may be supposed to mean by rending the eyes with painting. The sooty colour, which is in this manner communicated to the eyes, is thought to add a wonderful gracefulness to persons of all complexions. The practice of it, no doubt, is of great antiquity; for besides the instance already taken notice of, we find that when Jezebel is said, (2 Kings ix. 30.) to have painted her face, the original words are, she adjusted her eyes with the powder of lead ore." (Trav. p. 294. fol. edit.)

This practice still maintains its influence in various parts of the world. Numerous instances of it occur in modern voyages and travels. A single extract will be sufficient to demonstrate its present existence. Captain SYMES says, that "the Birmans, both men and women, colour their teeth, their eye-lashes, and the edges of their eye-lids, with black. This custom is not confined to the Birmans, particularly the operation of colouring the eye-lashes: the women of Hindostan and Persia commonly practise it. They deem it beneficial as well as becoming. The collyrium they use is called surma, the Persian name of antimony." (Embassy to Ava, vol. ii. p. 235.)

Mr. Harmer (vol. ii. p. 406.) is of opinion that the expression used by Jacob in blessing Judah-that his eyes shall be red with wine, (Gen. xlix. 12.) is to be explained by this usage. He observes that "the original word occurs but twice in the scriptures; in both places it evidently expresses a consequence of drinking wine; but in one it signifies an agreeable, and in the other a reproachful effect of it. (Gen. xlix. 12. Prov. xxiii. 29.) I do not know that redness of the eyes, strictly speaking, is occasioned by drinking; that arises from other causes. If we change the expression a little, and, instead of redness of the eyes, read redness of the countenance, as some commentators are disposed to do, it is certain such an effect is produced by the drinking of wine; but it is

however another word that expresses redness in general, that expresses ruddiness of complexion in particular. (See 1 Sam. xvi. 12. and 1 Sam. xvii. 42.) Nor did the LXX. understand the word to signify redness, but a kind of blackness, for so they translate Prov. xxiii. 29. whose eyes are wind, a word which expresses the colour which arises from bruising the flesh, and which is marked out in English by two words joined together-black and blue. The Syriac and Arabic are said to translate it in the same manner; (Poli. Syn. in loc.) and is it not more natural to explain it in this passage, which speaks of woe, of sorrow, of wounds, after this manner, than of a red face? If the word is understood in this sense in this passage of the Proverbs, it cannot be agreeable to give it, unnecessarily, another sense, when we read the predictions of Jacob; and it is certain there is no difficulty in understanding it of blackness of the eyes there." The sense of the prediction may therefore be, his eyes shall be blackened with wine; enlivened, that is, by wine, as if blackened by lead ore. Agreeably to this, though not with the same precision, the LXX. make use of a term in translating the word in this place, which signifies the joyousness of the eyes, as do also many of the fathers. (Vide Scolia in Sac. Bib. Grac ex vers. 70. inter. Lond. 1653.)

No. 279.-ix. 8. Their tongue is as an arrow shot out.] Arrows were formerly much used by different nations for various purposes. In war, they were a very destructive weapon, especially when they were poisoned, according to the custom of some people. In the chase also they were effectual in overcoming wild beasts, and killing such animais as they were aimed at. Since the inven tion of other methods of assault they have been less used, and cer known, as they have been in a measure luce; but white it was so common to em

ploy them in the field and the forest, it is not at all surprizing that metaphors should be found, alluding to their nature and effects. We accordingly find the bitter words of the wicked are called their arrows, (Ps. lxiv. 3.) and that their teeth are spears und arrows, (Ps. lvii. 4.); and also, that a man that beareth false witness against his neighbour, is a sharp arrow, (Prov. xxv. 18.) But it appears also that there is a literal meaning in these comparisons, which suppose a connexion between the mouth and the arrow. The circumstance related by Mr. Mungo Park, in the following extract, might possibly have its parallel in the conduct of the ancients; and if it had, clearly accounts for such figures as have been referred to: "Each of the negroes took from his quiver a handful of arrows, and putting two between his teeth, and one in his bow, waved to us with his hand to keep at a distance." (Travels in Africa, p. 99.)

