PLUTARCH of events

LUTARCH mentions, that prophecies of evil events were uttered from the cave of Trophonius (the grave); but the allegorical story, that whoever entered this cavern were never again seen to smile, seems to have been designed to warn the contemplative from considering too much the dark side of nature. Thus an antient poet is said to have written a poem on the miseries of the world, and to have thence become so unhappy as to destroy himself. When we reflect on the perpetual destruction of organic life, we should also recollect, that it is perpetually renewed in other forms by the same materials, and thus the sum total of the happiness of the world continues undiminished; and that a philosopher may thus smile again on turning his eyes from the coffins of nature to her cradles.

Eccles. i. 2.

3840.

DARWIN'S Temple of Nature, Canto i. 126.

As the Sensitive Plant, on which we gaze with attention, when we come to touch it, immediately shrinks its displayed leaves, and contracts itself into a form and dimensions disadvantageously differing from the former; which it again recovers by degrees, when touched no longer : So those objects that charm us at a distance, and which gazed on with the eyes of expectation and desire, when a more immediate possession has put them into our hands, lose their former lustre, and appear quite different things from what before they seemed; though, after deprivation or absence has made us forget their emptiness, and we are reduced to look on them again at a distance, they recover in most men's eyes their former beauty, and are as capable as before to inveigle and delude us.

BOYLE'S Seraphic Love, p. 44.

3841. [ 7.] The Rhine, rising in Switzerland, passes through France, Germany, and Holland, where its vast waters divide into four or five channels, that empty themselves into the sea after a course of more than 200 leagues. The Danube, before it enters the Black sea, runs 500 leagues. The Niger, in the burning sands of Africa,

waters an extent of three thousand miles at least: And the Amazonian river in America, which at Quito is but a rivulet, after a course of more than 800 leagues, discharges itself into the sea, by an outlet that is 84 leagues broad. — Several subterraneous rivers also, have been actually discovered in various places, emptying themselves into the sea; particularly on the coast of Languedoc, near Frontignan; as also on the coast of Croatia, opposite Venice. — Such are the visible and imperceptible means, by which a constant and uninterrupted circulation of water is preserved between the sea and the land. The waters of the sea ascend in vapors, and fall down again in snow and rain, on the mountains and on the plains. Those which descend on the mountains, find there proper basins, or vases, for their reception; whence they rise again in fountains above the surface of the earth, directing their course towards the sea, and watering in their progress the valleys and the plains. While such as fall down on the lower grounds, insinuate themselves into subterraneous channels, and thus return to the main Nat. Delin. vol. iii. pp. 31, 116, 118.

ocean.

3842. [Eccles. iii. 11.] Eth olam (Hebr.), an eternal essence; whereby your heart shall live for ever, Ps. xxii. 26.

The privative preposition bli, used here with the prefix mem, is preceded by beth in Job xxxv. 16, where it is rendered without. Therefore," says DESŒUX, "since bebli doth (Hebr.) means without knowledge, mebli asher must mean without which."

3843. [20.] See 2 Corinth. v. 1.

3844. [21.] Who knoweth the spirit of the sons of men, which ascends, itself, up on high; and the spirit

of a beast, which descends, itself, down below to the earth?

See Bp. BROWNE's Procedure of the Understanding, p. 358.

When spiritual light flows into the souls of brutes, it is received altogether differently, and thereby acts differently on them, thau when it flows into the souls of men. The latter are in a superior degree, and in a more perfect state; being such that they can look upwards, thus to heaven and the Lord wherefore the Lord can adjoin them to Himself, and give them eternal life. But the souls of beasts are such, that they cannot do otherwise than look downwards; thus, to earthly things alone; and thereby be adjoined solely to such things: in consequence whereof they also perish with the body. SWEDENBORG, Arcana, n. 3646.

3845. [Eccles. iv. 8.] Desire is never satisfied with the enjoyment of desired objects; as the fire is not appeased with clarified butter: it only blazes more vehemently. Laws of Menu.

3846. [Eccles. vii. 16.] Carry not justice to excess, nor be rigourously exact:

Wherefore shouldst thou cause thyself to be shunned.
Verse 17.]

Neither be slack to excess, nor foolish :
Wherefore shouldst thou perish before thy time.

