unites them. It refers also to the establishment of the whole system and mechanism of the material universe, which is the outbirth of those truths, and consequently order and harmony throughout. In this little history is thus exemplified the function of genuine philosophy, which is rightly to translate appearances :—

To unbind the charms that round slight fables lie,

And shew that truth is truest poesy.

True philosophy stands, as Carlyle has well said of high criticism, as an interpreter between the inspired and the uninspired; between the prophet and those who hear the melody of his words, and catch some glimpse of their material meanings, but understand not their deeper import.*

223. From designating sounds, it is quite natural that the epithet 'sweet' should pass on to aspects- This is why we speak of a sweet face, sweet eyes, sweet looks, a sweet baby. So in poetry:

'Heaven bless thee!

Thou hast the sweetest face I ever look'd on.'-Shakspere.

'She did but look upon him, and his blood
Blushed deeper even from his inmost heart;

For at each glance of those sweet eyes a soul

Looked forth as from the azure gates of heaven.'-Festus.

Interea dulces pendent circum oscula nati.—Virgil, Georgic ii. 523.
('Meanwhile the sweet babes twine round their parent's neck.')

In Æneid v. 214, Virgil extends the word with infinite delicacy, to the young birds in a nest, calling them their mother's dulces nidi, darling young.' So in Georgic i. 414, dulcesque nidos, darling nests,' a phrase in no wise different in spirit from our own beautiful Home, sweet home!'

·

224. From the aspects of humanity and of living things, the word

*It is the order of the universe which most especially accredits the Divinity of its contriver. For without rule and order, neither design nor workmanship would suffice to the formation of a habitable and enduring world. So admirable and conspicuous indeed has the order of the world been to the human mind in all ages, that we find it selected in certain languages to stand as its name. The Latin mundus, for instance. Quem κóoμov Græci,' says Pliny, 'nomine ornamenti appellavere, eum nos a perfectâ abso’utâque elegantiâ, MUNDUM.' (Hist. Nat. ii. 147.) Pliny's eloquent language acquires added emphasis from the fact of order or fitness being the essential meaning of beauty. For 'beauty' is originally derived from venio, to come, and is thus the Latin equivalent of 'comeliness.' So forms and aspects which in English we call 'meet' and 'becoming,' the Latins described as conveniens. All these terms rest on the fine emblem presented in harmonious physical meeting, of what is harmonious and lovely to the mind, order being the essential element in both cases.

passes by natural transition to inanimate ones. Hence Theocritus gives it to the summer time, and to the pure air of the country; Milton to the mild radiance of the setting sun, after a day chequered by storms, to the 'gems of heaven,' and to the 'sweet hour of morning.' Hence, too, in Ecclesiastes, Truly the light is sweet.' For the same reason we speak in familiar converse of a 'sweet afternoon,' and a 'sweet evening.' Orpheus has 'the sweet-faced hours.' (Hymn to the Hours, 5.) 225. In all of these usages the reference to our feelings is secret. There is an equally large use of the figure in respect to the things of our inner life exclusively. Thus, 'sweet love,' 'sweet influence,' 'sweet satisfaction, a sweet disposition.' Delight' the Greeks called dos, 'sweetness,' as in Iliad i. 576. The charm of innumerable passages in Shakspere, relating to the affections, rests almost entirely upon his admirable and masterly introduction of this word. When he speaks, for instance, ofthe music of sweet news,' 'the sweet uses of adversity,' of 'sweet sorrow,' and 'sweet melancholy.' So with Milton's 'sweet retired solitude,' and 'the sweet peace that goodness bosoms ever.' Hence the poetry also of Cicero's beautiful phrase 'dulce nomen Libertatis,'—' the sweet name of LIBERTY.' Hence also that Horace describes the tranquil solitudes of his country house as 'hæ latebræ dulces,' 'these sweet retreats,' and that Ovid calls an affectionate daughter 'lenimen dulce senectæ,' 'the sweet solace of old age.' (Met. vi. 500.) Seneca says that

quæ fuit durum pati,

Meminisse dulce est.—(Hercules Furens, 656, 657.)

Those things which it was hard to endure, it is sweet to remember.' One whom we dearly love, we call, on the same principle, our sweetheart.' The Romans used the same pretty expression in their equi valent word melliculum, literally 'little honey.' Hence too, they had for a saying, when anything particularly pleased them, mel mihi videor lingere,' it seems to me to taste of honey!' This is the origin also of the period immediately succeeding marriage being called the honey

moon.

226. Virgil's uses of this figure are, like Shakspere's, of singular power and richness. In the 10th Eneid, for example, when he describes the unfortunate Argive soldier dying on a battle-field far from his native land,—

Sternitur infelix alieno vulnere, cœlumque

Aspicit, et dulces moriens reminiscitur Argos. (781, 782.)

By another's wound he falls, unhappy, looks up to heaven, and dying, thinks of his beloved Argos.'

227. Many highly beautiful examples occur also in Lucretius, as in those famous lines, so commended by Lord Bacon, at the opening of his Second Book :

Suave mari magno turbantibus æquora ventis

E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem;
Non quia vexari quemquam est jucunda voluptas,

Sed, quibus ipse malis careas, quia cernere suave est.

'When the sea is agitated by stormy winds, how sweet to behold from the shore the terrible distress of another! Not that it gratifies us to see any one in peril, but that 'tis sweet to feel that we ourselves are safe.'

What a pity that such splendid language should advance a moral so defective! He compensates it some little, however, by saying further on, 'how much sweeter are the pleasures of philosophy.' The former part of the passage calls to mind that charming fragment of Menander,—

Ως ἡδὺ την θάλατταν ἄπόθεν γῆς ὁραν,

"Ω μήτηρ, ἐστι, μὴ πλέοντα μηδαμῶς.

