upon the tenderest reciprocal affection, 
From the bride’s own words we learn 
| that she was of Sharon, a canton of 
Palestine, and from the respectful atten- 
| tion paid to her by her attendants, and 
the appellation with which they address 
| her, we have reason to believe, that, 
“thongh not of royal, yet she was of 
noble birth.” 
«© How lone,” observes Mr. Good, ** his 
(Solomon’s) partiality for this accomplished 
bride continued, we know not.. The histo- 
ries of his life, which would probably have 
given us some information upon the subject, 
aud were composed by the prophets Nathan, 
Abijah, and Iddo, have unfortunately fol- 
lowed the fate of all his own works, except 
the book of Proverbs, of Ecclesiastes, and 
the Song of Songs. ‘The anonymous histo- 
ries of him which are still preserved, how- 
ever, in the sacred books of Kings and Chro- 
ficles, are minute and explicit in many 
points; and it is probable that the lady did 
not long live to enjoy his affection, or her 
mame and some anecdotes relating to her 
would haye been here communicated. That 
the Hebrew monarch conducted himself with 
great kindness towards her, we may fatrly 
conclude from the uniformity of his actions 
and the known generosity of his disposition, 
a generosity that induced him, seven or eight 
years after his marriage with the daughter 
of Pharoah, to build for this princess a su- 
| perb palace, in spiendor resembling his own, 
ata distance from the city of David; and 
Git tempted him, in direct disobedience 
the divine will, to erect temples and 
altars for the use of all his queens and con- 
eubines, dedicated to the respective deities 
whom they idolatrously worshipped.” Pref. 
p- xvil. 
_ ‘There are, we believe, few translators 
or interpreters of scripture who would 
speak with equal tenderness of this vo- 
luptuous and dissolute monarch. Mind- 
ful of our character and our years, we 
have been long accustomed to call things 
by their right names; and have too 
tmauch respect both for ourselves and for 
_ the generation that is to succeed us, to 
_ dignify wantonness and irreligion by the 
_ name of generosity. We will not dispute 
) the monarch’s generosity in building a 
superb palace for his queen; we cannot 
» doubt of the warmth of his affection, 
“nor of his sincerity and continuance of 
ais kindness to the Rose of Sharon: but 
in forsaking the religious, which were at 
_ the same time the political institutions 
_ of his country, so far as to gratify his 
_ concubines by the introduction of idola- 
trous rites into his kingdom, we must 
ink (what we have ever thought) that 
SONG OF SONGS. 
119 
he exhibits a melancholy and a warning 
instance of the inevitable tendency of 
sensual indulgence, to destroy all regard 
for moral distinctions, and all reverence 
for religious truth; and to hurry its 
unfortunate victim to the neglect even 
of worldly policy. The monarch of 
Israel was a man of ardent passions; 
under the guidance of which he violated 
the wisest injunctions of the great legis- 
lator of his people. To throw over his 
libertinism the splendid veil of generosity, 
was certainly not necessary for the 
translator’s purpose, and ought to have 
been avoided as of evil tendency. 
After perusing the passages we have 
selected, our readers may be anxious to 
know what Mr. Good thinks of the 
claim which the Song of Songs has to 
be considered as of canonical authority. 
When the book first came into our hands, 
our feelings were, we are persuaded, 
such as theirs will be. We opened it in 
the midst of the notes ; we felt that we 
were still men, and we were warmed by 
the blaze of beauty that surrounded us, 
» The amatory effusions of the Oriental 
and the Grecian muse that glow in every 
page, arrested our attention ; and, though 
not surprized, we were for sometime cap- 
tivated by the striking resemblance that 
prevails among the Persian, the Asiatic; 
and the European -amorets, and the 
love-song of the Hebrew monarch. It 
had long since appeared to us, that the 
Song cf Songs had no right to a place 
in the sacred canon; though it might 
be very well placed upon the same shelf 
with Anacreon, Secundus, and other 
poets of the same temperament. The 
studied display of passages not only 
similar, but proved, or attempted to be 
proved, to have been borrowed by love- 
lorn bards from the “ Sacred Idyls,’” 
justified the opinion we had already 
formed. Our surprize, therefore, was 
not small, when, upon adverting to the 
preface, we found the learned translator 
claiming for this poem the rank of an 
inspired production, as affording not 
only ‘the veil of a sublime and mystical 
allegory, delineating the bridal union 
subsisting between Jehovah and his pure 
and uncorrupted church; and an ad- 
mirable picture of Jehovah’s selection of 
Israel as a peculiar people, and of the 
call of the Gentiles: but also a happy 
example of the pleasures of holy and 
virtuous love, and inculcating, beyond 
the power of didactic poetry, the ten- 
derness which the husband should mani- 
14 
