CRITICISM AND INTERPRETATION 225
regularity of those that were regular at the
same time that he is imposing an unreal regu-
larity on a poem that never was actually
regular.
In illustration of the far-reaching effects of
the determination to impose regularity at all
hazards on all poems, I will now confine myself
to some examples of Duhm's methods and
results. I premise that there is a far stronger
prima facie case for questioning the originality
of the text of the books with which Duhm deals
than that of the book of Genesis; and that there
is far more reason in the case of these books
than in Samuel for suspecting that even the LXX
fails as a sufficient corrective of the Hebrew
text; so far then an editor of the prophets or of
Job or of many of the Psalms ought to suspect
more corruption which must be treated, if
treated at all, by conjecture, than an editor of
Genesis or Samuel. But there is need for the
greatest possible caution in using a metrical
theory as the sole reason for emendation; for
one Hebrew metre can be changed into another
with fatal ease; drop the verb, or some other
parallel term that the sense will spare from the
second line of a 3 : 3 distich, and the result is
the very dissimilar 3 : 2; and, conversely, in a
3 : 2 distich prefix 'an infinitive absolute to the
verb of the second line, and a distich 3 : 3 is
the result. For example Isaiah xiii. 11 c, d,