1817. [25.] Opium is at this time very much used in the East; a custom, says Sir JOHN SINCLAIR, which we ought to regard as a consequence of the attachment which these people have always had for original practices: therefore, he adds, I am very much inclined to believe that it is of this sort of medicine that Homer would speak under the name of Nepenthe (Odyss. l. 4. 22, et seq.), and that in his time the Egyptians were perhaps the only people who knew its preparation.

Code of Health, vol. ii.p. 26.

1825. [34. Jacob rent his clothes] In performing this ceremony, the Jews take a knife, and holding the blade downwards, give the upper garment a cut on the right side, and then rend it a hand's breadth. This is done for the five following relations, brother, sister, son, daughter, or wife; but for father or mother, the rent is on the left side, and in all the garments, as coat, waistcoat, &c.

LEVI'S Rites and Ceremonies of the Jews, p. 174.

1826. [36] An officer; Saris (Hebr.) properly signifies a eunuch. (See Univer. Hist. vol. ii. p. 415.) · Hence there is some apology for the conduct of Potiphar's wife; or, rather, an additional proof, that the wives [women] - All of priests were only representatives of their churches. the officers in the employment of the antient kings of Egypt were, according to DIODORUS Siculus, taken from the most illustrious of their priesthood. Matt. xix. 12. Dr. A. CLARKE.

1820. [ 28.] These twenty shekels are one pound two shillings aud nine-pence half-penny farthing.

1827.

From this time to Israel's going down

1829. [

11. Till Shelah my son be grown] That is, till he be fully thirty years of age. As Jesus Christ, who was a priest after the order of Melchizedek, entered not on his ministry till he began to be about thirty years of age; and as none could officiate in the Levitical priesthood, till he was thirty or upwards (Num. iv), so we may fairly conclude that at this time, throughout the country of Canaan where Melchizedek's order of priesthood was followed, perhaps by Moses, assuredly by Jesus Christ, no person could take to himself the ministration of a church before he had attained his thirtieth year, without danger of incurring the displeasure of the Almighty, or of being cut off for disobedience.

1830. [

12.] Her days being multiplied &c.

Verse 15.] A publican: Zonah (Hebr.), porne (Grk.) from pernao, to sell, one who accommodates travellers with refreshments, for money.

Verse 17.] A pledge: arabon (Hebr.), arrabon (Grk. — 2 Cor. i. 22. Ephes. i. 14.), a security given in hand for the fulfilment of promises.

Verse 21.] Kedeshah (Hebr.), a priestess who accommodates travellers with refreshments without money.

a cook, confectioner, &c.

1839.

Among Hindoos, the practice of cook on public occasions is a sure mark of transcendent rank; for every person can eat the food prepared by a person of a higher birth than himself.

1840. [

BUCHANAN. Pinkerton's Coll. vol. viii. p. 735.

-4.] A season

- yamim (Hebr.), the days of a year or a year of days in custody; that is, from birth-day to birth-day.

1841. [Gen. xl. 8.] The Egyptian priests, the first interpreters of dreams, took their rules for this species of divination from the symbolic learning in which they were so deeply read; a ground of interpretation which would give the strongest credit to the art, and equally satisfy the diviner and consulter for by this time it was generally believed, that symbolic hieroglyphics, and allegorical dreams, were but different modes of expressing the same divine revelations. - As therefore hieroglyphics were become sacred, by being made the cloudy vehicle of the Egyptian theology, and as none but the priests preserved these sacred mysteries, the butler and baker might well be uneasy for want of an interterpreter, as none could be expected in the dreary abode where they were confined.

1842.

See Bp. WARBURTON'S Div. Legat, vol. viii.

Dreaming is the having of ideas, whilst the outward senses are stopped, not suggested by any external objects, nor under the rule or conduct of the understanding. (LOCKE.) — In a state of wakefulness the three faculties, Imagination, Judgment, and Memory, being all active and acting in union, constitute the rational man. In dream it is otherwise, and therefore that state which is called insanity appears to be no other than a disunion of those faculties and a cessation of the judgment, during wakefulness, that we so often experience during sleep, and idiocity, into which some persons have fallen, is that cessation of all the faculties of which we can be sensible when we happen to wake before our memory. In dream, the re-action of reason on the imagination is suspended. See SWEDENBORG's Arcana, n. 1975.

bility such grapes, when pressed by the hand, were held, for the sake of delicacy, in appropriate bladders, or small skinbottles. This juice, pressed out of a lamb-skin, calf-skin, or other bottle, was alone what was ever used in any of the sacrifices appointed by the law of Moses. It is there gene

rally denominated blood; sometimes, the blood of the grape. See on Mark xiv. 25.

