th the
choicest gifts of the earth, under a glowing and transparent sky,
surrounded by all the grandeur and all the riches of nature, with a
language 'capable of giving soul to the objects of sense, and body to
the abstractions of metaphysics.' We have a right to expect much from
him, only we must not expect in his youthful poems the philosophy of
the nineteenth century, or the beauties of Pindar, or, with some
again, the truths of Christianity. Few understand children, still
fewer understand antiquity. If we look in the Veda for high poetical
diction, for striking comparisons, for bold combinations, we shall be
disappointed. These early poets thought more for themselves than for
others. They sought rather, in their language, to be true to their own
thought than to please the imagination of their hearers. With them it
was a great work achieved for the first time to bind thoughts and
words together, to find expressions or to form new names. As to
similes, we must look to the words themselves, which, if we compare
their radical and their nominal meaning, will be found full of bold
metaphors. No translation in any modern language can do them justice.
As to beauty, we must discover it in the absence of all effort, and in
the simplicity of their hearts. Prose was, at that time, unknown, as
well as the distinction between prose and poetry. It was the attempted
imitation of those ancient natural strains of thought which in later
times gave rise to poetry in our sense of the word, that is to say, to
poetry as an art, with its counted syllables, its numerous epithets,
its rhyme and rhythm, and all the conventional attributes of 'measured
thought.'

In the Veda itself, however--even if by Veda we mean the Rig-veda only
(the other three, the Saman, Ya_g_ush, and Atharva_n_a, having solely
a liturgical interest, and belonging to an entirely different
sphere)--in the Rig-veda also, we find much that is artificial,
imitated, and therefore modern, if compared with other hymns. It is
true that all the 1017 hymns of the Rig-veda were comprised in a
collection which existed as such before one of those elaborate
theological commentaries, known under the name of Brahma_n_a, was
written, that is to say, about 800 B.C. But before the date of their
collection these must have existed for centuries. In different songs
the names of different kings occur, and we see several generations of
royal families pass away before us with different generat