22 NOVEMBER 1890, Page 28

The Heart of Sheba. By E. M. Hewitt. (T. Fisher

lJnwin.)— The "Heart of Sheba" is the Queen of that country of whom

the Hebrew Historian tells us. She pays a visit to King

Shel8m8h (Solomon), falls in love with him, as the Rabbinical tradition has it, but—here differing from the said tradition—

refuses the fractional part of a heart which is all that the great King, who has already wedded the daughter of Pharaoh, and we know not how many besides, has to offer her. So she goes back to her own country, and lives unmarried to the end of her days,

although her people are very anxious that she should take a husband, and there is a certain Arnath, who is called the

" Queen's brother," who would be very glad to fill that place.

The style is occasionally somewhat stilted and awkward. "And I give myself unto ye, 0 people of Sheba, to be a mother in the midst of ye," is not good grammar. " Ye " cannot be used in an oblique case. " You " is the right form, as Miss Hewitt will find if she examines the usage of the Bible. Again, the last clause

in " Balkis, the Heart of Sheba, came unto the throne of her father, being sixteen summers," is surely incorrect. Besides, to speak of a person being so many summers or winters old is, we fancy, quite modern.