The Royal Muscadine, or D'arboyce, has a thin skin, and a soft juicy flesh. Its bunches are exceedingly large, sometimes arriving to six or seven pounds.

The skin of the Syrian Grape is thick, and the flesh firm and hard; the bunches enormously large. It may, without difficulty, be kept many weeks longer than any other sort; that is, till January, and even February.

The skin and flesh of Miller's Burgundy, or Munier Grane, are delicate, possessing a sweet pleasant juice.

The White Morillon has a thin skin, and delicate juicy flesh, like the Genuine Tokay.

The Cat's Grape has a thin skin and soft juicy flesh. The Black Raisin Grape has a thin skin and a hard firm flesh.

The early White Grape from Teneriffe has a thin skin, and delicate juicy flesh of an extraordinary sweetness.

The skin of St. Peter's Grape is thin, and the flesh very delicate and juicy.

The white Parsley-leaved Grape, or Ciotat, has a thin skin and delicate juicy flesh, which is very sweet, but not of a vinous flavor.

The white Corinth Grape has a thin skin, and very delicate juicy flesh, of an agreeable flavor.

The skin of the White Muscat, from Lumel is thin, and the flesh delicate, replete with a vinous juice.

The berry of the Cornichon, above one inch and a half long, breadth not half an inch, and pointed like a horn, has a thick skin and a firm sweet flesh.

SPEECHLY, on the Vine, pp. 4, 5, 7, 11, 12, 14, 15, 17, 18, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 25.

2344. [Lev. xvii. 14.] It is notorious, that blood is the great principle of corruption, and common seat of infection in all animals. Dr. GREW, Cosmol. Sacra, l. 4. c. 7. § 25. Those that eat animal food, eat blood in every creature they kill, because it is impossible to drain it all from them. The doctrine of abstinence from blood became, among Christians, universal in the Third Century. See No. 936.

See Revelation Examined, vol. ii. p. 51. 2d Edit. printed 1733, at London, by C. Rivington.

2345. [Lev. xviii. 6] To their nearest relations, the Hebrew women might appear without a veil, but not to others; and this liberty of appearing without a veil, by the antient traditionary usage of the Arahs, converted by Mahomet into a written law, extends precisely as far as the Mosaic prohibitions of marriage.

Smith's MICHAELIS, vol. ii p. 78.

It was never the custom to strip captives altogether naked but only to strip them of their best clothes, and to give them worse and shorter clothing, that they might be better equipped for servitude and labor, as Sanctius and Grotius have observed. See Bib. Research. vol. i.

P. 132.

2351. [ 15.] Men have never reckoned, in the number of crimes, a want of humanity in behaviour to our inferiors; nor the taxes, which produce so much misery; nor war, which they adorn with distinction; nor slavery, which is sanctioned by ambition. Our laws punish an impropriety only in the case of individuals in humble life, while they pardon the crimes of kings, the sources of the misfortunes of the world. See No. 860, 810. St. PIERRE's Harmonics of Nature, vol. iii, p. 404.

2352. [ —19. Thou shalt not sow thy field with mingled seed] This law meant nothing more than that care was to be taken to have the seed as pure as possible, and that it was to be selected and dressed with the greatest attention, to prevent two different kinds of grain from coming up together barley, for instance, along with wheat. For both sorts will not ripen at the same time; and the consequence is, that in reaping there must be a loss on one of them. -As brome naturally mixes itself with rye, a perfectly clean crop of the latter can hardly be expected; but still it will be much clearer, where it is purged as far as possible, thau where the mixed seed is again sown. Cousequently, if we were governed by the statute under consideration, brome, which gives but a very small return of inferior meal, would soon become a rare weed among our rye. - Darnel also, is very apt to grow among wheat, and the bread baked of such mixed wheat, has (like opium) an intoxicating quality; in a very strong degree when it is fresh ground, and not inconsiderable even after a pretty long keeping. course, we here again see the vast importance of the Mosaic

-

Of

2353. [Lev. xix. 19.] Wool, as taken from slaughtered animals, was esteemed profane by the priests of Egypt, who were always dressed in linen.

APULEUS, p. 64. Div. Leg. vol. i. p. 318. Among the Jews, the woollen and linen garments were appointed for the priests alone.

2354. [

JOSEPHUS' Antiq. b. iv. ch. viii. § 11.