'Oh mother, how sweet it is to look forth upon the sea, we ourselves not sailing on it!'

Another fine example occurs in the admired lines in his Third Book,At jam non domus accipiet te læta, neque uxor

Optima: nec dulces occurrent oscula nati

Præripere, et tacita pectus dulcedine tangent, &c. (906—911.)

'But now thy joyful house will not receive thee, neither thy loving wife; nor shall thy darling children run to preëngage thy kiss, and touch thy bosom with silent gladness.'

228. By meditating on the expression, 'sweet satisfaction,' we are led to the spiritual meaning of that remarkable incident in the history of Samson, where it is related that he slew a lion, and on returning some days after, found that in the carcase the bees had constructed a honey-comb, of which he ate. The history of Samson, like that of Moses, Joseph, and David, representatively predicted the Lord's sojourn upon earth, and consequently the temptations, trials, sufferings, combats, and victories which filled his life time, and thence the similar events in the spiritual life of all who seek to follow him. The incident of the lion and the honey-comb is by no means the least instructive of these little episodes. It is a picture, in correspondences, of the slaying of the spiritual enemies represented by the lion, who is for ever‘going about, seeking whom he may devour,' while the finding the honey in his carcase, and the eating it, denote the sweet peace and satisfaction that ever follow the overthrow of spiritual foes. For an evil overcome

thenceforward exists but as a carcase, and rejoicing is the natural sequence of victory.*

229. Such a mode of viewing and interpreting the histories of Scripture is too often undervalued, and not unfrequently thought useless, fantastic, and visionary. Before the utility be questioned, it should be remembered that he who reads them merely as pieces of biography, secures only one thing, and that a comparatively unimportant one; whereas to extract the deep meanings put into them by God, is to secure a multitude, and those of the most instructive order. That system of interpretation must be the best, by which the Scriptures are most opened to us, and most clearly shewn to have reference, in every part, to our own daily life and duty. Except for these interior meanings the narratives in question would be of no greater service to man's spiritual welfare, (which is the sole object of their insertion in the Bible) than the similar stories recorded by Herodotus, or any other ancient historian. The meanings are not brought out, it must also be remembered, by mere 'spiritualizing.' The latter practice, though useful, is arbitrary and capricious, being only a form of comparison. Correspondence, on the other hand, interprets by original and unchangeable laws. Its renderings are consistent throughout.

230. The correspondences of sweetness are expressed in our language not only by the word 'sweet' itself, but by various collateral terms. Suave and suavity, for instance, which denote an agreeable or sweet demeanour, are from the Latin form, suavis. The Romans used the word in the same senses. Derived from it they also had suavium, a kiss. To persuade' is another of these words, being derived proximately from suadeo, which bears the same relation to suavis that claudo does to clavis. Persuasive and persuasion, therefore, mean literally 'sweet influence,' sweet power;' and to be persuaded' to be sweetened into compliance. To assuage also means to sweeten, as when we speak of assuaging care or labour, which are synonymously said to be sweetened. To assuage grief' is to overcome the bitter by its opposite. Dulcet' has already been named as the English form of dulcis. From the latter comes also to indulge,' literally to give something sweet or agreeable. An indulgence' is the bestowal of such. Mellifluous is literally honey-flowing.' Probably there is an unsuspected relation between favus, a honey-comb, and favere to favour; kindness and sweet

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* The perversion of this narrative gave rise to the story that bees might be procured by leaving a carcase to decay, as told by Virgil and Ovid. (Georgic iv. 281314. Met. xv. 361-367.)

ness being naturally allied. If so, what fulness of meaning in contained in Ovid's little summary of bee-life,—

Rura colunt; operique favent, in spemque laborant. (Met. xv. 367.) 'They haunt the fields, delight in work, and labour in hope' (of enjoying their gathered honey).

231. The opposite of sweet, or 'bitter,' is applied, by reason of its similar analogies, to whatever is painful and distressing. Its usage, however, is far less extensive than that of 'sweet.' This is because the things which grieve and afflict are more easily defined than those which please. For beauty, happiness, and enjoyment consist, like the daylight, of innumerable little particles, and from their very nature, are far more readily felt than pourtrayed. Pain, sorrow, and defect, on the other hand, are but too well margined.

232. The ordinary uses of the figure are illustrated in the expressions, 'bitter sorrow,' 'bitter grief,' 'bitter tears,' a bitter fate.' Peter, it is said, ‘went out, and wept bitterly.' So when Esau found that Jacob had cheated him of his birthright, he cried with a great and exceeding bitter cry.' In the Proverbs it is said that the heart knoweth his own bitterness;' in Exodus, that the Egyptians made the children of Israel to serve with rigour, and made their lives bitter with hard bondage.' Similar to this is the familiar phrase, 'to embitter one's existence.' The Greeks, fully alive to the correspondence, called an unhappy marriage by the expressive name of πiкрóуaμos, a bitter one. Homer, for instance, (Odyssey i. 266) and Euripides (Medea 400). With the Greek poets TIKρòs likewise signifies odious, offensive, peevish, spiteful, and malicious, as in Philoctetes 254, 355; Supplicants 784, &c. Like ourselves, they also spoke of bitter tears,' as in Odyssey iv. 152, and of bitter words,' as in that terrible passage in the 'Seven before Thebes' of Æschylus,

'And because of his scanty food, he hurled upon his children execrating curses, very passionate; alas, bitterly-tongued !'

In the Psalms, David uses the same correspondence, praying to be protected from the wicked who bend their bows to shoot their arrows, even bitter words.' (lxiv. 3.)

233. English poetry abounds with such examples, especially in reference to sorrow,

'Hope did not quit me, as if still

Her precious pearl in sorrow's cup