On the other hand a critical reader can hardly ascribe the whole book to the Solomonic period. The exquisite exaltation of Love, as a human passion (viii. 6, 7), brings us into the refined atmosphere amid which Eros was developed, and it is immediately followed by a song that hardly rises above doggerel (viii. 8, 9). This is an interruption of the poem that looks as if suggested by the line that follows it (first line of verse 10) and meant to be comic. It impresses me as a very late interpolation, and by a hand inferior to the Alexandrian artist who in style has so well matched the more ancient pieces in his literary mosaic. Herder finds the collection as a whole Solomonic, and makes the striking suggestion that its author at a more mature age would take the tone of Ecclesiasticus. Considered simply as a literary production, the composition makes on my own mind the impression of a romance conveyed in idylls, each presenting a picturesque situation or a scene, the general theme and motif being that of the great Solomonic Psalm. This psalm (xlv.), quoted and discussed in chapter III., brings before us a beautiful maiden brought from a distant region to the court, but not quite happy: she is entreated to forget her people and enjoy the dignities and luxuries offered by her lord, the King. This psalm is remarkable in its intimations of a freedom of sentiment accorded to the ladies wooed by Solomon, and the same spirit pervades Canticles. Its chief refrain is that love must not be coerced or awakened until it please. This magnanimity might naturally connect the name of Solomon with old songs of love and courtship such as those utilised and multiplied in this book, whose composition might be naturally entitled "A Song (made) of Songs which are Solomon's." The heroine, whose name is Shulamith,--(feminine of Shelomoh, Solomon) [20]--is an only daughter, cherished by her apparently widowed mother but maltreated by her brothers. Incensed against her, they compel Shulamith to keep their vineyards to the neglect of her own. She becomes sunburnt, "swarthy," but is very "attractive," and is brought by Solomon to his palace, where she delights the ladies by her beauty and dances. In what I suppose to be one of the ancient Solomonic Songs embodied in the work it is said: "There are threescore queens, and fourscore concubines, And maidens without number: Beyond compare is my dove, my unsoiled; She is the only one of her mother, The cherished one of her that bare her: The daughters saw her and called her blessed, Yea, the queens and the concubines, and they praised her." [21]