,חרב

every appearance and rule of parallelism, therefore, this sword should be a vegetable also. The words literally are, "bright as a devastator of mouths :" perhaps, "active as a parasitical plant, which, having many suckers, draws away the nourishment from the tree it has fastened on, and so destroys it." This idea maintains the uniformity of the passage; is well adapted to express the end of the prostitute; the issue of connection with her and is also, nearly, if not exactly, the very words of the text. The word 2, rendered sword, signifies to exhaust, to demolish, to drain quite dry; and, when figuratively applied, is used of other wasting instruments besides the sword; as of an ax, or chissel; also of droughts, or heats. The difficulty is in the word "bright:" if for nn, might be read, the passage would stand thus in opposition. Her mouth drops what is smoother than oil: her end consumes by inflammation, like un exhausting plant, which has many draining mouths. Her feet, &c.

But there is no occasion for any alteration, if the word here rendered by interpreters, sharp, may be taken for sharpness, PUNGENCY, biting, in respect to taste: and this would maintain a perfect corespondence by contrast, with the smoothness of the coincident verse. Can the bitter aloës be meant here? or what plant answers to this character?

Her address [wheedling, at first,] is smoother than oil;

Her end prolonged acquaintance] is pungent as the exhauster [plant] of many mouths.

Her feet go down to death;

Her steps take hold of the grave.

Quæ mihi misero amanti ebibit sanguinem,

says Plautinus, speaking of his mistress, "Abusing my passion for her, she has sucked my blood."

On verses 15, &c. and for the comparison to the female ibex, vide Job xxxix. plate: and Psalm xxix. 6, 3.

CHAPTER VI. VERSES 6, 7, 8.

Go to the ant, thou sluggard, consider her ways, and be wise.

Which having no guide, overseer, or ruler, provideth her meat in the summer, and gathereth her food in the karvest.

This passage is a text for a long discourse, but a long discourse would be misplaced here. The same character of foresight is given to the ant, apparently by a different writer from Solomon, in chap. xxx. 25. "The ants are a people not strong; yet they prepare their meat in the summer.' From these testimonies, and from many others among the ancients, I conclude, that in warmer climates the ants do not sleep during winter ; but continue more or less in activity, and during this season enjoy the advantages arising from their

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summer stores: which does not invalidate the remark of our naturalists, that in this colder climate ants are torpid during winter. In our hothouses, I speak from observation, ants are not torpid. We may appeal, as Scheuzer does, to Aristotle, Pliny, Plutarch, Virgil, and St. Jerom, Life of Malchus; but we only quote Horace, who says, sat. i.

Parvula nam exemplo est magni formica laboris;
Ore trahit quodcunque potest, atque addit acervo
Quem struit, haud ignara, ac non incauta futuri.

"The ant, small as she is, sets us an example; she is very laborious, she carries in her little mouth whatever she can, and adds it to her constructed storeheap, providing against a future period, with great precaution."

Formica tandem quidam expavere magistrâ.

"After the example of the ant, some have learned to provide against cold and hunger, says Juvenal, sat. 6. These may convince us that the ant provides against a day of want. As this insect is such a favourite with both naturalists and moralists, I shall quote Barbut's account of this creature in his work on British insects, p. 277.

"The outward shape of this insect is singular and curious, when seen through the microscope. With good reason, it is quoted as a pattern of industry. A nest of ants, is a small, well regulated republic: their peace, union, good understanding, mutual assistance, deserve the notice of an observer. The males and females, provided with wings, enjoy all the pleasures of a wandering life; while the species of neuters, without wings or sex, labour unremittingly. Follow is always in a stiff soil, at the foot of a wall or tree, with your eye, a colony that begins to settle, which exposed to the sun; you will perceive one, and sometimes several cavities in form of an arched vault, which lead into a cave contrived by their removing the mould with their jaws. Great police in their little labours, prevents disorder and confusion: each has its task; whilst one casts out the particle of mould that it has loosened, another is returning home to work. All of them employed in forming themselves a retreat of the depth of one foot, or more; they think not of eating, till they have nothing further left to do. Within this hollow den, supported by the roots of trees and plants, the ants come together, live in society, shelter themselves from summer storms, from winter frosts, and take care of the eggs, which they have in trust. The wood ants are larger than the garden ones, and also more formidable. Armed with a small sting, concealed in the hinder part of their abdomen, they wound whoever offends them. Their puncture occasions a hot, painful itching. They are carnivorous; for they dissect with the utmost neatness and delicacy, frogs, lizards, and birds, that

