Names, The

A poem written for the “Show-Book” of the Shakespeare an Show at the Albert Hall, May 1884, held on behalf of the Hospital for Women in the Fulham Road, London:— “Shakespeare!—to such name’s sounding, what succeeds Fitly as silence? Falter forth the spell,— Act follows word, the speaker knows full well, Nor tampers with its magic more than needs. Two names there are: That which the Hebrew reads With his soul only: if from lips it fell, Echo, back thundered by earth, heaven, and hell, Would own, ‘Thou didst create us!’ Nought impedes We voice the other name, man’s most of might, Awesomely, lovingly: let awe and love Mutely await their working, leave to sight All of the i ue as—below—above— Shakespeare’s creation rises: one remove, Though dread—this finite from that infinite.” Robert Browning , March 12th, 1884 . Reprinted in the Pall Mall Gazette of May 29th. The Hebrews will not pronounce the sacred tetragrammaton יהוה. They substitute Adonai in reading the ineffable name. Jahwé (with the J pronounced as Y) is the correct pronunciation of the unspeakable name. Yet the learned hold that the true mirific name is lost, the word “Jehovah” dating only from the Masoretic innovation. See a discu ion of the whole matter in Isis Unveiled (Blavatsky), vol. ii. p. 398,—a work which contains a good deal of real learning mixed with infinite rubbish.