there has been little difference of opinion, and it has been almost exclusively dwelt on by expositors of the passage, there will be the less necessity for any very lengthened remarks.

And here it is to be noted, once for all, that the picture of old age here given includes all infirmities and evils incident to that season of human life; without noting the mitigations of those evils which may be experienced, or the instances of partial exemption which occur. It is therefore not necessary to the truth of the description that all the evils enumerated should befall every aged person. The description is general, and is more or less realized in old age and it is what we may all expect to realize, unless our life should come prematurely to an end; or, to keep up the allegorical imagery, unless the city should be taken by assault, or shamefully capitulate and yield itself up to the enemy.

Verse 2.-The winter season is an appropriate and very common symbol of old age, as the spring is of youth, and the noonday of manhood. The darkening of the sun, moon, and stars, the decrease of the light, and a frequently or perpetually beclouded sky, may fitly represent the obscuration of the mental faculties, the decrease of sensible pleasures, the decay of bodily powers, and the exchange of youth's bright prospects, and manhood's aspirations, for the gloom and despondency of age.

Verse 3.-" The keepers or guards, "of the house," are the arms and hands, which in youth and manhood are a sufficient defence against ordinary dangers. But in the aged this defence fails; the nerves relax, the hand shakes, and the trembling arm affords little or no security against the most common perils with which we are constantly beset." And the strong men bow themselves." A bent or stooping position is one of the characteristics of old age. Or, allusion may be made to the limbs which support the body: the knees are feeble, and the legs involuntarily bend under its weight." And the grinders cease”—the teeth, by which the food is prepared for the nutriment and support of the body, cannot efficiently perform their office-" because they are few." Some are wanting; and those that remain are not well-matched. This is no small inconvenience to those who are advanced in years. Many of the inferior tribes of creation feel it less than we do. The elephant has eight sets of teeth in succession, so that, when one set is worn out, another comes up to supply its place; and others wait their turn to spring up, during the century of existence allotted to the "half-reasoning brute." But it is otherwise with man: we shed our milk-teeth at about the age of seven years; and we get a second set, which we surely ought to make the best of, and which with care and cleanliness might last much longer than they usually do. When these go to decay, we remain toothless; no third set will rise up to supply their vacant places.

"And those that look out at the windows be darkened." The windows are the eyes, through which the soul can look forth to survey the goodly scene around us. And with what wonderful perfection are those windows of the soul constructed!-perfectly transparent, yet strong; elastic, self

movable, and that in any direction; and, withal, so well defended. How immensely superior, not only to the mere openings to admit light and air into the house, which were the only windows in the time of Solomon, but even to the most costly windows of a modern palace, elegantly framed, and glazed as with plates of crystal! But these windows, unapproachable in their perfection by the highest human art, are darkened by age. The eye grows dim; and this obscuration of the sight sometimes ends in blindness; "total eclipse; no sun, no moon, no stars!"-as our great epic poet feelingly sings. And not only may the windows be thus closed by age, but "those that look out" at them have sometimes to endure from other causes the privation of light. The cloud of hopeless grief may settle upon the mind; the loss of wealth, or of those who were far dearer, may darken the remnant of our time; some fatal calamity, or some irrevocable fault, rising up in the field of memory like an Alpine height, may cast its chill shadow over us during the remainder of our earthly pilgrimage; or the soul-the star of our life-may suffer occultation from insanity, idiotcy, or that "second childishness and mere oblivion" which has sometimes befallen the wisest.

Verse 4.-" And the doors shall be shut in the streets"-the ears,* through which sounds enter, bringing us information only second in importance to that which is obtained through the medium of sight. In age, although "the porches of our ears" remain open, the doors are often shut, the sense is dull, and wisdom can no longer find free entrance there. The living discourse of others can be heard no more, to instruct, or console, or cheer; and we are left alone in the midst of society, to find our way, as we best can, through the remainder of our life, and the deep valley of the shadow of death. How important is it, then, that while the doors are open we welcome Truth as our abiding guest, and lay up those treasures of Divine wisdom which may be our solace and support when we are severed from external aid! Melancholy is the condition, inaccessible to the ordinary means of conversion and salvation is the spirit, of a foolish and worldly person when overtaken by these infirmities of old age. Reader! if thou art young, improve thy present opportunities; and "remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth," lest this helpless and all but hopeless condition should at some future day be thine.