are delivered over to them. The preservation of the species, is in all animated beings the most important care. Behold, with what concern and caution the ants at the beginning of the spring load themselves between their two jaws with the new hatched larvæ, in order to expose them to the early rays of the beneficent sun. The milder weather being come, the ants now take the field. Fresh cares, new labours, great bustling and laying up of provisions. Corn, fruits, dead insects, carrion, all is lawful prize. An ant meeting another, accosts it with a salute worthy of notice. The ant overloaded with booty, is helped by her fellow ant. One chances to make a discovery of a valuable capture, she gives information of it to another, and in a short time a legion of ants come and take possession of the new conquests. No general engagement with the inhabitants of the neighbouring nest, only sometimes a few private skirmishes, soon determined by the conqueror. All those stores, collected with so much eagerness during the day, are immediately consumed. The subterraneous receptacle is the hall, where the feast is kept; every one repairs thither to take his repast; all is in common throughout the little republic, and at its expense are the larvæ fed. Too weak and helpless to go a foraging, it is chiefly in their behalf the rest go to and fro, bring home and lay up. They shortly turn to chrysalids, in which state they take no food, but give occasion to new cares and solicitudes. All human precautions have not hitherto been able to supply that degree of warmth and minute attention, which the ants put in practice to forward the instant of their last metamorphosis. The insect issuing forth to a new life, tears its white transparent veil; it is then a real ant, destitute of wings, if it has no sex; winged, if it be male or female, always to be known by a small erect scale placed on the thread, which connects the body and thorax. The males, who are much smaller, seldom frequent the common habitation; but the females much larger, repair to it to deposite their eggs, which is all the labour they undergo. The winter's cold destroys them. The fate which attends the males is not well ascertained; do they fall victims to the severity of winter? or are they made over to the rage of the labouring ants? These latter pass the winter in a torpid state, as some other insects do, till spring restores them to their wonted activity: they have, therefore, no stores for winter, no consumption of provisions. What are commonly sold in markets for ant's eggs, are grubs newly hatched, of which pheasants, nightingales, and partridges, are very fond.

"In Switzerland, they are made subservient to the destruction of caterpillars: which is done by hanging a pouch filled with ants upon a tree; and they, making their escape through an aperture contrived on purpose, run over the tree, without being able to reach

down to the ground, because care has been previously taken, to besmear the foot of the tree with wet clay or soft pitch; in consequence of which, compelled by hunger, they fall upon the caterpillars and devour them."

CHAPTER XV. VERSE 19.

The way of the slothful is as a hedge of thorns, CHEDEK; but the way of the righteous is made plain. Iapprehend, there is a beautiful opposition here, which is lost in our rendering: q." the narrow way of the slothful is like perplexed pathways among sharp thorns, [the word is rendered "brier," Micah vii. 4. whereas, the broad road of the righteous is a high bank," as rendered elsewhere, a causeway, i.e. straight forward; free from obstructions; the direct, conspicuous, open, path. 1st, The common course of life of these two characters answers to this comparison. 2dly, Their manner of going about business, or of transacting it, answers to this: an idle man always prefers the most intricate, the most oblique, and eventually the most thorny measures, to accomplish his purpose: the honest man prefers the most liberal, and straight forward. It seems hardly possible to determine what kind of thorn this chedek is: perhaps the "brier," used by our translators in Micah, may be retained without injury: and perhaps, too, this chedek may be a plant of some verdure, like our brier, and of which we call a scented kind sweetbrier; so a judge, the comparison in Micah, may be a well looking, q. verdant, character, but if he takes bribes, he becomes a brier, holding every thing that comes within his reach, hooking all he can catch; not a sweetbrier, but a rank weed:

Sauciat atque rapit spinus paliurus acutis ;
Hoc etiam judex semper avarus agit.

CHAPTER XVIII. VERSE 14.

The spirit of a man will sustain his infirmity : literally, "the spirit of a CHIEF will absolutely surbut a wounded spirit, who can bear? Perhaps, better round him, his person, D, against bodily weariness ; but a spirit smitten, touched, how shall that repose? Weariness of body may be counteracted by vigour of mind, beyond a mere loss of strength, which may be recruited by repose; but, if the mind be uneasy, sore, in a man of dignified station, what repose can recruit its vigour? so Ovid says, de Pont. lib. i.

