and he respects Isaiah too much to rank
Isaiah among them. He has been in love, belike; he has read the
Song of Solomon: he very much doubts if, on the evidence, Solomon
was the kind of lover to have written that Song, and he is quite
certain that when the lover sings to his beloved:

Thy two breasts are like two young roes that are twins. Thy
neck is as a tower of ivory; thine eyes like the fishpools
in Heshbon, by the gate of Bath-rabbim.

--he knows, I say, that this is not a description of the Church
and her graces, as the chapter-heading audaciously asserts. But
he is lazy; too lazy even to commend the Revised Version for
striking Solomon out of the Bible, calling the poem The Song of
Songs, omitting the absurd chapter-headings, and printing the
poetry as poetry ought to be printed. The old-fashioned
arrangement was good enough for him. Or he goes to church on
Christmas Day and listens to a first lesson, of which the old
translators made nonsense, and, in two passages at least, stark
nonsense. But, again, the old nonsense is good enough for him;
soothing in fact. He is not even quite sure that the Bible,
looking like any other book, ought to be put in the hands of the
young.

In all this I think he is wrong. I am sure he is wrong if our
contention be right, that the English Bible should be studied by
us all for its poetry and its wonderful language as well as for
its religion--the religion and the poetry being in fact
inseparable. For then, in Euripides' phrase, we should clothe the
Bible in a dress through which its beauty might best shine.

VII

If you ask me How? I answer--first begging you to bear in mind
that we are planning the form of the book for our purpose, and
that other forms will be used for other purposes--that we should
start with the simplest alterations, such as these:

(1) The books should be re-arranged in their right order, so far
as this can be ascertained (and much of it has been ascertained).
I am told, and I can well believe, that this would at a stroke
clear away a mass of confusion in strictly Biblical criticism.
But that is not my business. I know that it would immensely help
our _literary_ study.

(2) I should print the prose continuously, as prose is ordinarily
and properly printed: and the poetry in verse lines, as poetry is
ordinarily and properly printed. And I should print each on a
page of one column, with none but the necessary notes and
references, and these so