23.] The economical object of this law is very striking. Every gardener will teach us not to let fruit-trees bear in their earliest years, but to pluck off the blossoms; and for this reason, that they will thus thrive the better, and bear more abundantly afterwards.

See Smith's MICHAELIS, vol. iii. p. 367. It was one of Numa's laws, not to offer to the gods wine proceeding from a vine unpruned.

PLUTARCH, vol. i. p. 182.

2356. PLINY informs us that Lucullus, after the defeat of Mithridates, transplanted from Cerasus in the kingdom of Pontus the first cherry-trees into Italy: from whence they were propagated in less than a hundred and twenty years all over Europe, England not excepted, which was then peopled with barbarians.

Plin. Hist. Nat. l. 15. sect. 30. The apricot-tree, malum Armeniacum, was brought by the Romans from Armenia.

According to Pliny, the vine derives its origin from the Archipelago, the pear-tree from Mount Ida, and the peach from Persia.

Our flax comes from the banks of the Nile, the walnut-tree from Crete, the lucerne from Media, and the Potato from America.

St. PIERRE's Studies of Nature, vol. iii p. 267. — iv. pp. 219, 220, 361.

Abbe PLUCHE's Hist. of the Heav. vol. ii. p. 50, note.

2359. [- 27.] Some of the Arabian nations, in honor of a certain deity, whom the Greeks compare to Bacchus, shaved the hair of their heads in a round form, and cut the locks or hair on the temples, entirely away. That Moses would not suffer this, is not to be wondered at, because it was 'an idolatrous fashion. The whiskers too, to which some other Oriental nations pay so much respect, are by the Arabs, according to the testimony of Niebuhr, still cut either entirely off. or, at any rate, worn quite short; and from this circumstance it is, that the Arabs are by the prophet Jeremiah (ix. 26. xxv. 23) called, those with cropt whiskers. But neither does the Law approve of this fashion, but forbids the Israelites to spoil, or, as we would say, to disfigure, their whiskers, that is, to shave them off, or even but to crop them short.

See Smith's MICHAELIS, vol. iii. p. 375.

legs with sharp broken flints, till the blood flows very plentifully. CARVER'S Trav. in N. America, p. 264.

2362. [Lev. xix. 28.] The people of the East are still in the practice of using Alhenna, which yields an indelible blue color; they also burn various figures and characters into their skin, sometimes by way of ornament, at other times in honor of some idol; and while some have these marks in their face and hands, others again have them in parts of the body that are covered by the clothes. All this is here evidently prohibited; but whether universally, or only on occasions of mourning, and in remembrance of the dead, is uncertain. To me, says MICHAELIS, the former appears the more probable supposition; at least, such a strange disfiguration of the body ought to be in all cases forbidden. - Mourning habits they might put on, if they chose, and, with the exception of the high-priest, rend their garments in token of grief, but they were not, fanatically, to make slashes in their flesh. This, in particular, would have been highly disgraceful in the Israelites, who were taught to consider death not as the worst of all evils, but to expect another life beyond the grave. See Smith's Michaelis, vol. iii. pp. 374, 377.

2360. The Arabs shave or cut their hair round in honor of Bacchus, who, they say, had his hair cut in this way. The Macians also, a people of Lybia, cut their hair round, so as to leave a tuft on the crown of the head. See HERODOTUS, lib. iii. chap. 8; & lib. iv. chap. 175.

2361. [ 28.] Among the American Indians called Naudowessies, in mourning for the dead, the men, to shew how great their sorrow is, pierce the flesh of their arms, above the elbows, with arrows; and the women cut and gash their

2364. [Lev. xx. 18.] ASTRUC in his treatise, De Morbis Venereis (lib. i. c. 9. § 3.) is of opinion that the Lues, which, at present, is communicated only by infection, might originally have arisen under the torrid zone, or in regions considerably to the south, ex concubitu cum menstruata —'from cohabitation with a menstruous womah, accompanied with some peculiar circumstances in the constitutions of the parties. HUNDERTMARK also, in his Dissertation, De Ozana Venerea, asserts, that even in Europe, there sometimes arises ex concubitu scorbuto laborantis cum menstruata from the intercourse of a scurvied man with a menstruous woman, a disease of the Verenda resembling the Lues; a circumstance which serves to confirm Astruc's conjecture. Now, if in the

time of Moses, argues MICHAELIS, such were known to be the fact, legislative policy required the prohibition of a practice, which experience had shewn to be instrumental in originating and in preserving that disease.

