second means lions distinctively, as it has the plural form. The two words together make either "the lion-cup" (wine-press) or "the lion-cub." The original, or root-word, KPR, means "to cover," and was applied to a young lion because it was "covered" with shaggy hair, and to a cup because it had a cover." For the same reason, no doubt, it was applied to a wine-press, because it was carefully "covered " at all seasons of the year. Besides, the wine-press was in shape like a gigantic cup, and having the strength of a lion to overcome the mightiest, especially in a prolonged encounter, it would naturally be called the "lion-cup of the vineyard." This name would be not only strikingly figurative, but strongly suggestive of the qualities or characteristics of the wine-press. This point is not only definitionally strengthened, but overwhelmingly sustained, by the two words translated "carcass" in the 8th verse. The first of these is mapeleth, and means the "ruin" or "fallen heap," terms entirely applicable to a "smashed wine-press," but not to the decayed or decaying carcass of a lion. Dropping the matres lectionis from the second word rendered "carcass in the same verse (the 8th), and we have the Hebrew consonants GTH, or the same word rendered “wine-press" in the 6th chapter of the same book (Judges) 11th verse, where "Gideon threshed wheat in (not beside the wine-press (GTH) to hide it from the Midianites." This would seem conclusive of the point already hinted at, either that the matres lectionis were not used by the writer of the chant, or that they were so used as to deepen the pun or play upon words, which included the double idea of a "lion-cub and "lioncup." The 8th verse should therefore read, "and he turned aside to see the fallen heap of the wine-press; and, behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in it" (or, literally, in the "lion-cup.") And this was the most natural place in the world for a swarm of bees to take shelter in, if the upper or grape receptacle only had been destroyed, as the lower or wine receptacle would furnish them as perfect a "hive" as could be cut from the living rock. The saccharine fermentation of the grape is always a most tempting sweet to the honey-bee, and if immediately after the vintage season, there would be this additional temptation to its ordinary rock resort in that region.

This dramatic chant or song (for it is manifestly such in the original) is remarkable for its puns, or play upon words. A purely consonantal language gives great scope and facility for this sort of enigma, much greater, in fact, than is possible with a multiplicity of vowel-sounds superadded to those that are consonantal only; and this is true, whether the pun is presented to the ear in sound or to the eye by letter. The solution of Samson's riddle turns, in fact, upon an ingenious pun. The words KPR-ARTH are so played upon by Samson, or so " twisted" by him, as to mean one thing in his own mind, and another to his wife and her people. He had actually destroyed the "wine-press" in the vineyards of Timnath. If cut from the living rock, it was a most valuable piece of Philistine property. It was no doubt a matter of much curiosity and speculation with them to know how it had been. destroyed. As Samson rent it "with nothing in his hands," there

could have been no external evidences of violence, and they must have supposed that a bolt from heaven shivered or rent it in pieces. At all events, they were ignorant of Samson's miraculous strength, and had not the remotest idea that he could have done it. In putting forth his riddle, therefore, he is evidently tantalising them with the loss of their wine-press, as he afterwards tantalised them, through Delilah, with reference to the source of his great strength. What he tells his wife on the seventh day is, that he had rent a KPR-ARTH in the vineyards of Timnath, and that he had afterwards turned aside to see its fallen body, "and behold, there was a swarm of bees and honey in it." The play upon the several words used is so ingenious that she understands him to mean “a lion-cub," and not a "lion-cup." For, after she had communicated with the Philistines, they ask not what is stronger than KPRARTH, but what is stronger than an ARE, using the singular form of the noun for lion only, and losing sight entirely of the pun, or double entendre, by which the substantial or basis fact of the riddle had been communicated.

