border so closely upon Asia, and have among their manners and customs many which bear a resemblance to those of the Asiatics, may not these people's high esteem for red feathers throw some light upon this passage, where we find peacocks ranked amongst the valuable commodities imported by Solomon ?

No. 115. xiv. 10. Shut up and left.] Sometimes, when a successful prince has endeavoured to extirpate the preceding royal family, some of them have escaped the slaughter, and secured themselves in a fortress or place of secrecy, while others have sought an asylum in foreign countries, from whence they have occasioned great anxiety to the usurper. The word shut up, strictly speaking, refers to the first of these cases; as in the preservation of Joash from Athaliah in a private apartment of the temple, 2 Kings xi. Such appears also to have been the case in more modern times. " Though more than thirty years had elapsed since the death of Sultan Achmet, father of the new emperor, he had not, in that interval, acquired any great information or improvement. Shut up, during this long interval, in the apartments assigned him, with some eunuchs to wait on him, and women to amuse him, the equality of his age with that of the princes who had a right to precede him, allowed him but little hope of reigning in his turn; and he had, besides, well-grounded reasons for a more serious uneasiness." BARON DU TOTT, vol. i. p. 115. But when David was in danger, he kept himself close (1 Chron. xii. 1.) in Ziklag, but not so as to prevent him from making frequent excursions. In latter times, in the East persons of royal descent have been left, when the rest of a family have been cut off, if no danger was apprehended from them, on account of some mental or bodily disqualification. Blindness saved the life of Mahammed Khodabendeh, a Persian prince of the sixteenth

century when his brother Ishmael put all the rest of his brethren to death. D'Herbelot, p. 613. This explana. tion will enable us more clearly to understand 2 Kings. xiv. 26. Deut. xxxii. 36.

HARMER, vol. iv. p. 211.

No. 116.-xvii. 12. Barrel.] As corn is subject to be eaten by worms, the Easterns keep what they are spending in long vessels of clay. (SANDY's Trav. p. 117.) So it appears the woman of Zarephath did. The word translated barrel properly signifies a jar; and is the same with that used for the vessels in which Gideon's soldiers concealed their torches, and which they brake when they blew with their trumpets.

HARMER, vol. i. P. 277.

No. 117.-xviii. 28. Cut themselves.] If we look into antiquity, we shall find that nothing was more common in the religious rites of several nations, than this barbarous custom. To this purpose we may observe, that (as Plutarch de Superstitione tells us) the priests of Bellona, when they sacrificed to that goddess, besmeared the victim with their own blood. The Persian magi (Herodotus, lib. vii. c. 191.) used to appease tempests, and allay the winds, by making incisions in their flesh. They who carried about the Syrian goddess, (Apuleius, lib. viii.) cut and slashed themselves with knives, till the blood gushed out. This practice remains in many places at the present time, and frequent instances of it may be met with in modern voyages and travels.

No. 118. xviii. 42. Elijah went up to the top of Carmel; and he cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his knees.] The devout posture of some people of the Levant greatly resembles that of Elijah.

Just before the descent of the rain, he cast himself down upon the earth, and put his face between his kness. Char din relates that the dervices, especially those of the Indies put themselves into this posture, in order to meditate, and also to repose themselves. They tie their knees against their belly with their girdle, and lay their heads on the top of them, and this, according to them, is the best posture for recollection.

HARMER, vol. ii. p. 506.

No. 119. xvii. 44. A little cloud.] When Elijah's servant reported to his master, that he saw a little cloud arising out of the sea like a man's hand, he commanded him to go up and say unto Ahab, prepare thy chariot, and get thee down, that the RAIN stop thee not. This circumstance was justly considered as the sure indication of an approaching shower, for it came to pass in the mean while that the heaven was black with clouds and wind, and there was a great rain. Mr. BRUCE (Travels, vol. iii. p. 669.) has an observation which greatly coroborates this relation. He says, "there are three remarkable appearances attending the inundation of the Nile: every morning in Abyssinia is clear, and the sun shines; about nine, a small cloud, not above four feet broad, appears in the East, whirling violently round as if upon an axis; but, arrived near the Zenith, it first abates its motion, then loses its form, and extends itself greatly, and seems to call up vapours from all opposite quarters. These clouds having attained nearly the same height, rush against each other with great violence, and put me always in mind of Elijah's foretelling rain on mount Carmel. The air, impelled before the heaviest mass, or swiftest mover, makes an impression of its own form in the collection of clouds opposite, and the moment it has taken possession of the space made to receive it, the most violent thunder

possible to be conceived instantly follows, with rain; and after some hours the sky again clears."

No. 120.-xx. 32. They girded sackcloth on their loins, and put ropes on their heads.] Approaching persons with a sword hanging to the neck is in the East a very humble and submissive act. Thevenot has mentioned this circumstance part i. p. 289. in the account he has given in the taking of Bagdat by the Turks, in 1638. When the besieged intreated quarter, the prin cipal officer went to the grand vizier, with a scarf about his neck, and his sword wreathed in it, and begged mercy. The ropes mentioned in this passage were pro bably what they suspended their swords with.

HARMER, vol. ii. p. 258.

No. 121.-xx. 34. Thou shalt make streets for thee in Damascus.] The circumstances connected with this passage, and those contained in the following extract, so much resemble each other, that it must be apparent with what propriety our translators have chosen the word streets, rather than any other, which commentators have proposed instead of it. "Biazet hauing worthily relieued his beseiged citie, returned againe to the seige of Constantinople; laying more hardly vnto it than before, building forts and bulwarks against it on the one side towards the land; and passing over the strait of Bosphorus, built a strong castle vpon that strait ouer against Constantinople, to impeach so much as was possible all passage thereunto by sea. This strait seige (as most urite) continued also two yeres, which I suppose by the circumstance of the historie, to haue been of the aforesaid eight yeres. Emanuel, the beseiged emperor, wearied with these long wars, sent an embassador to Biazet, to intreat with him a peace, which Biazet was the more willing to hearken vnto, for that he heard newes,

part

N

that Tamerlane, the great Tartarian prince, intended shortly to warre upon him. Yet could not this peace be ob tained, but upon condition that the emperor should grant free libertie for the Turks to dwell together in one STREET of Constantinople, with free exercise of their owne religion and lawes, vnder a judge of their owne nation; and further, to pay vnto the Turkish king a yerely tribute of ten thousand duckats, which dishonourable conditions the distressed emperor was glad to accept of. So was this long seige broken vp, and presently a great sort of Turks with their families were sent out of Bythinia, to dwell in Constantinople, and a church there built for them; which not long after was by the Emperor pulled downe to the ground, and the Turks againe driuen out of the citie, at such time as Biazet was by the mightie Tamerlane overthrowne and taken prisoner."

KNOLLES'S History of the Turks, p. 206.

No. 122.-xxi. 8. So she wrote letters in Ahab's name, und sealed them with his seal.] The very ancient custom of sealing dispatches with a seal or signet, set in a ring, is still retained in the East. PocoCKE says, (Travels, vol. i. p. 186. notes)" in Egypt they make the impression of their name with their seal, generally of cornelian, which they wear on their finger, and which is blacked when they have occasion to seal with it." HANWAY remarks (Trav. i. 317.) that "the Persian ink serves not only for writing, but for subscribing with their seal; indeed many of the Persians in high office could not write. In their rings they wear agates, which serve for a seal, on which is frequently engraved their name, and some verse from the Koran." SHAW also has a reTravels, p. 247.

mark exactly to the same purpose.

No. 123. xxi. 23. The dogs shall eat Jezebel.] Mr. BRUCE, when at Gondar, was witness to a scene in a