1846. [Gen. xl. 11.] As the Antients did not ferment their wine, they strained what they drank, immediately before they lay down to table, or whilst they were at it. Two instruments for this purpose, of white metal and elegant workmanship, are in the cabinet of Herculaneum. They are made in the fashion of round and deep plates, half a palm in diameter, with flat handles; one plate fitting into the other, and the handles matching, so exactly, that when put together they seem to make but one vessel. Into the upper vessel bored in a particular manner they poured the wine which was to be received by the under vessel, from whence they drew it to fill their drinking cups.

WINCKELMAN'S Herculaneum, p. 59.

The instrument used as above the Greeks called Ethmos, Colum Vinarium. (Ibid.) — Whence comes percolate. Acts x. 13.

the cotton-shrub, which grows to the height of three or four feet, and in verdure resembles the currant-bush, requires a longer time to bring its delicate produce to perfection. These shrubs, planted between the rows of rice, neither impede its growth, nor prevent its being reaped. Soon after the rice harvest is over, they put forth a beautiful yellow flower, with a crimson eye in each petal; this is succeeded by a green pod filled with a white stringy pulp; the pod turns brown and hard as it ripens, and then separates into two or three divisions, containing the cotton. A luxuriant field, exhibiting at the same time the expanding blossom, the bursting capsule, and the snowy flakes of ripe cotton, is one of the most beautiful objects in the agriculture of Hindostan. HERODOTUS says, the Indians, in his time, possessed a kind of plant which, instead of fruit, produced wool of a finer aud better quality than that of sheep, of which the natives made their clothes: this plant was no doubt the same as the modern cotton of India. FORBES' Oriental Memoirs, vol. ii. p. 405.

1856. [Gen. xli. 42.] The Chinese manufacture a silk found on trees and bushes in great plenty, which is spun by a kind of worm, not unlike our caterpillars: the thread is strong, and very compact.

1857.

Modern Univer. Hist. vol. viii. p. 72.

According to TAVERNIER, Assem is one of the best countries in Asia, producing all the necessaries of life; and, instead of wanting a supply from other countries, is able to furnish them with several metals; having mines of gold, silver, steel, iron, and lead; besides, great store of silk, but coarse. There is one kind spun by animals, like our silk-worms, but rounder, which live all the year under trees. The silks made of it have a fine gloss, but fret presently. They are washed in a lye, made of the ashes of the leaves of Adam's fig-tree, which makes them white as snow.

1858.

Ibid. vol. vii. p. 8.

Silk comes originally from China. The anuals of that nation inform us, that the wife of the emperor Hoang Ti was the first who spun threads from the natural silk cocoons, found on the trees. From this country, silk was carried into Hindostan, and thence to Persia, Greece, aud Rome, &c.

See BERTHOLLET's Art of Dyeing, by Hamilton, vol. i. p. vi.

1859. Silk was fabricated immemorially by the Indians, who were in early ages a commercial people, as we learn from the first of their sacred law-tracts, which

"

1865. [Gen. xli. 45. Priest of On] That the sun, in antient Egypt, was denominated On, is evident from JABLONSKI (Panth. Egypt. i. 137), GEORGI (Alphabet. Tibetan. p. 87), aud expressly from CYRIL (in Hoseam, p. 145) who, on reciting the Egyptian fable which makes Apis the son of the Moon and offspring of the Sun, adds, that the Sun was called On by the Egyptians." On was also the name of an antient city in Egypt, styled in the Greek, by the version of the LXX, Helioupolis. This city was built on a considerable hill in honor of the sun (STRABO, lib. xvii. p. 1158) who had there also a celebrated temple, called by Jeremiah Beth-shemesh (chap. xliii. 13). Remains of these are still extant on their original site, now named Matarea, two hours N.N.E. of Cairo, consisting, as Shaw, Niebuhr, and later travellers relate, of a sphinx, obelisk, and fragments of marble, granite, &c. This temple is mentioned, not only by Strabo, but HERODOTUS, who also records, that an annual assembly was holden in it in honor of the presiding divinity. (lib. ii. sec. 59).

The Rev. S. HENLEY. See
Archeologia, vol. xiv. p. 206.

1862. In the year 1692, an antient golden torques (or monile) was dug up in a garden near the castle of Harlech, Merionethshire. It is a wreathed bar of gold, or rather perhaps three or four rods jointly twisted, about four feet long (passing, perhaps, when worn, twice round the neck); flexile, but bending naturally only one way, in form of a hatband; hooked at both ends, exactly like a pair of polhooks; but these hooks are not twisted as the rest of the rods, nor are their ends sharp but plain, and, as it were, cut It is of a round form, about an inch in circumference, and weighs eight ounces.

even.

CAMDEN. Archæologia, vol. xiv. p. 95.

1867. [47.] Throughout the province of Mazanderan in Persia, the people live almost entirely on rice cooked with a little water and salt, and called chilao, taking with it every now and then a spoonful of some sort of acid, such as verjuice, the juice of pomegranates, vinegar, or the like. To this food they are exceedingly partial, and maintain that there is none more conducive to health.