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And this solution of the riddle does no injustice to the Bible Hercules. Had the wine-press of Timnath been cut out of the rock, it would have required a much more Herculean feat to rend it in fragments (make a "fallen heap" of it) than it would to have rent a young lion." It was, no doubt, in the vintage season of the year when he first went down to Timnath with his parents. The wine-press might then be full of grapes and flowing with new wine, with no one to tread it. If called the "lion-cup," as it undoubtedly was, it would then literally roar against him," that is, it would strongly challenge him to an encounter, he being a Nazarite, and the wine-press his chief "enemy or tempter. The word shoëg may mean either the raging of persons or things, as the raging of wine when it is red in the cup. The language is somewhat figurative, but the meaning is readily deducible, and certainly not farfetched in this instance. And here we are told that the "spirit of the Lord (which only led him to act against the Philistines) came mightily upon him," and he rent the wine-press as he would have rent a kid. This makes the first act of the Bible Hercules the destruction of Philistine property, the second the destruction of life, and so on afterwards alternately of property and life, until the grand climax of his career--the destruction of both together in the Temple of Dagon.

"It was of the Lord (so says the text) that he sought an occasion against the Philistines," a circumstance that even Samson's parents did not know. The rending of a lion in the hedged vineyards of Timnath would have been no act of destruction against the Philistines. It would rather have been a help to them. With his Nazaritic vow upon him there might have been a double motive in his smashing the wine-press, or the "lion-cup," as it "called loudly inviting him." It was, as has been said, his enemy, and his mission was to overcome enemies with a fierce destruction. Not so if it had been a young lion laying waste a Philistine vineyard. His "mission" would have required that he should use the lion, as he did the foxes (jackals), for the destruction of Philistine property.

"But he told not his father or mother what he had done." And why? Had he actually rent a young lion, it would have been the most natural thing in the world for him to tell his parents of it. But to have smashed a wine-press in the vintage season, when filled with grapes and flowing with new wine, might have been regarded by them as a technical violation of his consecration vow. It would be "touching the fruit of the vine," which he was sworn not to do; and hence his silence with his parents as to what he had done. And again, when he turned aside, on his second visit to Timnath with his parents, to see the "ruin" or or "fallen heap" of the wine-press (translated "the carcass of the lion "), and found a swarm of bees and honey therein," he told them not that he had taken the honey out of the wine-press." And here was a more powerful reason still for his secresy, as his consecration vow forbade his touching anything coming from such a source.

Some of the commentators on the Book of Judges have been greatly troubled to explain how Samson could have stripped the thirty slain Philistines of their garments at Ashkelon, "without touching their dead bodies," which, as a Nazarite, he was forbidden to do. But non constat that he stripped them after they were dead. And yet it seems not to have occurred to these commentators that to go into the "dead body" of a lion and eat honey therefrom was equally a forbidden act by the law of the Nazarites, and much more defiling to his priestly office.

These banquet riddles, or "cup-questions," as they were called, were the favourite devices for pastime and amusement at marriage festivals, their design being to pleasantly while away the seven days' continuance of the feast. They were contrived to puzzle and perplex the attendants, and rewards and mulcts were generally coupled with them in order to add zest to the entertainment. Samson says, "I will twist you a twister," and he certainly did; for he succeeded in not only puzzling his attendants, but in propounding a riddle which it has taken the world three thousand years to guess!

And now that the true rendering has been given to the riddle portion of the chant, this Phoenician tradition becomes the simplest piece of naturalism in the world, so far at least as the habits of the honey-bee are concerned, and one of the greatest stumbling-blocks in the Bible to the incipient believer is removed. The honey-bee, as is well known, is one of the neatest, cleanliest, and most fastidious insects in the world, both in its habits and in its choice of a location to deposit honey. It never yet went into the dead body of a lion or any other animal for such a purpose, and never will, until an Almighty fiat shall change its entire nature and habits. The plea of a miracle, or the interruption of the laws of nature, will not suffice in this case. It must have required a continuous and constantly-working change in the laws of nature, which negatives the idea of a miracle. Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego might temporarily abide the violence of fire, with the Lord to quench it, but to become a race of salamanders and permanently live in fire thereafter, would be simply an exchange of one law of nature for another, without the slightest definitional feature of a miracle attaching to it. It would be simply the transference of the

arctic whale to the tropical seas, with such a permanent change in his physical nature as would adapt him to other and different conditions of life. Miracles always cease where nature resumes sway.

But the rendering I have given to the riddle portion of the chant meets all the conditions of the four several distichs in which the "cup-question," or enigma, is anticipated, put, guessed, and retortively answered. For the original premise, or antecedent proposition on which the riddle is based, is a poetical distich; the enigma, as put, a poetical distich; the stolen solution of the Philistines, a poetical distich; and the concessive retort of Samson, a poetical distich.

