NOTES TO BOOK VII. Within its door; the lizard's track is left, &c. -2, p. 195. "The dust which overspreads these beds of sand is so fine, that the lightest animal, the smallest insect, leaves there, as on snow, the vestiges of its track. The varieties of these impressions produce a pleasing effect, in spots where the saddened soul expects to meet with nothing but symptoms of the proscriptions of nature. It is impossible to see any thing more beautiful than the traces of the passage of a species of very small lizards, extremely common in these deserts. The extremity of their tail forms regular sinuosities, in the middle of two rows of delineations, also regularly imprinted by their four feet, with their five slender toes. These traces are multiplied and interwoven near the subterranean retreats of these little animals, and present a singular assemblage, which is not void of beauty. Sonnini. In the world's foundations, &c.—4, p. 196. These lines are feebly adapted from a passage in Burnet's "Theory of the Earth: " "Hæc autem dicta vellem de genuinis et majoribus terræ nontibus; non gratos Bacchi colles hic intelligimus, aut amonos illos monticulos, qui viridi herba et vicino fonte et arboribus, vin æstivi solis repellunt: hisce non deest sua qualiscunque elegantia et jucunditas. Sed longe aliud hic respicimus, nempe longæva illa tristia et squalentia corpora, telluris pondera, quæ duro capite rigent inter nubes, infixisque in terram saxeis pedi bus, ab innumeris seculis steterunt immobilia, atque nudo pectore pertulerunt tot annorum ardentes soles, fulmina et procellas. Hi sunt primævi et immortales illi montes, qui non aliunde, quam ex fracta mundi compage ortum suum ducere potuerunt, nec nisi cum eadem perituri sunt." The whole chapter De Montibus is written with the eloquence of a poet. Indeed, Gibbon bestowed no exaggerated praise on Burnet in saying that he had “blended Scripture, history, and tradition, into one magnificent system, with a sublimity of imagination scarcely inferior to Milton himself." This work should be read in Latin: the author's own translation is iniserably inferior. He lived in the worst age of English prose. Ziccoum's fruit accurst. 16, p. 202. "The Zaccoum is a tree which issueth from the bottom of hell: the fruit thereof resembleth the heads of devils; and the damned shall eat of the same, and shall fill their bellies therewith; and there shall be given them thereon a mixture of boiling water to drink: afterwards shall they return to hell." Koran, chap. 37. "This hellish Zaccoum has its name from a thorny tree in Tehama, which bears fruit like an almond, but extremely bitter; therefore the same name is given to the infernal tree." Sale. Some daughter of the Iomerites. — 17, p. 202. When the sister of the famous Derar was made prisoner before Damascus with many other Arabian women, she excited them to mutiny: they seized the poles of the tents, and attacked their captors. This bold resolution, says Marigny, was not inspired by impotent anger. Most of these women had military inclinations already; particularly those who were of the tribe of Himiar, or of the Homerites, ..here they are early exercised in riding the horse, and in using the bow, the lance, and the javelin The revolt was successful; for, during the engagement, Derar came up to their assistance. The Paradise of Sin.-22, p. 205. In the N. E. parts of Persia, there was an old man named Aloadin, a Mahumetan, which had inclosed a goodly valley, situate between two hilles, and furnished it with all variety which nature and art could yield; as fruits, pictures, rills of milk, wine, honey, water, pallaces, and beautiful damosells richly attired, and called it Paradise. To this was no passage but by an impregnable castle; and daily preaching the pleasures of this Paradise to the youth which he kept in his court, sometimes he would minister a sleepy drinke to some of them, and then conveigh them thither, where, being entertained with these pleasures four or five days, they supposed themselves rapt into Paradise; and then, being again cast into a trance by the said drink, he caused them to be carried forth, and then would examine them of what they had seene, and by this delusion would make them resolute for any enterprise which he should appoint them; as to murthur any prince his enemy, for they feared not death in hope of their Mahumetical Paradise. But Haslor or Ulan, after three years' siege, destroyed him, and this his fool's Paradise." - Purchas. In another place, Purchas tells the same tale, but calls the impostor Aladenles, and says that Selim, the Ottoman emperor, destroyed his Paradise. The story is told by many writers, but with such difference of time and place as wholly to invalidate its truth, even were the circumstances more probable. The man who serves him well. - 27, p. 207. "Let the royal apparel be brought which the king useth to wear, and the horse that the king rideth upon, and the crownroyal which is set upon his head; "And let this apparel and horse be delivered to the hand of one of the king's most noble princes, that they may array the man withal whom the king delighteth to honor, and bring him on horseback through the street of the city, and proclaim before him, Thus shall it be done to the man whom the king delighteth to honor."— Esther, vi. 8, 9. ་་ "The Sheik Kotbeddin discusses the question, whether it be, upon the whole, an advantage or disadvantage to live at Mecca; for all doctors agree, that good works performed there have double the merit which they would have anywhere else. He therefore inquires, whether the guilt of sins must not be augmented in a like proportion." - Notices des MSS. de la Bibl. Nat., t. iv. 541. THE EIGHTH BOOK. Quas potius decuit nostro te inferre sepulchro, Et titulo patris jungere nomen avi; Heu! gener est Orcus; quique, O dulcissima! per te JOACH. BELLAIUS 1. WOMAN. Go not among the Tombs, Old Man! There is a madman there. OLD MAN. Will he harm me if I go? WOMAN. Not he, poor miserable man! For all day long he lies on a grave, And never is he heard to groan, |