rest, they all cast themselves at his feet to beg his pardon." Ambassador's Travels, p. 328. See Ezek. xxxiii. 2. No. 1047.-iii. 11. The crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals.] Such a ceremony as this was customary among the Jews at their marriages. Maillet informs us the crowns were made of different materials. Describing the custom as practised by the members of the Greek church who now live in Egypt, he says (Lett. x. p. 85.) "that the parties to be married are placed opposite to a readingdesk, upon which the book of the gospels is placed, and upon the book two crowns, which are made of such materials as people choose, of flowers, of cloth, or of tinsel. There he (the priest) continues his benedictions and prayers, into which he introduces all the patriarchs of the Old Testament. He after that places these crowns, the one on the head of the bridegroom, the other on that of the bride, and covers them both with a veil." After some other ceremonies the priest concludes the whole by taking off their crowns, and dismissing them with prayers. No. 1048.-v. 13. His cheeks are as a bed of spices.] The ancients by way of indulgence used to repose themselves on large heaps of fragrant herbs, leaves, and flowers, Among others, we may take an instance from Anacreon, in Ode iv. b. 1, of himself, he says, Reclin'd at ease on this soft bed, My cares, and quaff the rosy wine, FAWKES. No. 1049.-vi. 10. Fair as the moon.] This manner of describing beauty still prevails in the East, D'Her belot informs us, that the later writers of these countries have given to the patriarch Joseph the title of the Moon of Canaan, that is, in their stile, the most perfect beauty that ever appeared above the horizon of Judea. Many eastern writers have applied the comparison particularly to the females of those countries. No. 1050.-vii. 5. And the hair of thy head like purple: the king is held (Heb. bound) in the galleries.] Mr. Parkhurst proposes to render the words, the hair of thy head is like the purple of a king bound up in the canals, or troughs. The Vulgate is, Coma capitis tui sicut purpura regis vincta canalibus. "In Solomon's Song," says Mons. Goguet alluding to this text, "there is mentioned a royal purple which the dyers dipt in the canals, after having tied it in small bundles." (Origin of Laws, vol. ii. p. 99.) The following note is also added: "The best way of washing wools after they are died, is to plunge them in running water. Probably the sacred author had this practice in view when he said, they should dip the royal purple in canals. As to what he adds, after being. tied in little bundles or packets, one may conclude from this circumstance, that instead of making the cloth with white wool, and afterwards putting the whole piece into the dye, as we do now, they then followed another method: they began by dying the wool in skeins, and made it afterwards into purple stuffs." His account well illustrates the comparison of a lady's hair to royal purple bound up in the canals, if we may suppose, what is highly probable, that the eastern ladies anciently braided their hair in numerous tresses (perhaps with purple ribands, as wel as with those of other colours) in a manner somewhat similar to what they do in our times, according to the description given by Lady M. W. Montague. No. 1051.-viii. 10. I am a wall, and my breasts like towers.] In these words Solomon alludes to mounts, common in Greece, Egypt, and Syria. They were generally formed by art; being composed of earth, raised very high, which was sloped gradually with great exactness. The top of all was crowned with a tower. They were held in great reverence, and therefore considered-as places of safety, and were the repositories of much treasure. (Josephus, Bell. Jud. 1. vii. p. 417.) There were often two of these mounds of equal height in the same inclosure. To such as these Solomon refers in this pasHOLWELL'S Mythological Dict. p. 262. sage. 1052.-ISAIAH i. 14. Your appointed feasts. seventh day, On that day They had re THE sabbath, though it recurred every was much the greatest feast the Jews kept. they could not lawfully dress any meat. course to a very curious method of obtaining hot victuals. They preserved heat in their pipkins by wrapping them up in baskets in hay, and putting their provisions, perhaps previously dressed, into them, by which means the heat was preserved. The poorer Jews, who had not houses of their own capacious enough to make entertainments in, upon their feast days, in the city of Rome, used to hire the grove which was anciently dedicated to Egeria, and meet there. They carried their provisions in these baskets of hay; and the Romans, not knowing the reason why they did so, derided them, and called this basket and hay, a Jew's household stuff. Juvenal has an allusion to this practice in the following passage: Nunc sacri fontis nemus et delubra locantur Judæis, quorum cophinus fœnumque supellex. Sat. iii. 13. -Now the sacred shades and founts are hir'd By banish'd Jews, who their whole wealth can lay DRYDEN. No. 1053.-i. 18. Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they be red like crimson they shall be as wool.] Mr. Henry in his exposition of Levit. xvi. informs us, that the later Jews had a custom of tying one shread of scarlet cloth to the horns of the scape-goat, and another to the gate of the tem ple, or to the top of the rock where the goat was lost; and they concluded that if it turned white, as they say it usually did, the sins of Israel were forgiven; as it is written, Though your sins have been as scarlet, they shall be as wool. They add, that for forty years before the destruction of Jerusalem by the Romans the scarlet cloth never changed colour at all; which is a fair confession that having rejected the substance, the shadow stood them in no stead. No. 1054.-i. 18. Sins as scarlet.] This colour was produced from a worm or insect, which grew in a coccus or excrescence of a shrub of the ilex kind, (Plin. Nat. Hist. xvi. 8.) like the cochineal worm in the opuntia of America. (Ulloa's Voyage, b. v. cap. 2. p. 342.) There is a shrub of this kind that grows in Provence and Languedoc, and produces the like insect, called the kermes oak, from kermez the Arabic word for this colour, whence our word crimson is derived. Neque amissos colores Lana refert medicata fuco, says the poet, applying the same image to a different purpose. To discharge these strong colours is impossible to human art or power: but to the grace and power of God all things, even much more difficult, are possible and easy. LOWTH, in loc. No. 1055.-ii. 4. They shall beat their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into pruning-hooks.] This description of well established peace is very poetical. The Roman poets have employed the same image. Martial xiv. 34. Falx ex ense. Pax me certa ducis placidos curvavit in usus : |