See Smith's Michaelis, vol. iv. art. 271. p. 202.

2370. [Lev. xxi. 14.] In the year of Christ 400, we find it decreed in the Cyprian Council, that if a reader married a widow, he should never be preferred in the church; and, that if a sub-deacou did the same, he should be degraded to a door-keeper or reader. This prohibition extended in time to all men in holy orders.

Dr. W. ALEXANDER'S Hist. of
Women, vol. ii. p. 293.

2371. [————17-23.] The LORD spoke to Aaron, Behold, I have given the children of Levi all the tenth in Israel for an inheritance, for their service which they serve, even the service of the tabernacle of the congregation. Num. xviii. 20, 21. Whoever is born a eunuch or an ideot; whoever is born blind or dumb; whoever is born without hand or foot, nose or tougue; whoever, on account of any disorder, is not able to perform his religious duties; whoever is afflicted with scrofulous leprosy, or the leprosy breaking out in boils; all or any of these imperfections and disorders incapacitate for inheritance. But whoever shall supersede such persons in the inheritance, must allow them victuals and clothing.

2369. [14] Among the primitive Christians, those were excluded from the priesthood who had either married two wives, or a widow, or whose wives had been guilty of adultery. If this last incident happened, they were either obliged to be divorced, or to renounce their profession. (BELOE, on Herod. Euterpe, xxxvi.) It may be pertinent to add, from MOSHEIM, that the bishops considered themselves as invested with a rank and character similar to those of the high-priest among the Jews, while the presbyters represented the priests, and the deacons the Levites.

2374. [- 20.] When the wretches in the lower class of Virginia fight, they endeavour to their utmost to tear out each other's eyes and testicles.

WELD's Truv. in N. America. vol. i.p. 192.

In all the sacred books, there is no proper name for those parts in either sex, which modesty forbids to utter. So say the Jews, but not Univer. Hist. vol. iii. p. 296.

2375. [Lev. xxii. 20.] The Acari, a species of Red Spiders, attack the bunches of grapes at the time when they are almost ripe; and as they extract the juices from them, the grapes soon become soft, flabby, and ill-flavoured.

The insects called Thrips, also, attack the bunches as well as the leaves of the Vines, and commonly prey on the extremities of the berries, but more particularly at the end next the foot-stalk. In white grapes, the part of the berry injured changes to a dark color, the foot-stalk turns black, and the berry withers.

Verse 22.] Too much wet, which frequently happens at the time grapes are ripening, occasions the rotting and bursting of the fruit.

SPEECHLY, on the Vine, pp. 233, 235, 243.

2376. [25. Because their corruption is in them] This proves that such offerings were not of living animals, but of skins whose contents might be spoiled by putridity.

2377. [27. When a bullock, or a sheep, or a goat is brought forth] The creature called an ox, is a bull castrated; surely then a bullock was never yet brought forth! (Dr. A. CLARKE.) But when we have the idea that they were not animals, but only vessels which were brought forth into the Church, being filled with the sacramental elements, all is clear.- It shall be seven days under the dam. Who would eat veal seven days old? Verse 28. Ye shall not kill it and her young both in one day.] No people were ever so brutish as to kill a cow and her calf of seven days old, in order to eat them.

2382. [27.] This was to the Israelites, the most sacred of all their solemn days, and the only day of fasting enjoined them. Ibid. p. 212.

2383. [32.] From this text it is evident, that the sabbath began at the evening or sunset of the day we term Friday, and ended at the same time on the following day.

Dr. A. CLARKE's Additions to Fleury, p. 289.

In like manner the Athenians began their day at sun-set. But the Chaldeans counted their days from sunrise; the Egyptians, from noon; the Romans and all European nations, from midnight.

2384. [

34.] At the feast of tabernacles, the Jews went to the Temple with palm and other branches in their hands, especially with those of a kind of citron, called attrog, with the fruit on them. These branches, when stripped of their fruit, they broke or cast away, on the seventh day, which closed the festival. In Holland, Germany, &c. these attrogs, procurable only from Greece, are still carried by the richer sort of Jews to their synagogues, as formerly to their Temple. Sometimes, however, through contrary winds, the capture or foundering of vessels, &c., they are constrained to substitute other odoriferous trees instead of the attrog; while the poorer Jews content themselves generally with branches of willow. See No. 944. Univer. Hist. vol. x. p. 90.