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your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. For if these things be in you and abound, they make you that ye shall neither be barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. For so an entrance shall be administered unto you abundantly into the everlasting kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

1 2 Pet. i. 2, &c.

IDYL THE TWELFTH.

From the fifth Verse of the eighth Chapter to the End.

In this last Idyl a happy pair is contemplated, and their conversation, as if overheard, is recorded.-First, the bride is reminded of her origin.-She then, on her part, expresses her anxiety ever to retain the affections of her husband-she is answered with the strongest assurances of his constant attachment. A conversation follows respecting a younger sister; and lastly, respecting a garden or estate, which it appears has been assigned to the bride as her residence.

Such is the plan of this last allegory, if, indeed, we can with propriety call it a plan; for it has much the appearance of a conclusion to the whole preceding series, wherein an opportunity is taken of making several observations having reference to the general subject: at least the exterior imagery forms so pellucid and transparent a covering, that it is difficult to account for it, except in immediate reference to the interior and remote sense.

VIRGINS.

WHO is this that cometh up from the wilderness,
Leaning upon her beloved?

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"Leaning herself upon her beloved;" or, according to some, in company with her beloved."-Thus we are introduced, as it were, to the parties, who hold the chief part of the following dialogue.

BRIDEGROOM.

Beneath this citron-tree I raised thee up",
Here thy mother brought thee forth in sorrow,
Here, bringing thee forth in sorrow, she bare thee.

BRIDE.

O set me as a seal upon thine heart,

As a seal upon thine arma!

BRIDEGROOM.

Yea, love is strong as Death,

b Perhaps, "resuscitated thee." .

Petita significatione a nom. n, dolor, a gird, or girding pain. Tormen, particularly of a woman in travail.-Parkhurst. "Schultens sensum concipiendi tuetur."-Simon. "Exei wòivnde de In uning σov."-Septuagint. The case supposed, if I mistake not, is, that this royal bride was once an exposed infant, owing the preservation of her existence to the charitable interposition of her future husband; not only, as was represented in the first idyl, was she a poor oppressed girl, exalted to affluence and royalty by the monarch's partiality, but, when she first became the object of his pity and kindness, she was in a still more deplorable and wretched situation. This same metaphor the reader will find followed at length in the fourteenth chapter of the prophecy of Ezekiel. a These are the words of the bride. Being reminded of the pity and love shown to her in her helpless infancy by that same bountiful hand that now supports her as a bride, she prays that she may ever continue to be the object of her husband's affection. place as a seal upon the heart, as a seal upon the arm," are scriptural expressions denoting the cherishing of a true affection, with the exhibition of those constant attentions which bespeak a real attachment. "In that day, saith the Lord of Hosts-O Zerubbabel, my servant-I will make thee a signet: for I have chosen thee, saith the Lord of Hosts."-Haggai, ii. 23. "As I live, saith the Lord, though Coniah-were the signet upon my right hand, yet would I pluck thee thence."-Jer. xxxii. 24.

"To

e The reply of the bridegroom I conceive to commence in this place. The following lines will be found to contain the strongest

Jealousy is stubborns as Hadesh;

assurances of his unchanging love, that his bride could possibly receive from his gracious lips.

fp, Jealousy; but not in a bad sense, as mixed with suspicion respecting the faithfulness of the beloved object; but as expressive of the notion,-How choice the lover is wont to be of the object of his passion; with what solicitous care he will watch over her: how strenuously he will vindicate her as his own, and what dangers he would brave in her defence. p, tenerrime amavit. q. d. Zelotypia. Flagravit ad causam, jus, et dignitatem alicujus strenue defendendum, et præsertim ejus qui injuria affectus vel misere oppressus est.-Simon.

nop, durus, difficilis.py, stiff-necked people, often expresses the stubborn and unyielding disposition of the Israelites. The verb is used also of the hardened Pharaoh, obstinately per

- ויהי כי הקשה פרעה לשלחנו sisting in his refusal to let Israel go

Exod. xiii. 15.

h b, to which the epithet up is applied, denotes, not the grave, but the receptacle of departed spirits. This unseen world we may distinguish by the word hades, as the English word hell is become, in common use, appropriated to the place of torment. Whereas, like Ads among the Greeks, and like Orcus, or Infernus, among the Latins, applies to the state of departed souls in general. (See Campbell's dissertation on Ads Tevva. Also Bp. Horsley's Sermon on the Descent into Hell).

This notion of stubbornness and inflexibility, as applied to the personifications of the departed state, the "Inexorabilis Orcus," will be familiar to many of my readers.

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Manesque addiît regemque tremendum

Nesciaque humanis precibus mansuescere corda."

Virgil, Georgic iv. 469.

"Non vanæ redeat sanguis imagini,

Quam virga semel horridâ

Non lenis precibus fata recludere

Nigro compulerit Mercurius gregi."

Horatii, Liber 1. Ode xxiv.

"But now he is dead, wherefore should I fast? Can I bring him back again? I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me."-2 Sam, xii. 23.

Its flames are as the flames of firei

Even the burning fire of Jehovah *!

Many waters cannot quench this love,

Neither can the floods drown it.

If a man would give all the substance of his house for love,

He would utterly be despised.

BRIDE.

We have a sister, she is small, and has no breasts'.
What shall we do for our sister,

In the day, when she shall be spoken for?

i, coals glowing with heat, or flashes of fire. Compare Psalm lxxviii. 48, with Exod. ix. 23, 24.

The burning fire of Jah. A great number of Dr. Kennicott's Codices read many in two words. nan, flamma vehementissima, à rad. Chald. et Syr. an inflammatus arsit, recte derivat Schultens. (Simon.) Parkhurst derives the word from, to loose, to dissolve, and an, a flame of fire.-The dissolving fire.

From the order of the personified characters, we cannot mistake, I conceive, its signification.,, and ab, correspond exactly with θανατος, άδης, and γέεννα, οι λίμνη του πυρος : death, hell or hades, and “hell-fire”—“ The fire prepared for the devil and his angels,""That fire which never shall be quenched." The meaning, therefore, of the allusion is, The flame of that love with which my heart burns is unquenchable and eternal, like the flame of that everlasting fire which the Almighty has kindled for the punishment of his apostate creatures.

1 This address appears to be an intercession on behalf of another-of an acknowledged sister. She is, perhaps, spoken of as defective in form. Her youth could not be the only thing complained of, as that would be remedied by the time she was demanded in marriage. But, in view of this event, there are clearly supposed some personal imperfections. The bride, happy in the assurance of her own acceptance with her husband, implores his advice respecting their common sister.

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