The Song of Songs. With Twenty-six Etchings after Bida. (J.
C. Nimmo.)—In this handsome volume we have the "Song of Solomon" as it stands in the Revised Version. The artist has taken, we gather from the illustrations (for introduction and notes are, perhaps judi- ciously, withheld), that view of the "Song" which holds the subject to be a maiden of Lebanon, taken into the harem of Solomon, and afterwards restored to her rural lover. In one of the most attractive of the illustrations (" The King has brought me into his chambers "), we see the maiden pacing sadly through the cloisters of the Royal palace. The face, figure, and expression here are all that can be desired. We cannot say that all are equal to this. We should be inclined, for instance, to put a considerable interval between this and the eighth etching, "1 adjure you, 0 daughter of Jerusalem." The last of the series, "Thou that dwellest in the gardens," touches again a high point of excellence. "I have compared thee, 0 my love, to a steed," is a spirited drawing, well rendered by the etcher. The paper and print are appropriately good ; and the volume, as a whole, is a good example of one of the statelier kind of gift-books.
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