No. CCCCXXXIX.

(6) Kiosks are pavilions, or little closets projecting from a wall for the purpose of overlooking the surrounding country; like our summer-houses, &c. In the East they are, also, the indispensable places of repose, and of that voluptuous, tranquil, gratification to which the inhabitants are urged by the heats of the climate.

No. CCCCXL.

(7) As one who offered peace; literally, as one finding peace; but, perhaps, the sentiment is-" I appeared to him as inviting as the most delightful kiosk; a kiosk, in which he might be so delighted, that he would go no farther in search of enjoyment." That peace often means prosperity is well known; indeed all good is, in the Hebrew language, as it were, combined and concentrated in the term peace.

No. CCCCXLI.

(8) Baal Ham Aun. I take this to be altogether an Egyptian term; Ham Aun is "progenitor Ham"-Baal is " lord"-" The lord Ham our progenitor." This agrees perfectly with Egyptian principles, vide AMMON-No, in the Dictionary. In fact, no other nation so long maintained, or had so just authority to maintain, its relation to Ham, who was commemorated in this country during many ages. This name of a place, decidedly Egyptian, confirms the general notion that the Bride was daughter to Pharaoh.

No. CCCCXLII.

(9) Inspectors. This is the office which had been held by the Bride, when in her own country; but here it is expressed in the plural; implying, probably, an inferiority from that of the Princess, though to the same purposes, &c.

No. CCCCXLIII.

(10) The tenant; literally, the man; that is, as we understand it, the chief man, the first tenant, the occupier; the same here, as we have taken "the man" for the com. mander, in No. 4. Third Day, that is, the chief, or head man, as we speak; not each man distributively, but THE man emphatically: for, if there were many tenants, did each bring a thousand silverlings? so as to make, say ten thousand; then, why not state the larger number? or, did all which the tenants brought make up one thousand? then, why not use the plural form men? Moreover, since two hundred, which is onefifth of a thousand, was due to the inspectors, it reminds us, that this is the very proportion established in Egypt by Joseph: "You shall give one fifth part to Pharaoh,” Gen. xlvii. 24. This is convincing evidence that this Princess was from Egypt; and proves that, for purposes of protection, &c. this due was constantly gathered by the reigning prince. We suppose she hints at her father's government, under this allusion to these inspectors; and is still Egyptian enough to insist on the propriety of paying the regular tribute to his sovereignty, as governor in chief.

An extract from Mr. Swinburne's account of a similar estate among the Spanish Arabs may explain the nature of these fruiteries, and their profits:

"I cannot give you a more distinct idea of this people than by translating a passage in an Arabic manuscript, in the library of the Escurial, entitled, The History of Granada, by Abi Abdalah ben Alkalhibi Aboaneni,' written in the year of the Hegira

778, A. D. 1378; Mahomet Lago being then, for the second time, King of Granada. It begins by a description of the city and its environs, nearly in the following terms: "The city of Granada is surrounded with the most spacious gardens, where the trees are set so thick as to resemble hedges, yet not so as to obstruct the view of the beautiful towers of the Alhambra, which glitter like so many bright stars over the green forests. The plain, stretching far and wide, produces such quantities of grain and vegetables that no revenues but those of the first families in the kingdom are equal to their annual produce. Each garden is calculated to bring in a nett income of five hundred pieces of gold (aurei), out of which it pays thirty minæ to the king. Beyond these gardens lie fields of various culture, at all seasons of the year clad in the richest verdure, and loaded with some valuable vegetable production or other; by this method a perpetual succession of crops is secured, and a great annual rent is produced, which is said to amount to twenty thousand aurei. Adjoining, you may see the sumptuous farms belonging to the royal demesnes, wonderfully agreeable to the beholder, from the large quantity of plantations of trees and the variety of plants. The vineyards in the neighbourhood bring fourteen thousand aurei. Immense are the hoards of all species of dried fruits, such as figs, raisins, plums, &c. They have also the secret of preserving grapes sound and juicy from one season to another." [Comp. Fifth day, No. 20.]

"N. B. I was not able to obtain any satisfactory account of these Granada aurei, gold coins." Swinburne's Travels in Spain, Letter xxii. p. 164.

We have supposed that this Sixth Day is the day of marriage: as this has not usually been understood, we shall connect some ideas which induce us to consider it in that light. Leo of Modena says, that, 1. "The Jews marry on a Friday, if the spouse be a maid ;" (Thursday, if a widow.)-Now, Friday morning is the time of this Eclogue, supposing the poem began with the first day of the week.-2. "The Bride is adorned, and led out into the open air;" so, in this Eclogue, the Bride's Mother "brings her out," for that purpose ;-3. " into a court, or garden;" so, in this Eclogue, the ceremony passes "under a citron tree;" consequently in a garden. This Eclogue, then, opens with observation of the nuptial procession after marriage; and we learn that the ceremony had taken place by the following conversation, in which the Bridegroom alludes to the maiden bashfulness of his Bride, as having required some address to overcome. Moreover, the Bride solicits the maintenance of perpetual constancy to herself, as implied in the connection now completed; with attention to the interests of a particular friend she transfers all her private property to her husband, yet reserves a government-due to her royal parent in Egypt; and the Eclogue closes, both itself and the poem, by mutual wishes for more of each other's conversation and company. Vide MARRIAGE, in the Dictionary.

