3665. [Ps. xlviii. 7.] In the days of David, the ships of Tarshish were become a common appellation for all vessels of trade; and to go to Tarshish, a proverbial expression for setting out to sea in such vessels. That part of the Mediterranean which was contiguous to Cilicia was called the sea of Tarshish. The inhabitants of Tarsus not ouly occupied their business in great waters, but they also traded on the continent. They had factories at Dedan and Sheba on the Euphrates, with which they trafficked in Silver, &c. See Beloe's HERÓDOT. Urania, ch. lxviii. note 60. Ezek. xxxviii. 13. 3666. [Ps. xlix. 14.] In Egypt, when a cow died they threw her into the River; but a bull was buried without the cities, one or both horns being left sticking up as a mark of the grave. The flesh being perfectly consumed, and nothing but the bare bones left, they were transported to an island of the Delta, called Prosopotis, whence vessels were dispatched to several parts of the kingdom, to collect the bones, to carry them away, and bury them together. The same was observed in regard to other cattle, the Egyptians being forbidden to kill any. HEROD. 1. 2. 3667. [Ps. liii. 1.] A fool, or false reasoner, might also say, "The light of the sun is not a fluid, for it cannot be agitated by the wind; it is not a solid, for the parts of it cannot be separated; it is not fire, for it is inextinguishable in water; it is not spirit, as it is visible; it is not a body, for we cannot handle it; it is not even a moving power, for it agitates not the lightest bodies: it is therefore nothing at all." St. PIERRE's Works, vol. iv. p. 487. 3668. [Ps. lv. 17.] It is an invariable rule with the Brahmins to perform their devotions three times every day : at sun-rise, at noon, and at sun-set. MAURICE'S Indian Antiq. vol. v. p. 129. 3669. [19.] The affections of a man's love, and the thoughts derived from them, are changes and variations of the state and form of the organic substances of his mind, An idea of such changes and variations may be had from the heart and lungs, in that there are alternate expansions and compressions, or dilatations and contractions, which in the heart are called its systole and diastole, in the lungs respirations that are reciprocal extensions and retractions, or distensions and coarctations of its lobes. Such are the changes and variations of the state of the heart and lungs: The like takes place in the other viscera of the body, and also in their parts, by and through which the blood and animal juices are received and circulated. There are also similar changes and variations of state in the organic forms of the mind, which are the subjects of a man's affections and thoughts; with this difference, that the expansions and compressions, or reciprocations of the latter, are respectively in so much greater perfection, that they cannot be expressed in the words of a natural language, which can only import, that they are vortical gyrations, and egyrations, after the manner of perpetual spiral circumflexions, wonderfully confasciculated into forms receptive of life. With the good these forms are spirally convoluted forwards, but with the wicked backwards. Those which are spirally convoluted forwards are turned to the Lord, and receive influx from Him; but those which are spirally convoluted backwards, are turned towards hell, and receive influx thence. In proportion also as they are turned backwards, they are open behind, and closed before on the contrary, in proportion as they are turned forwards, they are open before, and closed behind. It may hence appear, that, as the organic forms of a good, and of a wicked man, are respectively turned contrary ways; and as an inversion once induced cannot be retwisted, such as a man's organization is when he dies, such it remains to eternity. It is the love of a man's will, which makes this turning, or which thus inverts and converts. Wherefore all the angels of heaven turn their faces to the Lord as their Sun; and all the spirits of hell (or Hades) turn away their faces from the Lord (towards the earth). (SWEDENBORG, on Divine Providence, nn. 319, 326.)—Towards an interior manifestation of the natural sun. 3670. [Ps. lvii. 4.] There was a sort of swords called Lingula, as being in the shape of a tongue. See A. GELL. Noct. Attic. l. x. c. 25. 3671. [Ps. Iviii. 4, 5.] It is a well attested fact, says FORBES, that when a house in Hindostan is infested with Snakes of the coluber genus, which destroys poultry and small domestic animals, as also by the larger serpents of the boa tribe, certain musicians are sent for; who, by playing on a 3672. [Ps. lix. 6.] Near the site of antient Canopus, which is now become a desert, "I met," says DENON, "with a jackal which I should have taken for a dog, if I had not had an opportunity to examine very minutely his pointed nose, his erected ears, his length of tail sweeping the ground, and h's coat of fur like that of the fox, to whom he has a greater resemblance than to the wolf, notwithstanding the jackal is considered as the wolf of Africa.” AIKIN'S Trans. 