the era of her appearance in Syria and the neighbouring countries, is involved in some obscurity. Although it is quite clear from the laws of Moses respecting sacrifice, that she was common in those parts in his time; yet it may be questioned whether Abraham, when he entered into covenant with Jehovah, did offer in sacrifice a young pigeon; because the original term (b) gozal, signifies the young of the dove properly so called, of the turtle, of the wood pigeon, and other varieties of that species. But, since the turtle is uniformly joined with the pigeon, in the Mosaic laws respecting sacrifice, which were dictated by Jehovah himself, the God of Abraham and his posterity, it can scarcely be doubted, that the gozal, which the patriarch offered by the divine command on that memorable occasion, was in reality a young pigeon. It is there joined with the turtle; its blood is shed in order to ratify the covenant on which the whole Mosaic dispensation rested, to which all succeeding sacrifices, under the law, had a reference; it was therefore, strictly, the young of a dove. And, besides, if Syria did not lie directly in the road from the mountain on which the ark rested, to Greecc, it was certainly not far distant. It is therefore to be expected, that the dove would appear in Syria, and in Greece, nearly about the same time.

The doves of Semiramis, our learned author considers as involved in equal uncertainty. The later Syrians worshipped (,) yonim, or domestic doves, in honour of Semiramis; but it was the wood pigeons, as may be gathered from Ctesias, that guarded the infancy of that potent queen; for the places which they frequented, says that writer, were desert and stony. Hence, the name of Semiramis, which was borrowed from that circumstance, is explained by Hesychius, the mountain dove. Nor can it be determined from the history of that sovereign, in what age the dove began to frequent the plains of Syria and Palestine, because the time when she flourished is very uncertain. According to Ctesias, a very fabulous writer, she was the wife of Ninus, who reigned at Babylon, in the days of Abraham.

But others make her the daughter of Beloch, who flourished more than five hundred years later than Ninus. Herodotus brings her down within two hundred years of the elder Cyrus, who swayed the sceptre more than fifteen hundred years after the death of Ninus, the supposed husband of Semiramis. This powerful and victorious queen, who subjected so many nations to her dominion, and shook the earth with the terror of her name, did not govern at Babylon in the time of Abraham, but Amraphel, a petty prinee, and one of the confederate kings who invaded the vale of Sodom, whom Abraham surprised on their retreat, and completely defeated.

Bochart also doubts the truth of the story told by some writers, respecting the figure of a dove blazoned on the banners of the Assyrian kings, because no ancient author can be cited in whose works it is recorded. And it is most probable that Cyrus, after the conquest of Babylon, retained the same military ensigns under which his ancestors, the Medes and Assyrians, had been accustomed to combat. It appears from Xenophon, that their ensign was a golden eagle raised upon a long spear, which was adopted by all the kings of Persia; and he contends that the texts quoted from the prophecies of Jeremiah, allude not to the dove, as many writers have supposed, but to the severe oppression which his people had to suffer from the Assyrian arms. It cannot, however, be doubted, that the dove was long a favourite emblem among the Assyrians; was held in great veneration, and even worshipped as a goddess in Syria; though it may be difficult to ascertain at what precise time the idolatrous custom was introduced.

The dove is universally admitted to be one of the most beautiful objects in nature. The brilliancy of her plumage, the splendor of her eye, the innocence of her look, the excellence of her dispositions, and the purity of her manners, have been the theme of admiration and praise in every age. To the snowy whiteness of her wings, and the rich golden hues which adorn her neck, the inspired Psalmist alludes in these elegant

strains: "Though ye have lien among the pots, yet ye shall be as the wings of a dove covered with silver, and her feathers with yellow gold *." These bold figures do not seldom occur in the classical poets of antiquity. Virgil celebrates the argenteus anser, the silver coloured goose; Ovid, the crow which once rivalled the dove in whiteness †; Lucretius, the changeful hues of her neck, which she turns to the sun beam, as if conscious of its unrivalled beauty +.

Mr Harmer is of opinion, that the holy Psalmist alludes, not to an animal adorned merely by the hand of nature, but to the doves that were consecrated to the Syrian deities, and ornamented with trinkets of gold; and agreeably to this view, he interprets the passage, "Israel is to me as a consecrated dove; and though your circumstances have made you rather appear like a poor dove, blackened by taking up its abode in a smoky hole of the rock; yet shall ye become beautiful and glorious as a Syrian silver coloured pigeon on whom some ornament of gold

is put."

