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them ye have planted pleasant vineyards, (or vineyards of desire,) but ye shall not drink the wine of them: we need not be at a loss to understand what is meant by the royal preacher, when, after having described the locust as growing heavy by its depredations, he adds, and desire shall fail, i. e, and every green thing shall disappear to which state of things in the vegetable world, when every tree was stripped of its leaves, and looked as just dead, he compares the human body, which through age appears shrunk up, without moisture and ready to die.

Such appears to me to be an easy and popular way of explaining these emblematical representations of age: the circumstances pointed out are not those the knowledge of which arises from deep medical learning; but are obvious to the vulgar eye, and are mentioned with greater or less degrees of distinctness in the Scriptures. The emblems also representing them are derived from customs, occurrences, and the state of nature in the East; and I hope will appear sufficiently accommodated to the Oriental taste. How far such an explanation may appear admissable, I leave to the candour of the reader to determine,

But before I quit this part of the paragraph, I would just observe, that I am sensible a very ingenious writer supposes, that the first verse of this chapter refers to old age; but the 2d, 3d, 4th and 5th, to some season of epidemic sickness, perhaps to a time in which the pestilence rages;

y Amos v. 11.

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and he illustrates this interpretation with a great deal of ingenuity and learning, at a considerable length. But as this mingling the description of old age, and of pestilential or other epidemic mortal diseases together, renders the subject too complex and intricate, on the one hand; and on the other, that he opposes the days of youth to this evil time that was to come, Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, whereas, according to this writer, he should rather have said "Remember thy Creator in the days of thy health," I have thought it right to adhere to the common system, and suppose the whole is a description of old age; the 2d verse, of that time of life in general, its winter; and the three succeeding verses should be applied to particular circumstances, which are wont to attend in common the decline of life, some labouring under one complaint, and others under a different kind of bitterness. Neverth less it must undoubtedly be admitted, that becomes the young devoutly to remember in the early part of life, not only on account of the sorrows that attend old age, but on account too of the terrors, that must be expected to come on the irreligious, in times of general sickness and mortality; and it ought to be acknowledged that he has illustrated his explanation with great ingenuity.

D

Nothing needs to be said by way of illustration of the latter part of the 5th verse, which may be considered as forming the third part of this

"Gentlemen's Magazine for July and August, 1752.

remarkable paragraph of Solomon, since every one admits that a man's long home means the grave; and it has been elsewhere shown, that in mourning for the dead they went about the streets, or drew themselves into a circle as they lamented them in their procession in the streets.

OBSERVATON XIV.

Farther Remarks on Solomon's Picture of old Age.

THE latter part of this description, the very ingenious Dr. Mead seems to have thought much more difficult to explain than the preceding images, and indeed to be so extremely enigmatical, that nothing less than the penetration of an Oedipus could decypher it. I cannot pretend to any such sagacity; but I should suppose, the considering this sixth verse as descriptive of the state of the corpse of a prince, after man is gone to his long home, and the mourners have gone about the streets, is an observation of great consequence to the due explanation of that part of this celebrated paragraph.

That he is speaking of the state of things between the interment of the body and its total dissolution, or return to its original earth, is, I think, sufficiently clear. The order in which he has ranged the particulars of the description,

a Quæ hactenus dicta sunt, difficillimos explicatus non habent. Tria autem, quæ concionem concludunt, incom moda revera sunt ænigmata, et Oedipi conjectoris indigent; qui tamen cum, saltem me judice, nondum repertus sit, ipse pro viribus ea solvere conabor.

requires us to understand the words after this manner: first, he speaks of the infirmities attending old age; then the burial of the body, and the solemn mourning of survivors; then of what succeeds until it is dissolved, and becomes mingled with the earth from whence it was taken.

That it is the state of the corpse of a prince, after interment, that is described, not only agrees best with the quality of the writer, but the former part of the representation; for there he compares the body not to a common house, but a palace, where guards were posted, (when the keepers of the house shall tremble;) and musicians were in continual waiting, (and all the daughters of music shall be brought low.)

If it be the description of the state of the corpse of a prince, after its interment, decaying, and returning to its dust, it will not be disagreeable to introduce an attempt to explain the description, by placing before my reader the account Josephus gives of the state of King Herod's body, when carried out to burial. It is given us in the 17th book of his Jewish Antiquities, and to this purpose, Archelaus, being desirous to do honour to himself by burying his father Herod with great pomp, "the body was carried forth laid upon a couch of gold, adorned with precious stones of great value, and of divers kinds. The mattress was purple, and it was wrapped up in vestments of the like colour, adorned with a diadem, a

crown of gold placed above its head, and a sceptre was in its right hand. His sons and kindred surrounded the couch. His soldiers followed in due order. After them came five hundred servants carrying perfumes. In this order they marched to the place of inter

ment."

I do not at this moment recollect, that we have any account of his sepulchre's having been opened; but many royal tombs have, as well as others in which persons of great distinction have been laid. Some have been found casually; some have been designedly and respectfully uncovered, in order to give an opportunity to the curious to examine into the state of the dead body, and its habiliments, after having been interred hundreds of years, and been previously embalmed before burial, or undergone other operations designed to retard its dissolution, according to the different modes that have prevailed in different countries or different ages. So I think the tomb of Edward the first, in Wesminster Abbey, was not long since opened for these purposes.

e

But the last account of this kind, on which I have cast my eye, is that of a Tartarian prince, supposed to be a descendant of Genghiz-Khan, the founder of a very large empire, which at one time comprehended almost all Asia. He is supposed to have been buried Vol. 1, p. 848, 849, ed. Haverc.

с

d

Archæologia, vol. 2, art. 33, 34.

d P. 231.

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