3673.9.] The Septuagint read, "My strength I will keep to thee": which reading St. Jerome follows. of Animals, where there is an excellent drawing of this creature furnished by PENNANT. In the East, the wolf and the real fox are very rare; but there is a prodigious quantity of the middle species named shucal or shual: these are concealed by hundreds in the gardens, and among ruins and tombs. (VOLNEY, vol. i. & ii.) — At Gambroon, says HERBERT, we were offended by those troops of jackals, which here, more than elsewhere, mightily invaded the town; and for prey violated the graves by tearing out the dead, all the while ulutating in offensive noises and echoing out their sacrilege. We attacked them with swords, lances and dogs; but we found them too many to be conquered, too unruly to be banished, too daring to be affrighted. (Trav. p. 113.) These chakalls, says THEVENOT, are as big as foxes, and have something of a fox, and something of a wolf, but are not mongrels begot of them as many have said. See Cant. ii. 15. Part ii. p. 60. 3577. [Ps. Ixiii. 11.] A species of honor paid to a chieftain in the Hebrides is that of swearing by his name, and paying as great a respect to that as to the most sacred oath. PINKERTON'S Coll. part x. p. 264. river has produced during ages an immense population. by the fertility of its banks, by navigation and commerce, it has given water to the cattle that manure the land, and yield food to man if it had not the regions which it traverses, we should not behold them covered with fields, towns, rich and populous cities. Happy therefore are the states which are watered by great rivers, if the inhabitants know how to take advantage of the benefits they offer, and provide against the disasters they may occasion! PINKERTON'S Coll. part ii. p. 352. and Europe, and has not any where upon it a single black feather. The wild American turkey-cocks begin crowing at early dawn, and continue till sun-rise, from March to the last of April the watch word of these social sentinels being caught and repeated, from one to another, four hundreds of miles around; insomuch that the whole country is for an hour or more in a universal shout. A little after sun-rise, their crowing gradually ceases, they quit their high lodgingplaces, and alight on the earth, where, dancing round about the coy female, they proudly expand their silver bordered BARTRAM'S Trav. pp. 14, 81. train. 3681. [Ps. lxvi. 18.] On this text, the celebrated Kimchi says, Although I should design iniquity in my heart, and were just ready to execute it · Yet God will not hear it; for God never esteems an evil design for the deed. This was the very hypocrisy of the Pharisees, who valued no instance of religious duty, but as it was seen of men; nor have the Jews at this day any opinion of the necessity of internal holiness. Bp. BROWNE'S Procedure of the 3685. [Ps. Ixviii. 30. Rebuke the beasts of the reeds] That is, the wild-boars, so destructive to Israel, Ps. lxxx. 13; and which, it seems, abound in marshes, fens, and reedy places. - We were, says Le BRUYN, in a large plain full of cauals, marshes, and bull-rushes. This part of the country, he adds, is infested by a vast number of wild-boars, that march in troops, and destroy all the seeds and fruits of the earth, and pursue their ravages as far as the entrance into the villages. The inhabitants affirmed, that some of these creatures were as large as cows. (Trav. vol. ii. p. 62.) — I suppose the beast of the reeds to be the hippopotamus, and that it is misnamed in the above quotation. 3682. [Ps. lxviii. 8.] The mountain towards the top, parts into two spires, of which the higher is called Horeb, the other Sinai. See NEITZSCHITZ's Compend. vol. ii. p. 151. 3683. [13.] In modern Egypt they make a float of earthen pots tied together, carried with a plat-form of palmleaves, which will bear a considerable weight, and is conducted without difficulty. FORBES' Oriental Memoirs, vol. iii. p. 55. 3684. The Ibis of Egypt is a species of goose with golden feathers, proper to the Nile. It pines away and dies, if carried elsewhere There is another species which is white, but has the head, neck, and ends of the wings and tail tinged as the former with yellow gold. (See Univer. Hist. vol. p. 399) - The wild turkey of America is a stately beautiful bird, of a very dark dusky brown color, the tips of the feathers of his neck, breast, back, and shoulders, edged with a copper color, which in a certain exposure looks like burnished gold. This is nearly thrice the size and weight of that of Asia 3686. [Ps. Ixix. 21.] A royal personage had reason to complain of his being presented with vinegar as it was used only by slaves and the meanest of the people. (See Ruth ii. 14. And PITTS, p. 6.) — The juice of lemons is what those of higher life now use, and probably among the higher orders the juice of pomegranates might be used to produce a grateful acidity. HARMER, vol. i. p. 395. 3687. [Ps. lxxii. 6, 16.] In the East, particularly in India, when the ground has been destitute of rain even nine months together, and looks all of it like the barren sand in the deserts of Arabia where there is not one spire of green grass to be found, within a few days after those fat enriching showers begin to fall, the face of the earth is so revived, and throughout so renewed, that it is presently covered all over with a pure green mantle. Sir T. ROE's Voy. to India, p. 360. 3688. [Ps. lxxiii.] THIRD BOOK. But all this is by far too little to make Egypt a winecountry. See Gen. xliii. 11. See Smith's MICHAELIS, vol. iii. p. 117. 3689. [Ps. lxxv. 8.] The berries of the Large Black Cluster Grape are not delicate, the juice being of a harsh and rough taste. It is the identical grape from which red Port wine is made. See No. 763. SPEECHLY, on the Vine, p. 18. 