But how about the Song of Solomon—the Song of Songs? Is not that a song of Love, and an exception to our general statement? It appears so at first sight; and the German writer Herder, in his detailed and glowing analysis of it, declares that it depicts love “from its first origin, from its tenderest bud, through all stages and conditions of its growth, its flowering, its maturing, to the ripe fruit and new offshoot.” Herder, however, is a very unsafe and shallow guide in this matter. An attempt has lately been made to rehabilitate him in Germany, where his fame has become almost extinct; but in vain, for his pompous, stilted rhetoric and imagery cannot conceal from modern readers his lack of ideas and limited knowledge of facts. He asserts that, as there is only one Goodness, one Truth, so there is but one Love (or Affection). If you do not love your wife, he says, you will not love your friend, parents, or child. A writer whose notions of the psychology of love are so excessively crude cannot be considered a trustworthy judge in the matter in question. So far as love is referred to in the Song of Solomon, it is probable that conjugal affection is meant. It is a curious fact that of the famous German, English, and French theologians who have written commentaries on the Song of Songs, no two seem to agree in their interpretation of its plot and significance. It is now generally agreed, too, that the Song was not written by Solomon, but some time after him. It seems, indeed, incredible that a monarch who had a thousand wives, and whose affections must have been torn into a thousand shreds, and cannot have been very lasting, should have written these marvellous lines: “For love is strong as death; jealousy is cruel as the grave: the coals thereof are coals of fire, which hath a most vehement flame. Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it: if a man should give all the substance of his house for love, it would utterly be contemned.” This passage has a remarkably modern and romantic sound—so modern and romantic that it would not seem out of place in Shakspere. But it needs no knowledge of Hebrew to see that the responsibility for this modern sound rests with the English translators. Luther’s more literal version appears much less modern. Indeed, throughout the Song of Solomon the English translators have idealised the language of passion, in harmony with modern notions on the subject; so that it is only on reading Luther’s version that one begins to understand why the Talmudists did not allow the Jews to read this book before their thirtieth year.