No. 280.-xiv. 4. Because the ground is chapt, for there was no rain in the earth.] Chardin says, "the lands of the East, which the great dryness there causes to crack, are the ground of this figure, which is certainly extremely beautiful; for these dry lands have chinks too deep for a person to see to the bottom of. This may be observed in the Indies more than any where, a little before the rains fall, and wherever the lands are rich and hard." The prophet's speaking of ploughmen, shews that he refers to the autumnal state of those countries; and if the cracks are so deep from the common dryness of their summers, what must they be when the rains are withheld beyond the usual time which is the case here alluded to?

HARMER, vol. ii. p. 208.

No. 281. xv. 18. Wilt thou be altogether unto me as a liar, and as waters that fail?] Mr. Harmer, (vol. i.

p. 483.) proposes it as a query, whether in these. words the prophet does not allude to a phænomenon mentioned by Chardin. "There is a splendour, or vapour," he says, "in the plains of the desert, formed by the repercussion of the rays of the sun from the sand, that appears like a vast lake. Travellers of the desert, afflicted with thirst, are drawn on by such appearances, but coming near, find themselves mistaken; it seems to draw back as they advance, or quite vanishes. 2. Curtius takes notice of it in speaking of Alexander the Great in Susiana." It must however be left to the determination of the judicious reader, whether this observation is applicable to the passage now cited.

No. 282.-xvi. 6. Neither shall men lament for them, nor cut themselves, nor make themselves bald for them.] Cutting the flesh was designed to express grief. The practice was very general. The Jews adopted it, Jer. xlviii. 37. It has also been observed in modern times, and at Otaheite, with circumstances remarkably similar to those alluded to by Jeremiah in this passage. There the women wound the crown of their head under the hair, with a shark's tooth. Cutting off the hair is still more general. This they throw on the bier of the dead.

No. 283.-xvi. 8. Thou shalt not also go into the house of feasting, to sit with them to eat and to drink.] To make a funeral feast was anciently a method of honouring the dead, and is still continued in the East. Chardin says, "the oriental christians still make banquets of this kind, by a custom derived from the Jews; and I have been many times present at them among the Armenians in Persia." The seventh verse speaks of those provisions which used to be sent to the house of the deceased, and of those healths which were drank

to the survivors of the family, wishing that the dead may have been the victim for the sins of the family. The same, with respect to eating, is practised among the Moors. Thus the bread of men, (Ezek. xxiv. 17.) signifies the bread that the neighbours, relations, and friends, sent to mourners. HARMER, Vol. ii. p. 137.

No. 284.-xvii. 13. They that depart from me shall be written in the earth.] Peter della Valle observed a method of writing short-lived memorandums in India, which he thus describes. "I beheld children writing their lessons with their fingers on the ground, the pavement being for that purpose strewed all over with very fine sand. When the pavement was full, they put the writing out, and, if need were, strewed new sand from a little heap they had before them, wherewith to write. farther." p. 40. p. 40. One would be tempted to think, says Mr. Harmer, (vol. ii. p. 168, note,) the prophet Jeremiah had this way of writing in view, when he says of them that depart from God, they shall be written in the earth. Certainly it means, in general, soon to be blotted out and forgotten, as is apparent from Psalm lxix. 28. Ezek. xiii. 9.

No. 285.—xviii. 3. Then I went down to the potter's house, and behold he wrought a work on the wheels.] The original word means stones rather than wheels. Dr. Blayney, in a note on this passage, says, "the appellation will appear very proper, if we consider this machine as consisting of a pair of circular stones, placed one upon another like mill-stones, of which the lower was immoveable, but the upper one turned upon the foot of a spindle, or axis, and had motion communicated to it by the feet of the potter sitting at his work, as may be learned from Ecclus. xxxviii. 29. Upon the top of this upper stone, which was flat, the clay was