3690. [Ps. lxxx. 8, 9, &c.] Some trees grow better in southern countries; and become less as you advance to the north, where they gradually decrease, till at last they will not grow at all. On the other hand, there are, trees and herbs which the wise Creator destined for the northern countries, where they grow to an amazing size. But the further these are transplanted to the south the less they grow, till at last they degenerate so much as not to be able to grow at all. Other plants love a temperate climate; and if they be carried either north or south, they will always decrease. For example: the Sassafras, growing in Pennsylvania, under forty degrees of latitude, becomes a pretty tall and thick tree; but at Oswego and Fort Nicholson, between forty-three and forty-four degrees of latitude, it hardly reaches the height of two or three feet, and is seldom so thick as the little finger of a full grown person. Again: the Tulip-tree, in Pennsylvania, grows as high as a Swedish oak or fir; and its thickness is proportionable to its height: but, near Oswego, it was observed to be not more than twelve feet high, and no thicker thau a man's arm. 3691. See KALM's Trav. in Pinkerton's Coll. part liii. p. 423. Throughout the greatest part of Egypt, the vine is not cultivated, nor indeed can be, because the whole country is nearly a flat, whereas the vine delights in hills; and besides, during the months of August and September when the grapes are approaching to maturity, the flats are overflowed by the Nile, and become a lake In the cities, indeed, vines are reared on the walls of the houses (Gen. xlix. 22), and are said to be very beautiful; and the province of Fium, which lies beyond a sandy desert, and quite separated from the rest of the country on its western side, has vineyards. So likewise has the midd emost Oasis, Acor Elvach, that lies still further beyond the deserts cording to Abulie da, in the city Esue, situated 145 leagues above Cairo, there are vineyards; and Leo Africanus (p. 71) states, that grapes are said to grow about Munia. 3692. [Ps. lxxx. 8.] We learn indeed, from history, that grapes, as well as most other sorts of fruit, were brought, by slow degrees, into the western parts of Europe, principally from Asia and Egypt. See History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, by EDWARD GIBBON, Esq; vol. i. ch. ii. p. 52. Verse 10.] At Northallerton, in Yorkshire, there was, in 1789, a Vine about 150 years of age, that once covered a At Valentine, near space containing 137 square yards.Ilford, in Essex, the seat of the late Sir Charles Raymond, Bart. there was in 1788 a Vine, the Black Hamburgh, whose branches extended over the entire roof of a Pine-stove, seventy feet long by eighteen feet broad. Some of its branches, trained downwards, covered also great part of the back wall of the said building: The girth of the main stem, at two feet from the ground, was about 13 inches. 3693. SPEECHLY, on the Vine, p. 255. Near Lake Huron in North America, grapes, plumbs, wild rice, aud various fruits, grow spoutaneously and in great abundance. On the islands also of the Mississippi grow vast numbers of the sugar maple, and around them, vines loaded with grapes, creeping to their very tops. (CARVER'S Trav. in N. America, pp. 23, 37.) — Some grape-vines in America, are nine, ten, and twelve inches in diameter: they twine round the trunks of the largest trees, climb to their very tops, and then spread along their limbs, from tree to tree, throughout the forest. BARTRAM'S Trav. p. 85. 3694. [13] In the year 1581, a boar was killed near Koningsberg, in Prussia, of six hundred pounds weight.In 1507, one was killed in the dukedom of Wirtemberg, seven feet three inches long, by five feet three inches high. The length of the head was twenty-three inches. — A boar of this description, matured by age in its native forests, must have been an animal more formidable than any which are at present to be met with; and, when it made occasional excursions into the nearest cultivated lands, it must have excited the greatest degree of terror and alarm among the inhabitants Phil. Trans. 1801, part ii. p. 328 3695. [17.] If we would understand the genuine 38 import of this phrase, we must attend to a custom which obtained in Judea and other Eastern countries. At meals the master of the feast placed the person whom he loved best on his right hand, as a token of love and respect and as they sat on couches, in the intervals between the dishes, when the master leaned on his left elbow, the man at his right hand, leaning also on his, would naturalty repose his head on the master's bosom, John xxi. 20; while at the same time the master laid his right hand on the favourite's shoulder or side, in testimony of his favourable regard. PIRIE'S Works, vol. iii. p. 90. 3697. [- —6.] The whole territory of Baalbec, to the mountains which separate it from the plain of Damascus, is named in Arabic, Al-bkaa, which we express by Bekaa. It is watered by the river Letanus and by many other streams. It is a delicious country, in nothing inferior to the territory of Damascus, which is so renowned among the Orientals. Beka produces among other things, those beautiful and excellent grapes, which are sent to various parts under the name of grapes of Damascus. (De la ROQUE, p. 116.) — It lies north of Judea, among the mountains of Lebanon. See No. 1075, 1180. 3701. [ 18.] Among the inhabitants of Umuak, when a man dies, the wife retires into a dark hole, where she continues forty days: and the husband submits to the same seclusion on the loss of a favourite wife (Captain KRENITZIN and Lieut. LEVASHEF's Voyage.) — The Syrians, while mourning for their deceased, stul hide themselves from the light of the sun, in caves or other obscure places. Univer. Hist. vol. ii. p. 265. Sic ubi fata, caput ferali obducit amietu, So said the matron; and about her head Mr. Rowe. |