Jam mihi deterior canis aspergitur ætas;
Jamque meos vultus ruga senilis arat.
causa est,

Anxietas animi, continuusque labor.

Does Solomon here mean to hint at the evils of dignified station?

CHAPTER XXV. VERSE 16.

Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it. I suppose that this precept is applicable to honey in general: according to the Greek proverb... Ka μελιτος τό πλεον έτε χολή, " even honey in excess be. comes gall" but I think it is further illustrated by the properties of certain kinds of honey, of which we have information from the ancients. Pliny speaks of it thus: "In some years, the honey is very dangerous about Heraclea Pontica; authors know not what

flowers the bees extract it from. Here is what we have learned of the matter: there is a plant in those parts called ægolethron, whose flowers in a wet spring acquire a very dangerous quality when they fade; the honey which the bees make of them is more liquid than usual, more heavy and redder; its smell causes sneezing: those who have eaten of it sweat horribly, lie upon the ground and call for nothing but coolers. There is found," continues he, "upon the same coast of the Pontus, another sort of honey, which is called mænomenon, because it makes those mad that eat of it. It is thought the bees collect it from the flower of the rhododrendros, which is frequent among the forests. The people of those parts, though they pay the Romans a part of their tribute in wax, are very cautious how they offer them their honey."

When the army of the ten thousand came near to Trebisond, a very strange accident befel it, which caused great consternation among the troops, according to Xenophon, who was one of the principal leaders of it. "As there were a great many bee hives," says that author, "the soldiers did not spare the honey they were taken with a voiding upward and downward, attended with deliriums; so that the least affected, seemed like men drunk, and others like mudmen, or people at the point of death. The earth was strewed with bodies, as after a battle; nobody, however, died of it; and the distemper ceased the next day, about the same hour that it began; so that the soldiers rose the third and fourth days, but in the condition people are in, after taking a strong potion." Diodorus Siculus relates the same fact in the same circumstances.

The precept of Solomon, therefore, seems to be grounded on two principles: 1st, honey whose prop erties are generally understood, if eaten to excess, is dangerous; and if not deadly, is inconvenient: 2dly, honey, not native, but found by accident, whether foreign honey, or other whose properties are unknown, should especially be refrained from, lest that be

come not merely inconvenient, but extremely injuri

ous and nauseous.

VERSE 20.

As he that taketh away a garment in cold weather, and as vinegar upon nitre; so is he that singeth

songs to a heavy heart. This passage has its difficulties: 1st, that here two things are compared to a third, which is unusual: 2dly, that the first of these things is privative, taking away a garment: the second, is additional, adding vinegar to nitre. In what respects does the first resemble the second, so that they should both form comparisons to the third? The garment taken away is an outer cloak, wrapper, or kind of mantle. The word rendered vinegar, signifies fermentation; and vinegar, we know, is a liquor which has undergone the fermentative process. The nitre of this passage is not our common nitre, or saltpetre, but a natural salt, the natron of Egypt. It is used for washing linen, &c. and to this Jeremiah alludes, chap. ii. 23. "Though thou wash thee with nitre, and much soap."

"Natrum is a genuine, pure, and native salt, being a fixed alkali, plainly of the nature of those made by fire from vegetables, [such as our pearlashes, which are used in washing linen: accordingly, Pliny says, "formerly a great quantity was obtained from the ashes of oaks, but now that method is disused." He mentions several places where it is found; and says, "it should be light, spongy, and honey-combed."] Natrum, whether native or purified, dissolves in a very small quantity of water; and in many parts of Asia is used for washing: it is also made into soap, by mixing it with oil. It is found in great abundance, and the natives sweep it from the surface of the ground, and call it soap earth." Dr. Shaw says, "On making experiments with the natron we find it to be an alkali, and to occasion a strong fermentation with acids, which will very well illustrate Prov. xxv. 20. where the singing of songs to a heavy heart, is finely compared to the contrariety or colluctation between vinegar and, natron; not nitre, or saltpetre, as we render it, which being an acid easily mixes with vinegar."