"Out of the eater came forth meat,

Out of the strong came forth sweetness."

That is, out of the "wine-press," which consumes (figuratively "eats") grapes by the million, came forth "wine," one of the three leading "meats "of the Bible ("corn, wine, and oil"), and out of the strong (or the "lion-cup," capable of overcoming the mightiest potentates of the earth in a prolonged encounter) came forth sweetness, or the honey Samson had taken and eaten from the "ruins of the wine-press."

This was the riddle as Samson understood it, and as he ingeniously and tantalisingly put or punned it to the Philistines. He as much as says, "Guess, if you can, who smashed your winepress! I twist you this twister'-give you this pun or double entendre-this play upon lion-cup' and 'lion-cub'—and let me see if you have wit enough to guess it."

They never dreamt that their "lion-cup" had been rent by human hands. It was too Herculean a feat for any mortal man to accomplish, and nothing short of a thunderbolt from their terrible Dagon could have done it; and so they ineffectually plough with Samson's "heifer" (honey-fugle with his wife) to guess the riddle. The Philistines "ploughed" for only seven days without guessing the riddle, but the ingenious writer of the chant has left the world to plough ineffectually with the same "heifer " for more than thirty centuries without guessing it.—Mr. R. W. Wright in "Scribner's Monthly."

A FACE IN THE STREET.

POOR, withered face, that yet was once so fair,
Grown ashen-old in the wild fires of lust-
Thy star-like beauty, dimm'd with earthly dust,
Yet breathing of a purer native air ;-
They who whilom, cursed vultures, sought a share
Of thy dead womanhood, their greed unjust
Have satisfied-have picked and left thee bare.
Still, like a leaf warped by the autumn gust,
And driving to the end, thou wrapp'st in flame
And perfume all thy hollow-eyed decay,
Feigning on those grey cheeks the blush that Shame
Took with her when she fled long since away.

Thou soughtest life and wealth in the great city;
Thou findest death-not even the world's cold pity.

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MY WIFE AND I; OR, HARRY HENDERSON'S HISTORY.

BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE,

Author of " Uncle Tom's Cabin," "Minister's Wooing," &c.

CHAPTER XXVIII.-ENCHANTMENT AND DISENCHANTMENT. DURING a month after Easter, I was, so to speak, in a state of mental somnambulism, seeing the visible things of this mortal life through an enchanted medium, in which old, prosaic, bustling New York, with its dry drudgeries and uninteresting details, became suddenly vivified and glorified; just as when some rosy sunset floods with light the matter-of-fact architecture of Printing-House Square, and etherealises every line, and gilds every detail, and heightens every bit of colour, till it all seems picturesque and beautiful.

I did not know what was the matter with me, but I felt somehow as if I had taken the elixir of life and was breathing the air of an immortal youth. Whenever I sat down to write I found my inspiration. I no longer felt myself alone in my thoughts and speculations; I wrote to another mind, a mind that I felt would recognise mine; and then I carried what I had written, and read it to Ida Van Arsdel for her criticisms. Ida was a capital critic, and had graciously expressed her willingness and desire to aid me in this way to any extent. But was it Ida who was my inspiration? Sitting by, bent over her embroidery, or coming in accidentally and sitting down to listen, was Eva; full of thought, full of inquiry; sometimes gay and airy, sometimes captious and controversial-always suggestive and inspiring. From these readings grew talks protracted and confidential, on all manner of subjects; and each talk was the happy parent of more talks, till it seemed that there was growing up an endless series of occasions for our having long and exciting interviews; for, what was said yesterday, in the reflections and fancies of the night following, immediately blossomed out into queries and consequences and inferences on both sides, which it was immediately and pressingly necessary that we should meet to compare and adjust. Now, when two people are in this state of mind, it is surprising what a number of providential incidents are always bringing them together. It was perfectly astonishing to us both to find how many purely accidental interviews we had. If I went out for a walk, I was sure, first or last, to meet her. To be sure, I took to walking very much in streets and squares where I had observed she might be expected to appear; but that did not make the matter seem to me the less unpremeditated.