As to the temple which he built, and which the Jews believed to be the finest work of the universe, if the Bramantes, the Michelangelos, and the Palladios, had seen this building, they would not have admired it. It was a kind of small square fortress, which enclosed a court; in this court was one edifice of forty cubits long, and another of twenty; and it is said, that this second edifice, which was properly the temple, the oracle, the holy of holies, was only twenty cubits in length and breadth, and twenty cubits high. M. Souflot would not have been quite pleased with those proportions. The books attributed to Solomon have lasted longer than his temple. The name of the author alone has rendered these books respectable. They should be good, since they were written by a king, and this king passed for the wisest of men. The first work attributed to him is that of Proverbs. It is a collection of maxims, which sometimes appear to our refined minds trifling, low, incoherent, in bad taste, and without meaning. People cannot be persuaded that an enlightened king has composed a collection of sentences, in which there is not one which regards the art of government, politics, manners of courtiers, or customs of a court. They are astonished at seeing whole chapters in which nothing is spoken of but prostitutes, who invite passengers in the streets to lie with them. They revolt against sentences in the following style: "There are three things that are never satisfied, a fourth which never says 'enough'; the grave; the barren womb; the earth that is not filled with water, are the three; and the fourth is fire, which never sayeth 'enough.' "There be three things which are too wonderful for me; yea, four which I know not. The way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon a rock, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the way of a man with a maid. "There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise. The ants are a people not strong, yet they prepare their meat in the summer; the conies are but a feeble race, yet they make their houses in rocks; the locusts have no king, yet go they forth all of them by bands; the spider taketh hold with her hands, and is in kings' palaces." Can we impute such follies as these to a great king, to the wisest of mortals? say the objectors. This criticism is strong; it should deliver itself with more respect. The Proverbs have been attributed to Isaiah, Elijah, Sobna, Eliakim, Joachim, and several others; but whoever compiled this collection of Eastern sentences, it does not appear that it was a king who gave himself the trouble. Would he have said that the terror of the king is like the roaring of a lion? It is thus that a subject or a slave speaks, who trembles at the anger of his master. Would Solomon have spoken so much of unchaste women? Would he have said: "Look thou not upon the wine when it is red, when it giveth its color in the glass"?