stream rolls where it must, not where it
likes."

""Twill roll where you will like its rolling less.
You do not understand its nature. Hark!
No longer strive to oppose it, or repress.
I know a better system: follow it."

Dupe us no more. Foot-wearied fools we are,
Worn out with unrewarded agitations
In running after rest. Still, near or far,
The land we seek our cheated search belies.
Because it was a miserable land

We left our own; yet nought but miseries
We found elsewhere, a miserable band!
And miserably here beneath our eyes

bark".

"And shipwreck all! These plunging whirlpools split

Our stoutest planks to splinters. Noë's ark
With such a cataract would in vain have vied.
It is a foe to vanquish, if we can,

And not a friend to whom we can confide
Aught that we love."

As easily as if it were mankind:
Making its strength his own, and profiting
By forces it had been his luck to find
Contending with each other to be king
While he enslaved them slily. wave and wind.
But when at last they reach'd, and overran,
The Eldorado of their lifelong dream,
Unfit for their good-fortune proved the clan
Of covetous adventurers that stream

(In turn betraying its betrayers) led
To their destruction. Vagabonds they were,
Who loved not labor and who lack'd not
bread:

Each to the other grudged his lawless share
Of promised plunder, till the land was red
With its invaders' blood. Their leader sly
(True to his principles) employ'd his skill
To govern by dividing them. Thereby
He ruled and ruin'd them with ease; until
At last the sick survivors of the strife,
Taught by experience, recognized the source
Of all the shameful troubles of his life
In that shrewd trick of setting up one force
To set another down, and playing class
Forever against class. Their chief found out
That what he thought could never come to pass
He had himself contrived to bring about
A populace united: and its mass
The populace uniting against him,
Where he was lost, not knowing how to swim,
It flung him, head and heels, into the river;
Though he knew how to sail.

XV.

Vain each endeavor! They who, to reach the Promised Land, relied On fervid impulse, passionately perish'd At the first plunge. The wretches who denied Its pitying promise, cheerless, and uncherish'd Even by the lost tradition of it, died. Some labor'd for it, and their labor lost, Though long and patiently they labor'd. They Perchance were those who merited it most; But then, their way was a mistaken way, And they persisted in it. The vile host Of rogues and vagabonds on whom a wit Not theirs, to serve its own ambitious schemes, Conferr'd the Land of Promise, were unfit (Even when it blest them with its brightest beams)

To find their promised happiness in it.

XVI.

The Land of Promise rests the Land of Dreams.