know not, but probably most of them are his, collected, it is supposed,
during the reign of Hezekiah. They are written on almost every subject
pertaining to ethics, to nature, to science, and to society. Some are
allusions to God, and others to the duties between man and man. Many are
devoted to the duties of women, applicable to the sex in all times. They
are not on a level of the Psalms in piety, nor of the Prophecies in
grandeur, but they recognize the immutable principles of moral
obligation. In some cases they seem to be worldly-wise,--such as we
might suppose to fall from the mouth of Benjamin Franklin or
Cobbett,--recognizing worldly prosperity as the greatest of blessings.
Sometimes they are witty, again ironical, but always forcible. In some
of them there is awful solemnity.

There are no more terrific warnings and exhortations in the sacred
writings than are found in the Proverbs of Solomon. The sins of
idleness, of anger, of covetousness, of gossip, of falsehood, of
oppression, of injustice, of intemperance, of unchastity, are uniformly
denounced as leading to destruction; while prudence, temperance,
chastity, obedience to parents, and loyalty to truth are enjoined with
the earnestness of a man who believes in personal accountability to God.
The ethics of the Proverbs are based on everlasting righteousness, and
are imbued with the spirit of divine philosophy; their great peculiarity
is the constant exhortation to wisdom and knowledge, to which young men
are especially exhorted. Like Socrates, Solomon never separates wisdom
from virtue, but makes one the foundation of the other. He shows the
connection between virtue and happiness, vice and misery. The Proverbs
are inexhaustible in moral force, and have universal application. There
is nothing cynical or gloomy in them. They form a fitting study for
youth and old age, an incentive to virtue and a terror to evil-doers, a
thesaurus of moral wisdom; they speak in every line a lofty and