God's wrath are golden, because they are pure and unmixed with partiality and passion. Rev. xv. 7. Whatever is rich, pompous, and alluring, is called golden. So Babylon is called a golden city. This cannot undoubtedly be understood in a literal but figurative sense; for however great might be the profusion of that metal in the city of Babylon, it could not be sufficient to give rise to such a description of its magnificence, but by an allowed and perhaps common allusion. From the frequent recurrence of this figure, it must have been in very general use amongst the eastern people; and since its properties are probably better known than those of most other metals, would readily express the meaning of a writer, and be perfectly intelligible to the understanding of his readers. Pindar stiles gold the Richest offspring of the mine; Gold, like fire, whose flashing rays Through the night's involving cloud, First in lustre and esteem, Decks the treasures of the proud. WEST'S Translation, Ode 1. But, in modern times, no instance perhaps occurs wherein this comparison is so universally made as by the Birmans. Whoever has read the recently published travels of Captain SYMES, in the kingdom of Ava, must have had his attention forcibly arrested by this circumstance; for there almost every thing peculiarly great is stiled golden, and without exception every thing belonging to the king is so denominated. The city where he resides, the barge which he uses, are stiled golden. The following extract will completely explain this cir. cumstance, and form a pleasing addition to the foregoing observations. "We passed a village," says Captain SYMES, "named Shoe-Le-Rua, or Goldenboat-village, from its being inhabited by watermen in the service of the king, whose boats, as well as every thing else belonging to the sovereign, have always the addition of shoe, or golden, annexed to them. Even his majesty's person is never mentioned but in conjunction with this precious metal. When a subject means to affirm that the king has heard any thing, he says, it has reached the golden ears. He who has obtained admission to the royal presence has been at the golden feet. The perfume of otta of roses, a nobleman observed one day, was an odour grateful to the golden nose. Gold, among the Birmans, is the type of excellence. Although highly valued, however, it is not used for coin in the country. It is employed sometimes in ornaments for the women, and in utensils and ear-rings for the men; but the greatest quantity is expended in gilding their temples, on which vast sums are continually lavished. The Birmans present the substance to their gods, and ascribe its qualities to their king." (Embassy to Ava, vol. ii. p. 226.) These remarks illustrate the comparison where it occurs in the scriptures, and demonstrate with what design and propriety it is used. No. 241.-xiv. 9. The dead.] "The sepulchres of the Hebrews, at least those of respectable persons, and those which hereditarily belonged to the principal families, were extensive caves, or vaults, excavated from the native rock by art and manual labour. The roofs of them in general were arched: and some were so spacious as to be supported by colonnades. All round the sides were cells for the reception of the sarcophagi ; these were properly ornamented with sculpture, and each was placed in its proper cell. The cave or sepulchre admitted no light, being closed by a great stone, which was rolled to the mouth of the narrow passage or entrance. Many of these receptacles are still extant in Judea: two in particular are more magnificent than all the rest and are supposed to be the sepulchres of the kings. One of these is in Jerusalem, and contains twenty-four cells; the other, containing twice that number, is in a place without the city." LowTH's Lectures on the Sacred Poetry of the Hebrews, vol. i. p. 159. GREGORY'S Translation, In the introductory observations to Isaiah xiii. the same learned writer, speaking of these sepulchres of the kings, says, "you are to form to yourself an idea of an immense subterraneous vault, a vast gloomy cavern, all round the sides of which there are cells to receive the dead bodies: here the deceased monarchs lie in a distinguished sort of state, suitable to their former rank, each on his own couch, with his arms beside him, his sword at his head, and the bodies of his chiefs and companions round about him. Ezek. xxxii. 27." (See LowTH's Isaiah.) The account which MAUNDRELL gives of such sepulchres is too interesting to be omitted. "The next place we came to was those famous grots, called sepulchres of the kings: but for what reason they go by that name is hard to resolve: for it is certain none of the kings, either of Israel or of Judah, were buried here, the holy scriptures assigning other places for their sepultures: unless it may be thought, perhaps, that Hezekiah was here interred, and that these were the sepul chres of the sons of David, mentioned 2 Chron. xxxii. 33. Whoever was buried here, this is certain, that the place itself discovers so great an expence both of labour and of treasure, that we may well suppose it to have been the work of kings. You approach to it at the east side, through an entrance cut out of the natural rock, which admits you into an open court of about forty paces square, cut down into the rock, with which it is encompassed instead of walls. On the south side of the court is a portico, nine paces long and four broad, hewn likewise out of the rock. This has a kind of architrave running along its front, adorned with sculpture of fruits and flowers, still discernible, but by time much. defaced. At the end of the portico, on the left hand, you descend to the passage into the sepulchres. The door is now so obstructed with stones and rubbish, that it is a thing of some difficulty to creep through it; but within, you arrive in a large fair room, about seven or eight yards square, cut out of the natural rock. Its sides and ceiling are so exactly square, and its angles so just, that no architect with levels and plummets could build a room more regular; and the whole is so firm and intire, that it may be called a chamber hollowed out of one piece of marble. From this room you pass into (I think) six more, one within another, all of the same fabric with the first. Of these, the two innermost are deeper than the rest, having a second descent of about six or seven steps into them. In every one of these rooms, except the first, were coffins of stone placed in niches in the sides of the chambers. They had been at first covered with handsome lids, and carved with garlands; but now most of them were broke to pieces by sacrilegious hands. The sides and ceiling of the rooms were always dropping, with the moist damps condensing upon them; to remedy which nuisance, and to preserve these chambers of the dead polite and clean, there was in each room a small channel cut in the floor, which served to drain the drops that fall constantly into it." (Journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem, p. 76, 7th edit.) No. 242.-xiv. 13. I will sit also upon the mount of the congregation, in the sides of the north.] Captain Wilford, in a paper communicated to the Asiatic society concerning Mount Caucasus, gives us the opinion of the Ꮓ Hindus, respecting the garden of Eden. "They place it," he says, "on the elevated plains of Buckhara the lesser, where there is a river which goes round Brabmapuri, or the town of BRAHMA: then through a lake called Mansarovara (the existence of which is very doubtful,) and is erroneously supposed by travelling fackeers to be the same with that, from which the Ganges issues, which is called in Sanscrit, Bindu Sarovara. From the Mansarovara lake come four rivers running toward the four corners of the world, through four rocks cut in the shape of the heads of four animals: thus taking literally the corresponding passage of scripture. The cow's head is toward the south, and from it issues the Ganga. Towards the west is a horse's head, from which springs the Chocshu or Chocshus; it is the Oxus. The Sitá-ganga or Hoang-ho, issues from an elephant's head, and lastly the Bhadra-gangá, or Jeniséa in Siberia, from a tiger's head, or a lion's head, according to others. The Hindus generally consider this spot as the abode of the gods, but by no means as the place in which the primogenitors of mankind were created: at least I have not found any passage in the Puránas, that might countenance any such idea, but rather the contrary. As it is written in the Puránas, that on mount Méru there is an eternal day for the space of fourteen degrees round Su-meru; and of course an eternal night for the same space on the opposite side: the Hindus have been forced to suppose that Su-meru is exactly at the apex or summit of the shadow of the earth; and that from the earth to this summit, there is an immense conical hill, solid like the rest of the globe, but invisible, impalpable, and pervious to mankind: on the sides of this mountain are various mansions, rising in eminence and pre-excellence, as you ascend, and destined for the place of residence of the blessed, according to their merits. God |