Psalms 27:13

Verse Psalms 27:13. I had fainted, unless I had believed] The words in italics are supplied by our translators; but, far from being necessary, they injure the sense. Throw out the words I had fainted, and leave a break after the verse, and the elegant figure of the psalmist will be preserved: "Unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living" ----What! what, alas! should have become of me!

Dr. Hammond has observed that there is a remarkable elegance in the original, which, by the use of the beautiful figure aposiopesis, makes an abrupt breaking off in the midst of a speech. He compares it to the speech of Neptune to the winds that had raised the tempest to drown the fleet of AEneas.-AEneid. lib. i., ver. 131.

Eurum ad se zephyrumque vocat: dehinc talia fatur;

Tantane vos generis tenuit fiducia vestri?

Jam coelum terramque, meo sine numine, venti,

Miscere, et tantas audetis tollere moles?

Quos ego-sed motos praestat componere fluctus.

To Eurus and the western blast he cried,

Does your high birth inspire this boundless pride?

Audacious winds! without a power from me,

To raise at will such mountains on the sea?

Thus to confound heaven, earth, the air, and main;

Whom I------but, first, I'll calm the waves again.

PITTS.