3848. [Eccles. ix. 2.] In public calamities, God seems to make no distinction betwixt the objects of his compassion and those of his, fury, indiscriminately involving them in the same destiny; yet his prescience and intentions make a vast difference, where his inflictions do not seem to make any As, when on the same test, and with the selfsame fire, we purge as well the gold as the blended lead or antimony; but with foreknowing and designing such a disparity in the events, as to consume the more ignoble minerals, or blow them off into dross or fumes, and make the gold more pure and full of lustre.

BOYLE'S Seraphic Love, p. 38.

3849. [ 4.] The Canadian dogs are found extremely useful in drawing burdens, and there is scarcely a family in Quebec or Montreal, that does not keep one or more of them for that purpose. The people there, during the winter season, frequently perform long journeys on the snow with half a dozen or more of these animals yoked in a cariole or sledge. WELD's Trav. in N. America, vol. i. p. 354.

3850. [ 15.] It is not just that the laws should be always inflicting punishment, and never bestowing rewards; that a man should be sent to the galleys or to a dungeon for having attacked the fortunes or the life of a fellow citizen, and receive no mark of public favor for having preserved peace in his neighbourhood; and administered consolation to the afflicted.

St. PIERRE'S Works, vol. iv. p. 329.

Dr. HODGSON.

3847. [- 26.] The cunningest robbers in the world are in this country (Arabia). They use a certain slip with a running noose, which they cast with so much slight about a man's neck, when they are within reach of him, that they never fail, so that they strangle him in a trice. They have another curious trick also to catch travellers. They send out a handsome woman on the road, who with her hair dishevelled seems to be all in tears; sighing, and complaining of some misfortune which she pretends has befallen her. Now, as she takes the same way as the traveller goes, he easily falls into conversation with her, and finding her beautiful, offers her his assistance which she accepts; but he has no sooner taken her up on horseback behind him, but she throws the snare about his neck, and strangles him; or at least stuus him, until the robbers who lie hid come running in to her assistance, and complete what she had begun. THEVENOT, part iii. p. 41.

3853. [Eccles. xi. 1.] Wild rice grows in the water where it is about two feet deep, and where it finds a rich muddy soil. Its stalks, which are full of joints and rise more than eight feet above the water; and its branches or ears that bear the seed, resemble oats both in their appearance and manner of growing. About the time it begins to turn from its milky state and to ripen, the Indians turn their canoes into the midst of it, and tying bunches of it together, just below the ears, with bark, leave it in this situation three or four weeks longer, till it is perfectly ripe. About the latter end of September they return to the river, when each family having its separate allotment, and being able to distinguish their own. property by the manner of fastening the sheaves, gather in the portion that belongs to them. This they do by placing their canoes close to the bunches of rice, in such position as to receive the grain when it falls; they then beat it out with pieces of wood (the bow, Gen. xxvii. 3) formed for that purpose. Having done this they dry it with smoke (which makes it savoury meat, Gen. xxvii. 4) and afterwards tread or rub off the outside husk. When it is fit for use, they put it (as venison, Gen. xxvii. 3) into the skins of fawns, or young buffaloes, taken off nearly whole for this purpose, and sewed into a sort of sack, wherein they preserve it till the return of their harvest.

CARVER'S Trav. in N. America, p. 347.

3854. [Eccles. xii. 2.]

The moist of human frame the sun exhales; Winds scatter, through the mighty void, the dry; Earth repossesses part of what she gave,

YOUNG.

3855. [Eccles. xii. 5.] The locust shall burden itself. (Editor of Calmet.) The locust, that is, a dry, shrunk, shrivelled, crumpling, craggy old man, his back-bone sticking out, his knees projecting forwards, his arms backwards, his head downwards, and the apothyses or bunching parts of the bones, in general enlarged. (Dr. SMITH.) Hence doubtless, the fable of Tithonus who, living to extreme old age, is said to have been turned into a grasshopper. See 2 Sam. xix. 35. and Rev. ix. 3—11.

3856. [6. Or the broken wheel at the cistern] SOLOMON, in this beautiful passage, alludes to a decaying water-engine.

3857. [11.] The Roman pretors, consuls, or dictators, were accustomed to number their years of office by the clavi or nails, which they drove annually into the wall of Jupiter's temple on the ides of March.

See HORACE, b. iii. Od. xxiv. 5.

T

HERE are throughout Asia numerous tribes of blacks, but with European features and abundant hair.

