a mode of criticism were admitted, the sacred Scriptures might be made to speak any thing an interpreter chose ; and by consequence, they would be rendered entirely useless as a rule of faith and practice. No book whatever, ancient or modern, could preserve the meaning of the author, and maintain its character, under such unwarantable treatment. Add to this, that a comparison of the same kind, and almost in the same words as Bochart proposes, immediately follows, which but ill accords with the beautiful variety for which the other parts of the address are so remarkable. Such a tame and meagre repetition, it is presumed, is no where else to be found in the sacred volume, and ought not to be admitted in this passage, without the most cogent proof of its being the dictate of inspiration. But if the benediction of Jacob is difficult and obscure, the meaning of Solomon's recommendation is clear and precise: "Rejoice with the wife of thy youth. Let her be as the loving hind and pleasant roe;"t the hind of loves, and the roe of grace, in the language of ancient Hebrews mean, the aimable hind and the lovely roe. These creatures, it is generally admitted, in the whole form of their bodies, and in all their dispositions and manners, are wonderfully pleasing. The ancients were particularly delighted with them; they kept them in their houses; they fed them at their tables with the greatest care; they washed, and combed, and adorned them with garlands of flowers, and chains of gold or silver." This custom seems s Bochart. Hieroz. lib. iii, cap. 18, p. 897. " Theocrit. Idyll. 11. τρεφω δε τοι ενδεκα νεβρως, Πασας μαννοφορων * Prov. v, 18, 19. "I rear for thee eleven fawns, all of them adorned with chains of gold." to have been very general in the east; for in Virgil, Sylvia performed all these kind offices to her favourite stag: "Cervus erat forma præstanti et cornibus ingens Assuetum imperiis soror omni Sylvia cura Mollibus intexens ornabat cornua sertis. Patebatque foram, puroque in fonte lavabat." Æn. lib. vii, 1. 483. The lamb and the kid were treated with still greater familiarity, as we learn from the parable of Nathan, which, by the command of Jehovah, he uttered in the presence of David: "But the poor man had nothing, save one little ewe lamb, which he had bought and nourished up; and it grew up together with him, and with his children; it did eat of his own meat, and drink of his Own cup, and lay in his own bosom, and was unto him as a daughter.” The hind seems to have been admitted to all those privileges, except that of reposing with her master on the same couch, which must have been rendered inconvenient by the largeness of her size. If these things are duly considered, the charge of the wise man will not appear so singular; to the ear of an oriental it was quite intelligible, and perfectly proper. Let a man tenderly love his spouse; relax in her company from the severer duties of life; take pleasure in her innocent and amiable conversation; and in fine, treat her with all the kindness, and admit her to all the familiarity, which the beauty of her form, the excellence of her dispositions, and the nearness of her relation, entitle her to expect. It has been the custom in all ages, to entreat or adjure by those things which are known to be peculiarly dear to the person addressed. Thus, unhappy Dido besought Æneas to remain, ▾ 2 Sam. xii, 3. per ego has lacrymas dextramque tuam, te, Eneid. lib. iv, 1. 314. avails herself of the great In the same manner, the spouse delight which the daughters of Israel were known to take in the roes and the hinds, in her charge not to disturb the repose of her beloved: "I charge you, O ye daughters of Jerusalem, by the roes, and by the hinds of the field, that ye stir not up, nor awake my love till he please.” She repeats her charge in the next chapter, in precisely the same terms: for those that experience the sweetness of communion with Christ, and the sensible manifestations of his love, cannot but earnestly desire the continuance of such inestimable favours, and be solicitous that nothing be done either by themselves or others, to grieve his holy Spirit, and to provoke him to withdraw. The Ibex, or Wild goat. This animal belongs to the same species with the domestic goat, and exhibits nearly the same character and dispositions. His Hebrew name, Yaala, from a verb which signifies to ascend, indicates one of the strongest habits implanted in his nature, to scale the loftiest pinnacle of the rock, and the highest ridge of the mountains. He takes his station on the edge of the steep, and seems to delight in gazing on the gulf below, or surveying the immense void before him. Those frightful precipices which are inaccessible to man, and other animals, where the most adventurous hunter dares not follow him, are his favourite haunts. He sleeps on their brow; he sports on their Song ii, 7. W smallest projections, secure from the attack of his enemies. These facts were observed by the shepherds of the east, recorded by the pen of inspiration, and celebrated in the songs of Zion: "The high hills are a refuge for the wild goats." In the expostulation which Jehovah addressed to Job, they are called "the wild goats of the rock;" because it is the place which the Creator has appointed for their proper abode, and to which he has adapted all their dispositions and habits. The dreary and frightful precipices, which frown over the Dead sea, toward the wilderness of Engedi, the inspired historian of David's life, calls emphatically "the rocks of the wild goats," as if accessible only to those animals. The ibex is distinguished by the size of his horns. No creature, says Gesner, has horns so large as those of the mountain goat, for they reach from his head as far as his buttocks. Long before his time, Pliny remarked, that the ibex is a creature of wonderful swiftness, although its head is loaded with vast horns. According to Scaliger, the horns of an elderly goat are sometimes eighteen pounds weight, and marked by twenty-four circular prominences, the indications of as many years.* The horns of the ibex, according to the Chaldee interpreter, are mentioned by the prophet among the valuable commodities which enriched the merchants of Tyre, in the days of her prosperity: "The men of Dedan were thy merchants; many isles were the merchandise of thine hand; they brought thee for a present, horns of ivory and ebony." It is certain, that the horns of this animal were greatly esteemed among the ancients, on account of the various useful purposes to which they were converted. The Cre* Bochart. Hieroz. lib. iii, cap. 23, p. 915. › Ezek. xxvii, 15. tan archers had them manufactured into bows; and the votaries of Bacchus, into large cups, one of which, says Ælian, could easily hold three measures. The conjecture of Bochart is therefore extremely probable, that the Taλos of Homer, is the ibex of the Latins; for he calls it a wild goat, says that it was taken among the rocks, and had horns of sixteen palms, of which the bow of Pandarus was fabricated: Αντικ εσυλα το ξον εύξοον, εξαλου αιγος Iliad. lib. iv, 1. 105. We may conclude from the wisdom and goodness of God, which shine conspicuously in all his works, that the enormous horns of the ibex, are not a useless incumbrance, but, in some respects, necessary to its safety and comfort. The Arabian writers aver, that when it sees the hunter approach the top of the rock, where it happens to have taken its station, and has no other way of escape, turning on its back, it throws itself down the precipice, at once defended by its long bending horns from the projections of the rock, and saved from being dashed in pieces, or even hurt by the fall. The opinion of Pliny is more worthy of credit, that the horns of the ibex serve as a poise to its body in its perilous excursions among the precipitous rocks, or when it attempts to leap from one crag to another. The feats which it is said to perform emong the Alpine summits, are almost incredible; one fact, however, seems to be certain, that in bounding from one height to another, it far surpasses all the other varieties of the species. To hunt the ibex, has been justly reckoned a most perilous enterprise, which frequently terminates in the hunter's destruc z De Nat. Animal. lib. xiv, cap. 16. a Nat. Hist. lib. viii, c. 76. b Buffon's Nat. Hist. vol. vi, p. 385. |