But this view makes the holy Ghost speak with some approbation, or at least without censure, of a heathenish rite, and even to borrow from it a figure to illustrate the effects of divine favour among his chosen people. No other instance of this kind occurs in the sacred Scriptures, and therefore it cannot be admitted here without much stronger evidence than that respectable writer has produced. It is much more natural to suppose, that the Psalmist alludes to particoloured doves with white wings, and the rest of their feathers of a bright brown. Buffon mentions a species of turtle dove in the bay of Campeachy, which is entirely brown, while others are of a snowy white. white. To these varieties the sacred writer might refer; and the more effectually to represent the blissful effects of divine favour, might combine the beauties of each into one picture.

The surprising brightness of her eye, and the simplicity and

*Psa, lxviii. 13.

+ Met. b. 2. Fable 7.

Book 2. verse 800.

chastity of her look, which is directed only to her mate, are selected by the Spirit of God to express the purity and fidelity of a genuine believer: "Behold, thou art fair, my love; behold thou art fair; thou hast doves' eyes*" A faithful index of the holiness which reigns within, they neither court the notice nor meet the glance of a strange lord; they are lifted up to heaven, and stedfastly fixed on the glorious realities of a better world. Sensible of the sin and danger of casting a wishful eye on forbidden objects, the true Christian earnestly prays, "Turn away mine eyes from beholding vanity; and quicken thou me in thy way ;" and, like Job, he makes a covenant with his eyes, that his mind may not be polluted with an unholy thought. He looks "not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.”

The same beautiful figure is employed to represent the peerless excellencies of the Redeemer, and particularly his infinite wisdom and knowledge, which are ever exercised for the good of his people which are pure and holy, and in the estimation of every saint, as in their own nature, ineffably precious and lovely: "His eyes are as the eyes of doves by the rivers of waters, washed with milk and fitly set ‡." The eyes of a dove, always brilliant and lovely, kindle with peculiar delight by the side of a crystal brook, for this is her favourite haunt; here she loves to wash and to quench her thirst. But the inspired writer seems to intimate that, not satisfied with a single rivulet, she delights especially in those places which are watered with numerous streams, whose full flowing tide approaches the height of the banks, and offers her an easy and abundant supply. They seem as if they were washed with milk, from their shining whiteness; and fitly, rather fully set, like a gem set in gold, neither too prominent nor too depressed, but so formed as with nice adaptation to fill up the socket. So pre* Song i. 15. + Song v. 12.

+ Psa. cxix. 37.

cious and admirably fitted to the work of mediating between God and man, are the excellencies of Jesus Christ. God and man in one person, he is at once invested with all the attributes of deity, and all the perfections of which our nature is capable. As the eternal Son of God, he is wisdom and prudence itself; and as the Son of man, he is holy, harmless, undefiled, and separate from sinners: "He is white and ruddy, the chief among ten thousand: yea, he is altogether lovely."

The voice of the dove is peculiarly tender and plaintive, and bears a striking resemblance to the groan of a person in distress. This circumstance is admirably described by the elegant muse of Virgil:

"Nec tamen interea rauca tua cura palumbes

Nec gemere aerea cessabit turtur ab ulmo.” The inspired bard, as may well be supposed, is not less true to nature. Hezekiah, alluding to the sickness from which he had just recovered, pours out his gratitude to Jehovah in these emphatical terms: "Like a crane or a swallow, so did I chatter, I did mourn as a dove ;" and the men of Judah thus deplore the bitter consequences of their sin: "We mourn sore like doves; we look for judgment, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far off from us*:" in Hebrew, we groan with the groaning of the dove; that is, with a heavy and continual groaning. The prophet Ezekiel, describing the grievous lamentations of his people in the day of their destruction, employs the same figure: "But they that escape of them shall escape, and shall be on the mountains like doves of the valleys, all of them mourning every one for his iniquity +." The hoarse and mournful cooing of the dove, gives a vivid idea of the low and murmuring complaints uttered by the dejected captives, dragged by the pitiless conqueror from the land of their fathers, to a far distant and unfriendly region. To this circumstance Nahum alludes, when he predicts the desolations + Ezek. vii. 16.

Isa. xxxviii. 14. and lix. 11.