"When the sound of the grinding is low." A seeming repetition: but the teeth are not only the instruments for masticating our food; they are also important organs of speech. There may indeed be voice without them; but the articulation and modulation, which are necessary to pleasant and effective speech, cannot ther exist in perfection. The loss of a single tooth in front unpleasantly affects the voice, by creating a kind of lisp; and, when all are gone, their absence is the death of eloquence.

"And he shall rise up at the voice of the bird;" awakened before the

* Dr. Adam Clarke says that the doors are "the lips." The reader can judge for himself, which is the probable interpretation.

dawn by the crowing of the cock, or else roused to his weary vigil by the twitter of the sparrow, or the earliest song of birds: for sleep is easily scared away from the eyelids of the aged.

"And all the daughters of music shall be brought low." Those powers and faculties of body and mind which are necessary to the production and enjoyment of music and song, have shared in the general decay of nature. Of this we have an affecting instance in the case of Barzillai, the Gileadite; who, on David's flight from Jerusalem, when Absalom rebelled, had provided the King with sustenance while he lay at Mahanaim; and who, on David's return, went with him to conduct him over Jordan; for he was a great man. "And the King said unto Barzillai, Come thou over with me, and I will feed thee in Jerusalem. And Barzillai said unto the King, How long have I to live, that I should go up with the King to Jerusalem ? I am this day fourscore years old and can I discern between good and evil? Can thy servant taste what I eat or what I drink? Can I hear any more the voice of singing men and singing women? wherefore then should thy servant be yet a burden unto my lord the King? Let thy servant, I pray thee, turn back again, that I may die in mine own city, and be buried by the grave of my father and of my mother. And the King kissed Barzillai, and blessed him; and he returned unto his own place." (2 Sam. xix. 31–39.)

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"And they shall be afraid of that which is high”-afraid to ascend the mountain or the stair, lest through feebleness and exhaustion they fall; afraid even to look up at any elevated object, lest they be overcome by giddiness.

"And fears shall be in the way." If he walk out alone, he is timid and irresolute, from inability to repel or to escape the dangers which may lurk in his path. On the smoothest road he proceeds with caution; and by an obstacle no greater than a molehill he may be thrown down.

"And the almond tree shall flourish." The winter-tree, with its white blossoms, which preys on the decaying building, is a fit emblem of the head which bears its hoary honours, like the blossoms of the grave. Hasselquist, who observed the almond-tree in Judæa when in full flower, compares it to an old man with his white locks."

"And the grasshopper (or locust) be a burden.” *

His remaining

It was elegantly fabled of Aurora, (the Morning,) that, being wedded to Tithonus, she besought from Jupiter on his behalf the gift of immortality, but forgot to include in her petition that he might not grow old and infirm. It followed that, although exempt from death, he was not freed from the other consequences of age: but at length Jupiter, compassionating his weakness and misery, changed him into a grasshopper. Two of the traits in Solomon's description are here illustrated,—the weakness and satiety of age. The grasshopper or locust, as a metaphor of age, was familiar to the ancients; and there are engraved gems in which the figure of a locust walking erect on its hind legs is employed to represent an emaciated, shrivelled, and bent old man. The comparison is said to be still current in the East. Bacon considers the fable as further illustrating the satiety consequent on the indulgence in worldly pleasure the more inevitable and intense, in proportion to the extent of that indulgence; which no one has so well described as, from his own experience, the

strength is only sufficient to carry the smallest burden, or to lift the least weight.

"And desire shall fail." Both appetite and relish for food are gone. "Can thy servant taste what I eat or what I drink?" said aged Barzillai. But the connexion of this clause with the following may suggest its reference to that condition in which

"No anger henceforward, or shame,

Shall redden the innocent clay;
Extinct is the animal flame,

And passion hath vanish'd away."

"Because man goeth to his long home," the grave;

"and the mourners

go about the streets," wearing the livery of death, and chanting the funeral dirge, the hymn for the dead.