The effervescence then produced by pouring vinegar on natron, either, or both, of which, would be quiet and silent if let alone, or not mixed, resembles the effect of "song upon song," sung to a heart in anxiety which is only exasperated, and as it were put into a ferment, by the intrusion: and this very phraseology is not uncommon among us; for we mind is agitated by the uneasiness of passion, or by speak of a person as "being in a ferment," whose contradictory sentiments, about to burst forth with violence. The same mode of speech was adopted anciently. Plautus, cited by Leigh, says, "Mea uxor tola in fermento jacet." "My wife lies all the principle of fermentation, 1 Cor. v. 6, 7, 8.] and in a ferment." [Compare the metaphor of leaven, "Ecquid habet acetum in pectore?" "Has he any vinegar in his breast?"

What resemblance has all this to the removal of a covering in cold weather? that might be compared

to an unfaithful friend, or to a privation of something necessary, at the very time when its services are most requisite; but, how is it like to the pouring of vinegar upon natron, or to the singing of songs to a heavy heart? N.B. the usual rendering of the original phrase, is "evil heart." Can the phrase signify a backward, reluctant heart, not to be incited to action, as if by a war song? &c. Vide on chap. xxvi. 24. nor to devotion, as if by a sacred song? or, may there be any allusion to the instance of David singing before Saul? "song after song," but not to the cure of his "evil heart."

The horse leech, OLUKAH, has two daughters, GIVE, These three are never satisfied; four say not, "Enough." 1st, Sheol, the state of the dead. 2dly, The barren womb. 3dly, The earth not filled with water. 4thly, The fire saith not, “ Enough.”

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This is a very difficult passage; does the word olukah signify a leech, a horse leech? so say the Targum, LXX, and Vulgate. The root signifies in Arabic to adhere to, to cling, to hang fast; this well describes a leech, which is a kind of worm, of an oblong body, and which moves by attaching the head and tail, and raising the body into an arched form.

The horse leech, like other leeches, has the mouth at the very end of his body, where he is slenderest, and he is thickest toward the tail; the tail itself very slender; belly yellowish green, back dusky. This worm inhabits standing waters: is famous for sucking blood from any animal which ventures into water where they are; will even attack large animals; as horses, or mules, clinging to their noses, while they are drinking. Such is a horse leech; but what are its two daughters? The difficulty of answering this question has led some persons to wish for a different meaning to the word olukah; but, when this is ob

tained, what are the two daughters of the subject thus acquired? for it does not appear that the following words can spare any one from among them; as the introduction to them leads us to expect three, certainly, and even four, which are all enumerated, and of which no one is redundant. Under this embarrassment, we confess, that as naturalists our igno rance constrains us to relinquish the subject to whoever may possess superior intelligence.

The Syriac and Arabic give the horse leech three daughters; but I do not see how that improves the passage; some would render "Fate has two daughters, vis. Birth, and Death; these cry continually, Give, give; besides which, three other things are insatiable." This rendering supposes the words "the grave and the womb," to have been inserted twice; of which only one insertion is come down to us.

If I were forced to choose, I would say, perhaps, "Concupiscence, clinging desire has two daughters; 1st, Vanity, pomposity, which is continually soliciting, a gift; further magnificence; 2dly, Lust, which in its train of expenses is incalculable, and whose requisitions are unbounded. Perhaps, two other daughters might be named which are no less appropriate to concupiscence, or overweening desire: as, 1st, Ambition, and, 2d, Revenge, &c. but, does olukah import concupiscence? or what?

VERSE 17.

The eye that mooketh at his father, and despiseth to obey his mother, the ravens of the valley shall pick it out, and the young eagles shall eat it. For these "sons of the nesher," eagle, vide plate of Unclean Birds, Levit. xi,

The phrase "the ravens shall prey on the disobedient," implies, that they should he punished with death; and, perhaps, the discriminating appellation · "ravens of the valley," or brook side, expresses the place where this execution should overtake the criminals, where those who having early practised disobedience should terminate the career of their iniquities; compare Deut. xxi. 4. He who disregards parental admonition and advice, will become hardened, will increase his crimes, and will plunge inte guilt, whose punishment will cost him his life.

That ravens were understood to prey on criminals who had been executed, appears from many passages in ancient writers. The Greeks often speak of "throwing to the ravens." The old man, Mnesilochus, in Aristophanes, entreats for a mitigation of his sentence; and that he may not be hanged to serve as food to ravens. So we read in Horace, Ep. xvi.

.... non pasces in cruce corvos,

"Thou shalt not hang on a cross and feed ravens." So Philostrates, in Heroicis, and Tzetzes, Chil. v. cap. 22. "He is hung on the top of a high pole of fir,