probable that he meant a female, those of that sex being much more assiduous in visiting, and adorning the tombs of those they love or esteem, than the men.

Upon the whole, the imagery of this allegorical description appears to be very beautiful.

OBSERVATION XII.

Solomon's Portrait of old Age.

In like manner the images with which Solomon introduces his description of old age, seem to me to be designed to represent it as the winter of human life, in general, and not as a part of that enumeration of its particular evils, which he afterwards gives us in a collection of hieroglyphics, which have been not a little puzzling to the learned, when they have attempted to decypher them with clearness and conviction.

Among others, the very learned and ingenious Dr. Mead, proposing in the declining part of his life to explain and illustrate the diseases mentioned in Scripture, has appropriated a chapter of that work to the consideration of Solomon's description of old age, in the 12th of Ecclesiastes.

It is not to be supposed, that any person was better qualified to describe the attendants on old age than this writer, in a medical way; but it

is much to be questioned, whether such a scientific investigation is the best comment on an ancient poem, written indeed by the greatest naturalist in his day, but designed for common use, and for the making impressions, in particular, on the hearts of the young. A more popular explanation then is most likely to be truer, if founded on Eastern customs, and the state of things in those countries.

It will be of advantage too, I apprehend, to divide the paragraphs into parts, contrary to the Doctor's supposition, who seems to think that the 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, and 6th verses are to be understood as forming one emblematical catalogue, of the usual afflictive attendants on old age. This has unhappily multiplied particulars, and added to the embarrassment.

On the contrary, I should think it most natural to understand the 2d verse as a general allegorical representation of the decline of life, as being its winter; the 3d, 4th, and part of the 5th verse, as descriptive of the particular bitterness of that part of life; after that, as mentioning death and the grave; and the 6th verse, as emblematically representing the state of the body after death, before its dissolving into dust.

It is, I am inclined to think, as if Solomon should design to say, Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, before the evil days come, and the winter of human life overtakes thee; before that painful variety of complaints, 1 Kings iv. 30, 33.

belonging to old age, distresses thee; which must be expected to end in death; before thy body shall be deposited, ghastly, motionless, and irrecoverably lost to the life of this present state, in the grave, where it will be laid, ere long, in expectation of its return to dust, according to the solemn sentence pronounced on our great progenitor, Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return.

To this last part of the paragraph agrees a preceding exhortation of this royal preceptor. Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might for there is no work, nor device, nor knowledge, nor wisdom, in the grave whither thou goest. In the first part he calls men to a due remembrance of their Creator, in other words to a life of religion, in the days of their youth, before the winter of old age should come, or those many ailments and complaints takes place, which commonly attend that stage of life.

I suppose then that the words, (verse 2d.) While the sun, or the light, or the moon, or the stars be not darkened, nor the clouds return after the rain, is a description of winter, not of diseases and to make this out is the first point to be attended to.

It is unnecessary to cite passages to prove, that old age is frequently compared to the evening of a day, or the wintry part of the year, by modern writers in the West; as youth, on the contrary, is among them compared to Chap. ix 10.

the spring and the morning; but it may be requisite to shew that the same way of thinking obtains in the East.

This is not difficult to do. Sir John Chardin, giving a translation of many pieces of Persian poetry, in his 2d tome,' informs us, that a copy of verses, written in praise of an Atabek prince, whose name was Mahomed, the son of Aboubeker, begins with two lines, which signify,

"Happy youthfulness, brilliant morning, generous heart,

"Which wears the gravity of age, on a youthful countenance."

Here youthfulness and morning are used as equivalent terms in Eastern poetic language. On the contrary Rocoub alcousag, according to d'Herbelot, are words which signify "the cavalcade of the old man without a beard. It is the name of a festival that the ancient Persians celebrated at the end of winter, in which a bald old man, and without a beard, mounted on an ass, and holding a raven in one of his hands, went about striking all he met

Thus Hafez represents the spring as the emblem of youth in the following couplet:

نفس باد صبا مشک فسان خواهد شد

علم پیر دگر باده جوان خواهد شد

"The breath of the morning breeze will scatter musk ; "The old world will again enter into the path of youth." i. e. the winter will shortly give place to spring. EDIT. Bibliotheque Orientale, p. 718.

P. 195.

with a switch." This figure represented

winter.

Winter then, according to the taste of the East, as well as of the people of the West, was thought to be properly represented by an old man, far advanced in years. Consequently the converse of this must have appeared natural to them to represent old age by winter.

x

On the other hand, those words of Solomon in the second verse will be found, on examination, to be an exact delineation of an Eastern winter hardly a cloud, according to Dr. Russell, is to be seen all summer, but the winter is frequently dark and gloomy, and often dark clouds soon return, and pour down a fresh deluge, after a great deal of rain had descended just before," whereas after the first rains of autumn there is frequently a considerable interval of fine weather before it rains again.

23

As then this 2d verse is such an exact description of their winters; as winter is by them represented by an old man; and as Solomon passes on from one complaint to another in the 3d and 4th verses, without such a distinction between them as he makes between the 2d and 3d verses; I think that, instead of explaining the darkening of the sun, the moon and the stars, and even of the common degree Descr. of Aleppo, vol. 1. p. 66.

Ibid. Appendix. See also citations on the 1st vol: of these Observations from other writers.

2 P. 14, 155, &c.

2