The sixth verse would seem to be intended as a popular and poetic description of the apparatus with which the body is furnished for keeping up the supply of its nutriment, and repairing the wastes of nature; all food for these purposes being first reduced to a fluid state. We do not know exactly what was the state of anatomical science in the days of Solomon. He, no doubt, was in advance of his age, a discoverer, and a leader in research: but we may safely assume that inspiration was not intended to anticipate the discoveries in physical science which have been made in modern times. Therefore we doubt the correctness of the interpretation which applies the figurative expressions in the text specially and particularly to the medulla oblongata, the cranium, the vena cava, and the great aorta. Certainly the medulla oblongata, or spinal cord, might from its shape and colour be designated the silver cord; but it has no special connexion with the hydraulics of the system and the cranium, or skull, is only like a "bowl" when inverted; and we should hardly think that the wise man intended to turn the heads of his readers upside down! In its natural position, and in view of its proportion to the rest of the fabric, it less resembles a bowl than a roof or dome. It has indeed been called, and with great propriety, "the dome of thought, the palace of the soul." And if "the wheel" may be taken to imply, as it probably does, a kind of circulation, it need not be supposed that the discovery of Harvey is here anticipated. An obscure and inexact notion that some kind of circulation goes on in the human frame, is said to have been entertained long before the modern discovery. The language of Solomon in this verse is, nevertheless, in perfect accordance with facts which modern science has established, in connexion with the circulation of the blood.*

author of this book has done :—“ Men desire to monopolize pleasure unto themselves for ever, unmindful of that satiety and loathing which, like old age, will come upon them before they be aware: and so at last, when pleasure leaves them, their only solace is to talk of their former exploits, with the garrulousness of age, like grasshoppers, whose vigour consists only in their voice." (Bacon's "Wisdom of the Ancients.")

* Before the time of Harvey a vague and indistinct conception that the blood was not without motion in the body was entertained by several anatomists. In 1620

"The silver cord," and "the golden bowl." How precious are the materials of which this apparatus is composed! How admirable, how delicate, and yet how enduring, the mechanism; and how regular the motion! But "I am fearfully and wonderfully made." These precious materials, and this wonderful arrangement, cannot always last. "The silver cord" is "loosed," and "the golden bowl" is "broken." The supply by which life and strength were nourished is at an end: the containing and the conveying vessels are empty, broken, useless: the circulation, of late so regular and uninterrupted, has entirely ceased: "The pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern.”

In verse 7 there is an allusion to the Mosaic history of the creation : "The Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul." And, when that life with which the body is quickened has become extinct, nothing remains but dust though lately more precious than silver or gold, it is now all valueless and vile. The very dust of gold and silver is precious; but the dust of man is not only worthless, but loathsome and offensive. This was not man's original destination; but when he had transgressed the law of God, his Maker said to him, "Dust thou art, and unto dust shalt thou return." * He said nothing then of man's Divine original, or of his immortal nature and destiny. "The way of the tree of life" was "kept," (preserved,) but not clearly revealed until ages had passed away. A single beam of light from Paradise-the single promise of a Redeemer

Harvey had succeeded in completely tracing the circle in which the vital fluid moves ; yet he spent eight years in re-examining the subject, and maturing the proof on every point, before he ventured to make his discovery public, which he at length did in a brief tract, written with extreme simplicity, clearness, and perspicuity: one of the most admirable examples, in all literature, of a series of arguments deduced from observation.

But contemporaries are seldom grateful to discoverers. Pecuniary loss and mental disquiet have often followed the elucidation and establishment of a truth which has given immortal renown. After the announcement of his discovery by Harvey, his little practice as a physician fell off. His enemies accused him of presumption in daring to call in question the authority of the ancients; and his friends thought him too speculative, and not sufficiently practical. When the evidence of the truth became irresistible, then his opponents turned suddenly round, and asserted that all was known before. It is satisfactory, however, to learn that the author lived to enjoy the slow return of public confidence, and to attain the summit of reputation.

* Horace, than whom no author, excepting the inspired penmen, has expressed more pithily or powerfully the sentiment suggested by the contemplation of human mortality, alludes to a funeral custom which we still observe :

Licebit,

Injecto ter pulvere, curras.

"You may hasten away when you have thrice thrown in a handful of dust." (Carm. lib. i., xxviii., 1. 35.) But it is still more interesting to recognise in him the sentiment, and almost the language, of Moses :—Atque affigit humo DIVINÆ PARTICULAM AURÆ. "And he fastens to the ground a particle of breath Divine." (Sat., lib. ii., ii., 1. 79.)

VOL. IV.-FIFTH SERIES.

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