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    a particular and distinct inquiry , and therefore reserved for a future undertaking . " Dr . Watts has hinted at the progress of good sense am £ sobermindedness as to the re ligious use of the Song of Songs . In a later edition of the Preface to his Lyric Poems , first published in 1709 , he has-this note : — Solomon ' s Song was much more in use amongst preachers and writers of divinity , when these poems were written , than it is now , 1736 /' Whiston , about this time , in a

    Discourse on the subject , had called in question , not only the divinity , but the moral decorum of the book , alledging " the general character of vanity and dissoluteness , which reigns through the Canticle ®* in which there is not

    one thought that leads the mind toward religion , but all is worldly and carnal , to say no worse /* At the date of the u New Translation , " it had become quite safe for a clergyman , without incurring

    scandal , to consider the Canticles merely as a work of human genius , prudently reserving the point of a spiritual sense . In thus considering it , the translator adopted the scheme of Bossuet , who divides the

    book into seven parts , each comprehending one day of the nuptial festivities . The " Annotations / ' annexed to the New Translation , discover

    a critical acquaintance with the customs and phraseology of the Hebrews , ancj are interspersed with apposite quotations from the Greek and Roman Classics * Tn the

    preface , the notes marked B . are ascribed to " the Rev . Mr . Binnel , of Newport , in Shropshire , ' * who died ** while the sheets were printing off / ' and whom the trans .

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    iator regrets as < c the assistant and cptopanion of his studies , the instructor of his youth , and the correspondent ot his riper age . " ^ In 1768 , appeared * fc The Outlines of a New Commentary on Solomon ' s Song , drawn by help of Instructions from the East . ' *

    The author , the hate Mr . Harmer . since well known by }> is " Observations on Diveis passages of Scripture /' com men » is ** the learn * , ing , the candour and the elegance displayed in the N < w Translation . " Of this he makes targe u-se , if indeed his own work were not

    occasioned by its pubycation . He however , differs from Bos suet and the translaco * -, and contends , in opposition to the latter , that the

    Su / tg nf Songs was occasioned- by Solomon ' s marriagevwith Pharaoh ' s daughter , introducing among the characters a former wife degraded on occasion of that marriage .

    This work of Mr . Harmer being , we believe , little known , in comparison wilh his Observations /* we subjoin from his preface the following explanation of his plan . " That two wives of Solomon , the one just married , and another

    whose jealousy was greatly awakened by that event , are referred to , and indeed introduced as speakers , which is th' grownd-work of the whole of wi » at 1 have offered , and , for aught I know , a thought perfectly new is a point about which I have very little

    doubtfulness in my own mind , though perhaps I may not be so happy as to have the generality of my readers adopt ( he sentiment * —When I speak of my sketching out the interpretation of this venerable Song , I would be understood to mean , as to the literal sense of it , the giving of which the

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    6 Literary Memoir of Dr . Percy , late ^ B ishop of Dromore *

• Citation
  • Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), Jan. 2, 1812, page 6, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1744/page/6/