Webb's PAUW, p. 198. Such were the antient Egyptians; and of course Pharaoh's daughter, so celebrated in this Nuptial Song. The testimony of Herodotus is decisive: speaking of a certain prophetess, whose country was held doubtful, he observes "In saying she was black, they mark that the woman was an Egyptian." Elsewhere he asserts, that "the Egyptians, mourning for the dead, suffer the hair of the head and chin to grow long :”- which it would not do, if woolly like that of a negro.

Ibid. p. 196. Most of the female Indians (of Malabar) have fine long hair, black eyes, extended ears which are pierced, and straight delicate persons. ch. i. 5.

BARTOLOMEO, by Johnston, p. 153.

ing about a foot and a half from the ground. It bears bunches of berries in all respects like those of the elder, only rather larger. That found in America is exactly the same as the Asiatic spikenard, so highly valued by the Antients for its balsamic virtues. See CARVER'S Trav. in N. America, p. 340,

3862. [Sol. Song i. 12.] Spikenard is carried over the desert from India to Aleppo, where it is used in substance, mixed with other perfumes, and worn in small bags, or in the form of essence, and kept in little boxes or phials, like attyr (perfume) of roses. See Mark xiv. 5. Works of Sir W. JONES, vol. iii. p. 41.

3863. [ 13.] To the Persian women's necklaces, which fall below the bosom, is fastened a large box of sweets; some of these boxes are as big as one's hand; the common ones are of gold, the others are covered with jewels. They are all bored through, and filled with a black paste very light, made of musk and amber, but of a very strong smell. Complete System of Geography, vol. ii. P. 175.

3864. [13, 14.] There is much reason to presume, that the clusters of the cyprus here are the clusters of the flowers of the henna of Egypt, which grow at the extremity of its branches, in long and tufted bouquets. These flowers, whose softened mixture of white and yellow are so delicate, diffuse around the sweetest odors, and embalm the gardens and the apartments which they embellish; they accordingly form the usual nosegay, and perfume the bosom of beauty. SONNINI, Trav. in Egypt, vol. i. pp. 264, &c.

3869. [ 15.] The Jackalls (of the smaller kind), says Dr. SHAW, eat roots and fruits; and frequent the gardeus every night. And Hasselquist affirms that, near the convent of St. John in the desert, about vintage time, the owners are obliged to set guards over the vines to prevent these creatures from destroying the grapes. — This species differs from the greater jackall, 'not less in form than in manners; as it is capable of being, tamed and brought up in domesticity, which the other is not.

BUFFON. See Ps. Ixiii. 10.

two virgins met her at the door, two others filled silver-gilt pots with perfumes, and began the procession, the rest following in pairs to the number of thirty. In this order they marched round the three large rooms of the bagnio." And when the ambassadors of an Eastern monarch, sent to propose marriage to an Egyptian queen, entered the capital of that country, MAILLET tells us (Lett. v.) the streets through which they passed were strewed with flowers; and precious odors, burning in the windows from very early in the morning, embalmed the air.

3872. [Sol. Song iii. 7, 8, 9, &c.] This car had a globular light in front of it, to give the Image a glory in the night: this light was the Rephaim or Remphan of Amos v. 26, and of Acts vii. 43.

3873. [9, 10.] The hackeree, or Indian Chariot, drawn by oxen, has a canopy, or dome, covered with cloth or velvet, richly embroidered and fringed, supported by pillars, ornamented with silver and gold, often inlaid with sandal-wood and ivory; so is the bottom of the vehicle, or frame work, raised above the wheels, which is here said to be paved with love. FORBES' Oriental Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 193.

3874. [11.] In the Greek church now in Egypt, the parties to be married are placed opposite a reading-desk, on which a book of the gospels is placed, and on the book two crowns, which are made of such materials as people choose; of flowers, of cloth, or of tinsel. Then the officiating priest, having poured forth a profusion of benedictions and prayers, places these crowns, the one on the head of the bride-groom, the other on that of the bride, and covers them both with a veil. After some other ceremonies, he concludes the whole by taking off their crowns, and dismissing them with his prayers. See MAILLET, Lett, x. p. 85.

3875. [Sol. Song iv. 1.] Ainong the Jews, light-coloured hair had the preference of all others: both men and women dyed their hair of this color; then perfumed it with sweetscented essences, and powdered it with gold dust. White hair-powder was not then invented; it came into fashion towards the end of the sixteenth century: L' Etoile relates, that in the year 1593 the Nuns walked the streets of Paris curled and powdered. Dr. W. ALEXANDER'S Hist. of Women, vol. ii. p. 106.