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Crishna, they represent him as married to Radba, a word signifying atonement, pacification, or satisfaction; but applied allegorically to the 'soul of man, or rather to the whole assemblage ' of created souls; between whom and the bene, ⚫ volent Creator they suppose that reciprocal love, ' which Barrow describes with a glow of expres sion perfectly oriental; and which our most or thodox theologians believe to have been mystically shadowed in the Song of Solomon, while they admit that, in a literal sense, it is an epi'thalamium on the marriage of the sapient king ⚫ with the princess of Egypt. The very learned author of the Prelectiones on sacred poetry declared his opinion, that the canticles were founded on historical truth, but involved an allegory of that sort, which he named mystical; and the beautiful poem poem on the loves of Laili and Majnum, by the inimitable Nizámi (to say nothing of other poems on the same subject) is indisputably built on true history, yet avowedly allegorical and mysterious, for the introduction 'to it is a continued rapture on divine love; and the name of Laili seems to be used in the Masnavi and the odes of Hafiz, for the omnipresent spirit of God.'

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As to Hafiz, our truly learned author observes, it has been made a question whether the poems, ' of Hafiz must be taken in a literal or in a figura'tive sense; but the question does not admit of a 'general and direct answer; for even the most ' enthusiastic of his commentators allow, that some

' of them are to be taken literally; and his editors ought to have distinguished them, as our Spen

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cer has distinguished his four odes on Love and. Beauty; instead of mixing the profane with the 'divine by a childish arrangement according to 'the alphabetical order of the rhymes. Many ' zealous admirers of Hafiz,' Sir William adds, 'insist, that by wine he invariably means devo'tion-by kisses and embraces the raptures of 'piety,' &c. &c. 'The poet himself,' he subjoins, gives a colour in many passages to such * an interpretation; and without it we can hardly conceive, that his poems, or those of his nume

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rous imitators would be tolerated in a Mussel

man country, especially at Constantinople, where they are venerated as divine compositions: it must be admitted, that the sublimity of the mys'tical allegory, which like metaphors and com'parisons should be general only, not minutely exact, is diminished, if not destroyed, by an attempt at particular and distinct resemblances; ' and that the style is open to dangerous misinterpretation, while it supplies real infidels with a pretext for laughing at religion itself.'

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The learned president here introduces an ode of the above nature by an ancient Sufi, surnamed Ismat, in which the mysteries of their religion are disguised under the licentious allegories of love and wine; and, after some farther extracts, concludes this elegant and ingenious essay in the following manner.

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'Let us return to the Hindus, among whom we now find the same emblematical theology, which Pythagoras admired and adopted. The loves of 'Chrishna and Radha, or the reciprocal attrac'tion between the divine goodness and the hu

man soul, are told at large in the tenth book of 'the Bhagavat, and are the subject of a little pas'toral drama, entitled Gitagóvinda: it was the 'work of Jayadeva, who flourished, it is said, 'before Calidas, and was born, as he tells us 'himself, in Cenduli, which many believe to be ' in Calinga; but, since there is a town of a si ́milar name in Berdwan, the natives of it insist 'that the finest lyric poet of India was their countryman, and celebrate, in honour of him, an annual jubilee, passing a whole night in representing his drama, and in singing his beautiful songs,'

The sum of our evidence in favour of the allegorical import of the Song of Songs amounts to this: That there is a rational ground for the allegory in divine truth; that the same imagery is allegorically employed in other undoubted parts of scripture; that this is perfectly in the eastern taste; that it has been almost the universal sense of ancients and moderns, who have studied this book; and that otherwise, it were very difficult, not to say impossible, to account for its admission into the sacred canon.

It has been said that some of these arguments prove only the possibility of the case and not the fact; that it may be allegorical and not that it is

sent case.

so. I think they go farther; but if the possibility of this fact be admitted from some of these considerations, others will induce a very high degree of probability, sufficient for conviction in the preFor instance, if from the eastern taste of composition, and more particularly from the style of the sacred writers, it appears that the same or similar images are employed in the description of divine mysteries, it surely follows, from the admission of this book into the sacred canon, that very probably this is of the same im, port at least that those who placed it there, and had far better opportunities than we of judging, thought so this is much strengthened by the general current of early Jewish and Christian writers, and comes nothing short, as I conceive of sufficient evidence, to satisfy any reasonable en, quirer. But to fasten the conviction and com, plete the evidence I have reserved to this place the following argument, which being of a moral nature, stands distinguished from the rest1.

The argument is this: that the book in its allegorical sense has been instrumental to the comfort and edification of thousands of pious Jews'

1 I am sensible of having omitted one argument on which some advocates for this book have laid considerable stress; I mean the difficulty of accommodating many parts of this poem to a literal sense: but I have omitted it intentionally, because, 1st, I have endeavoured to accommodate the whole in this manner; and 2d, because there is a like difficulty in spiritualizing the whole; still, however, I am disposed to think with Mr. Henley, that had the poem been intended merely as a marriage song, some passages would not have been admitted.

and Christians of all ages. Now if we admit a providence superintending all human affairs, and especially the concerns of the church, how shall we reconcile it to the character of God, to suppose he has suffered his church to be deluded with a mere love-song, and in the opinion of the objectors, a very loose and profane one, for three or four thousand years? The supposition amounts to such a high degree of improbability as we seldom admit; little inferior to that of supposing, that the English church might have been so imposed on, as to mistake the poems of Rochester for a book of divine hymns and spiritual songs.

SECTION VI.

OF THE INSPIRATION OF SOLOMON'S SONG.

THIS may rather be considered as an inference from the preceding evidence, than as another subject of enquiry. For if this book were written by Solomon, a writer confessedly inspired, and contain the divine mysteries of revelation, no good reason can surely be assigned, why it should not be admitted of equal authority with the other sacred books, and particularly with other books composed by him.

Nothing therefore remains but to consider a few objections, which have not been above discussed; and they shall be taken chiefly from Mr.

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