OBSERVATION VIII.

Strong Figures and Metaphors used by the Eastern Writers.

Ir they adorn their books sometimes with material paintings, those of the intellectual kind are however much more frequent. They continue still, as they were anciently, very bold, but with a coarseness, oftentimes, not very pleasing to our taste.

The curious have in general long ago remarked this; but as I have met with some instances of this kind, which may serve to illustrate some passages of scripture more perfectly than I have seen them, and as I have also observed some other passages of the modern Asiatic poets, which may throw a light over some of those of the sacred, I will here annex, to the preceding observations, a short specimen of those illustrations of Holy Writ, which a careful perusal of the Turkish, Persian, and Arabian poets would soon enlarge. Parallel images are often introduced into our commentaries on Scripture from the writers of Greece and Rome; extracts from those of Asia would be more curious, and as being more perfectly in the old Jewish taste, would be more instructive.

musical instruments, &c. in illustration of the different subjects they contain. This is particularly the case in books which contain an account of military achievements, and natural history. Fine copies of the Shah Nameh, Ajaceb al Makhlookhat, &c. are thus ornamented. EDIT.

As to those coarse images I was speaking of, and which this Observation particularly refers to, Hushai's comparing David and his men to a bear robbed of her whelps, 2 Sam. xvii. 8, appears to us very odd; but it shocks our delicacy much more, when we find it applied to the Majesty of heaven, Lam. iii. 10,

This is however, entirely owing to the difference of the taste of the Europeans from that of the people of the Levant. We in England, when we compare a person to a bear, always have something of a disagreeable fierceness, and awkward roughness, in view; therefore these paintings give us pain. But though we do, the Eastern nations do not blend these ideas with those of strength and terribleness in displeasure; that therefore which appears an indecent comparison to us, was none to them, and this image accordingly still continues in use among those people. "Saladine," says Maillet," "going one day from Cairo up to the castle he had built there, and causing his brother Sirocoé, who had accompanied him, to take a view of its works and buildings:"This castle,'" said he to him,' ' and all Egypt, will be one day in the possession of your children.' "Sirocoé replying that it was wrong to talk after that manner, since heaven had given him children to succeed to the crown; Saladine rejoined," My children are born in Egypt, where men degenerate, and lose their spirit and bravery; but yours are born in the mountains of Circassia, of a man that posz Lett. 11. p. 106.

sesses the fierceness of bears and their courage.' "The event justified the prediction, the posterity of Saladine reigning but a few years in Egypt after the death of that great prince."

Here my reader sees Sirocoé compared to bears by an Eastern prince, where an eulogium was intended, and not the least disrespectful hint designed.

The name which a Hivite prince was called by, according to Gen. xxxiv. 2, is full as grotesque for Hamor signifies an ass. Such a name would be thought a reproachful one among us, and very unbecoming the dignity of a prince; in the East they have thought very differently." Mervan, the last Khalif of the Ommiades, was surnamed according to Mons. d'Herbelot, He

The modern Eastern people however, at least sometimes, seem to understand it as an affront- so Dr. Drummond, in his Travels, repcating the unpolite answer the Turkish commander at Beer, in Mesopotamia, returned to their re quest to see the cattle there, tells us that he asked, "Do they take me for a child or an ass's head, that they would feed me with sweetmeats, and dupe me with a bit of cloth? No! they shall not see the castle," &c. .p. 206. I cannot forbear remarking here, that we find an expression something like this in one of the prophetic historians, 2 Sam. 5. 8; Then was Abner very wroth for the words of Ish-bosheth, and said, Am I a dog's head? &c. Some learned men, and some modern Jewish writers, according to Bishop Patrick, have understood this term as signifying, he was treated as if he was captain of a pack of dogs, instead of leader of the armies of Israel; but this does not seem to me to be a natural explanation, and this expression of the governor of Beer seems much better to illustrate the complaint of Abner-do they take me for an ass's head? seems to mean, Do they think I am stupid as an ass! and, "Am I a dog's head!" seems to signify, Am I a dog? which kind of complaining expostulatory expression we meet with elsewhere, 1 Sam. 17. 43. If there is any difference be tween these expressions, it seems to be, that as an ass's head

mar, the ass, and the ass of Mesopotamia, because of his strength and vigour. And as the wild ass is supposed by the Oriental people, to surpass all other animals in swiftness, Baharam, King of Persia, he says, was surnamed Jour: a word which signifies in the language of that country, a wild ass.'

OBSERVATION IX.

The same Subject continued

As to the Asiatic poets, Aboulfarage Sangiari, a Persian, who lived at the time of the irruption of the Tartars under Genghizkhan, gives this description of those miserable days. "It was a time in which the sun arose in the West. That all sort of joy was then banished from the world, and men appeared to be made for no other end but suffering. In all the countries through which I have passed, I either found no body at all, or met only with distressed wretches." Just so the Prophet Amos threatened, that GOD would make the sun to go down at noon, and would darken the earth in a clear day; that he would turn their feasts into mourn

apparently means like an ass with respect to understanding; so dog's head should answerably signify, Are all my cares for thee of no more value in thine eyes than those of a dog, one of the most impure and despicable of animals, that amuses thee in hunting for prey?

ing, and their songs into lamentation, &c. ch. viii. 9, 10.

The sun's going down at noon, and its rising in the West, are different expressions indeed, but they are of the same import, and serve to illustrate one another: for they both signify how extremely short their time of prosperity would be, how unexpectedly it would terminate, and for how long a time it would be succeeded by suffering, of which darkness was often made the emblem.

OBSERVATION X.

The same Subject continued.

The Prophet Ezekiel has these words in his twentieth chapter: ver. 47. Say to the forest of the South, hear the word of the LORD, thus saith the LORD GOD, Behold I will kindle a fire in thee, and it shall devour every green tree, and every dry tree: the flaming fire shall not be quenched, and all faces from the South to the North shall be burnt therein: this may be paralleled by a passage of a modern writer. Upon receiving this message from God, the Prophet observes that the people were ready to say, his messages messages were parables, ver. 49. Whether this declaration of GOD was really as hard to be understood by them as a parable, I