No. CCCCXLIV.

IT is now time to conclude our investigation of this poem: but we must previously observe, how perfectly clear it is from the least soil of indelicacy; that allusions to matrimonial privacies which have been fancied in it, are absolutely groundless fancies; and that, not till the Fifth Day, is there any allusion to so much as a kiss, and then it is covered by assimilation of the party to a sucking infant brother. The First Day is distance itself, in point of conversation: the Second has no conversation but what passes from the garden below up to the first-floor window: the Third Day is the same in the Morning; and the Evening is an invitation to take an excursion, and survey prospects; as to the comparison to a well, delicacy itself must admire, not censure the

simile. The Fourth Day opens with a dream, by which the reader perceives the inclination of the dreamer, and the progress of her affection; but the Bridegroom himself does not hear it, nor is he more favoured by it, or for it: on the contrary, the Lady permits him, in the Evening, to sport his military terms as much as he thinks proper; but she does not, by a single word, acquaint him of any breach he had made in her heart. We rather suspect, that she rises to retire somewhat sooner than usual, thereby counterbalancing, in her own mind, those effusions of kindness to which she had given vent in the morning. The Fifth Morning is wholly occupied by the Ladies praises of the Bride's dress: she herself does not utter a word; but, in the Evening of that day, as the marriage was to take place on the morrow, she merely hints at what she could find in her heart to do, were he her infant brother; and for the first time he hears the adjuration, "if his left arm was under her head," on the duan cushion, &c.; and the discourse, though evidently meant for her lover, yet is equivocally allusive to her supposed fondling. It must be owned, that after the marriage they make a procession [according to the custom of the place, and station of the parties. Compare PLATES CXVI. CXVII.] in the same palanquin together, and here they are a little sociable; but modesty itself will not find the least fault with this sociability, nor with one single sentence, or sentiment, uttered on this occasion.

We appeal now to your candour, to your understanding, to your own sensibility, Reader, whether it be possible to conduct a six-day conversation between persons solemnly betrothed to each other, with greater delicacy, greater attention to the most rigid virtue, with greater propriety of sentiment, discourse, action, demeanour, and deportment: the dignity of the persons is well sustained in the dignity of their language, in the correctness of their ideas, and expressions; they are guilty of no repetitions; what they occasionally repeat they vary, and improve by the variation; they speak in poetry, and poetry furnishes the image they use: but these images are pleasing, magnificent, varied and appropriate: they are, no doubt, as they should be, local, and we do not feel half their propriety because of their locality, but we feel enough to admit, that few are the authors who could thus happily conduct such a poem; few are the personages who could sustain the characters in it; and few are the readers in any nation, or in any time, who have not ample cause to admire it, and to be thankful for its preservation as the SONG OF SONGS!

Being well persuaded, that the reader has never truly seen this poem before, and that (though it has always been in our Bibles in prose), under the present arrangement it becomes a new poem, we have directed more attention to be exerted in the Plates than perhaps otherwise might have been done; these must speak for themselves: we only say, farther, that in regard to the arrangement of the poem, our opinion advances toward a pretty strong persuasion of its correctness; but as to the version, our endeavour has been to make that speak English; and, if here and there the Hebrew may be thought to have cause of complaint, we shall be very happy it should receive improvements from whoever is qualified to improve it. It would be tedious to support the rendering of every word by authorities; the notes collected in justification of many passages must therefore be omitted. [Compare the VINDICATION, No. CCCCXCIX.]

No. CCCCXLV. EXPLANATION OF THE PLATES

ANNEXED TO THE FOREGOING NOTES.

PLATE CXLVII. THE CAMPHIRE, CYPRESS, OR AL-HENNA.

A. STEM of Flowers. B. Flower, natural size. C. Bough, with berries. D. Seed, natural size. E. Leaf, natural size.

In reference to this plant we shall quote the account of Sonnini, from whom our Plate is taken. Travels in Egypt, vol. i. p. 264, &c.

"If large black eyes, which they are at pains to darken still more, be essential to Egyptian female beauty, it likewise requires, as an accessory of first-rate importance, that the hands and nails should be dyed red. This last fashion is fully as general as the other, and not to conform to it would be reckoned indecent. The women could no more dispense with this daubing than with their clothes. Of whatever condition, of whatever religion they may be, all employ the same means to acquire this species of ornament, which the empire of fashion alone could perpetuate, for it assuredly spoils fine hands much more than it decorates them. The animated whiteness of the palm of the hand, the tender rose-colour of the nails, are effaced by a dingy layer of a reddish or orange-coloured drug. The sole of the foot, the epidermis of which is not hardened by long or frequent walking, and which daily friction makes still thinner, is likewise loaded with the same colour. [This is also customary in India. Wilson, in his translation of the Mégha Dúta, or Cloud Messenger,' of Calidasa, has these lines:

Round every house the flowery fragrance spreads:

O'er every floor the painted footstep treads;

Breathing through each casement, swell the scented air,

Soft odours shaken from dishevelled hair.

