CRITICISM AND INTERPRETATION 229
type of distich is exclusively used or dominant
in one part of a passage, and another in another,
a question may always arise whether the two
parts are of the same origin : that even such a
change as this necessarily implies difference of
origin in all cases I am not prepared to assert:
as a matter of fact, though I pointed out the
difference of rhythm between Isaiah xiii. 1-8 and
9-22, which Duhm and others had attempted
to conceal by groundless emendations, I refrained
from asserting that the two parts in question
were of different origin.
But it is in his criticism of the Book of Jeremiah
that Duhm's rhythmical principles have proved
most dangerous here, as is well known, he
works with the principle not only of regularity
of distich and strophe, but also of one man, one
metre. Though we owe to Duhm himself one
of the warmest appreciations of Jeremiah as
prophet and poet, we are yet asked to believe
that this great prophet and poet confined himself
throughout his long career to one metre! Work-
ing on this principle Duhm not only rejects the
larger part of the poems attributed to Jeremiah,
but he violates parallelism and shows obtuse-
ness to rhythmical differences in order to re-
tain much even of what he does retain, but
which, if his critical theory that Jeremiah
wrote only in "kinah" rhythm were correct,
ought to be rejected. I have shown else-