6

He observes, in a note, Staining the soles of the feet with a red colour, derived from Mehndee, the Lac, &c. is a favourite practice of the Hindu toilette.]

66

'It is with the greenish powder of the dried leaves of the Henna that the women procure for themselves a decoration so whimsical. It is prepared chiefly in the Saïd, from whence it is distributed over all the cities of Egypt. The markets are constantly supplied with it, as a commodity of habitual and indispensable use. They dilute it in water, and rub the soft paste it makes on the parts which they mean to colour: they are wrapped up in linen, and at the end of two or three hours the orange hue is strongly impressed on them. Though the women wash both hands and feet several times a-day, with lukewarm water and soap, this colour adheres for a long time, and it is sufficient to renew it about every fifteen days: that of the nails lasts much longer, nay, it passes for ineffaceable. In Turkey, likewise, the women make use of Henna, but apply it to the nails only, and leave to their hands and feet the colour of nature. It would appear, that the custom of dyeing the nails was known to the ancient Egyptians, for those of mummies are, most commonly, of a reddish hue. [Vide Memoir on Embalmment, by M. de Caylus, in the Mem. of the Acad. of Inscr. and Bel. Let. vol. xxiii. p. 133.] But the Egyptian ladies refine still farther on the general practice; they too paint their fingers, space by space only, and, in order that the colour may not lay hold of the whole, they wrap them round with thread at the

proposed distances, before the application of the colour-giving paste; so that, when the operation is finished, they have the fingers marked circularly, from end to end, with small orange-coloured belts. Others, and this practice is more common among certain Syrian dames, have a mind that their hands should present the sufficiently disagreeable mixture of black and white. The belts which the Henna had first reddened become of a shining black, by rubbing them with a composition of salammoniac, lime, and honey. [This practice of staining the hands and nails explains the phraseology, make her nails, Deut. xxi. 12.]

"You sometimes meet with men, likewise, who apply tincture of Henna to their beards, and anoint the head with it: they allege, that it strengthens the organs, that it prevents the falling off of the hair [the followers of Mahomet, it is well known, preserve, on the crown of the head, a long tuft of hair] and beard, and banishes vermin.

"The Henna is a tall shrub, endlessly multiplied in Egypt; the leaves are of a lengthened oval form, opposed to each other, and of a faint green colour. The flowers grow at the extremity of the branches, in long and tufted bouquets; the smaller ramifications which support them are red, and likewise opposite: from their armpit cavity [axilla] springs a small leaf almost round, but terminating in a point: the corolla is formed of four petals curling up, and of a light yellow. Between each petal are two white stamina with a yellow summit; there is only one white pistil. The pedicle, reddish at its issuing from the bough, dies away into a faint green. The calix is cut into four pieces, of a tender green up toward their extremity, which is reddish. The fruit or berry is a green capsule previous to its maturity; it assumes a red tint as it ripens, and becomes brown when it is dried: it is divided into four compartments, in which are enclosed the seeds, triangular and brown-coloured. The bark of the stem and of the branches is of a deep grey, and the wood has, internally, a light cast of yellow.

"This shrub had at first been considered as a species of privet [Ligustrum vulgare, Linn.], to which it has, in truth, many relations; but differences in the parts of fructification have determined botanists to make a distinct genus of it, to which Linnæus has given the name of Lawsonia, and, to the species in question, that of Lawsoniainermis. [Lawsonia-inermis, foliis subsessilibus ovatis, utrinque acutis. Lin. Octandr. monogyn.-Lawsonia-spinosa, al-henna. Hasselq. Voyage to the Levant. N. B. The epithet of spinosa is by no means applicable to the Henna, for it has no thorns.Lawsonia-inermis. Forskall's Flora Egyptiaco-Arabica.] Its Arabic name is henné, or hanna; and with the article, el-henne, or el-hanna; in Turkey they call it kanna, or al-kanna. Though its figure has been already published in several books on natural history, it has not been faithfully represented in any one, or with such exactness of detail, as in the drawing which I had taken of it at Rosetta.

"In truth, this is one of the plants the most grateful to both the sight and the smell. The gently deepish colour of its bark, the light green of its foliage, the softened mixture of white and yellow, with which the flowers, collected into long clusters like the lilac, are coloured, the red tint of the ramifications which support them form a combination of the most agreeable effect. These flowers, whose shades are so delicate, diffuse around the sweetest odours, and embalm the gardens and the apartments which they embellish; they accordingly form the usual nosegay of beauty; the women, ornament of the prisons of jealousy, whereas they might be that of a whole country, take pleasure to deck themselves with these beautiful clusters of fragrance, to adorn their apartments with them, to carry them to the bath, to hold them in their hand, in a word, to perfume their bosom with them. They attach to this possession,