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shall not take upon me to say; but d'Herbelot has given us a passage of a Persian poet, describing the desolation made by a pestilence, whose terms very much resemble the words of the Prophet.

"The pestilence, like an evening fire, ruins "at once this beautiful city, whose territory 'gives an odour surpassing that of the most "excellent perfumes.

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"Of all its inhabitants, there remains neither "a young man nor an old:

"This was a lightning that falling upon a "forest, consumed there the green wood "with the dry."

So the pestilence and coals of fire are mentioned together in the same verse of the Prophet Habakkuk, Before him went the pestilence, and burning coals went forth at his feet, ch. iii. 5.

OBSERVATION XI.

A curious Description of the Spring, from an Eastern Writer, with Remarks.

IN speaking of the Eastern books, I have already had occasion to notice the liveliness of their images; though the genius of their

P: 330.

This pestilence entirely ruined the city of Asterabad, in the time of a prince who died in the year of our LORD 997. Voy. d'Herbelot, p. 140:

writers received no assistance from the labours of the sculptor or the painter, it may be pleasing to add to former instances an Eastern description of the Spring.

Two of the three classes of medals which Mr. Addison has exhibited and explained, consists of allegorical personages-cities and countries, virtues and vices, and the comparing the descriptions of the Roman poets with their coins, is both ingenious and pleasing; but there is no opportunity of making such comparison when we are examining Eastern writers. They are however not deficient in giving their readers some lively representations of allegorical personages.

Especially the sacred writers. In them we find countries and cities described after this emblematical manner, and other allegorical personages. And as thus the several stages of human life, the four quarters of the year, the several divisions of the day, are represented among us by fictitious personages; so in like manner in the Jewish Prophets we read of the womb of the morning, of the dew of youth, of the flower of man's age, and a time of life that resembles a shock of corn fully ripe.

And thus amidst the present austerity, and perhaps superstitious scrupulosity of the East, we sometimes meet with lively images of this kind. So the Spring is described in a most pleasingly romantic manner, in two of the

Jer. vi. Is. xxiii. 15, 16.
Hab. iii. 4, 5. Ps. xci. 5, 6.

Ezek. xvi. 3, &c.

Rev. vi. 5.

four following lines, as given us by Chardin from an Oriental writer:

The Spring shows itself with a tulip in its hand, which resembles in its form a cup,

To make an effusion of morning drops on the tomb of the king who lies in Negef.

In this same new-year's day, Ali being placed on the seat of the Prophet,

He has made the festival of new-year's day a glorious one.i

The author of a paper, that describes the four quarters of the year, and even each month, in a beautiful symbolical manner, given us in a celebrated collection, represents the Spring as a beautiful youth having a narcissus in his hand; the tulip of this Eastern writer is much more accurate, as, according to Dr. Russell,' the narcissus comes into flower long before the day the Spring is supposed to begin, (which is when the sun enters Aries,) being in blossom during the whole of the Murbania, which begins the 12th of December, and ends January 20th. The tulip blossoms later, but in that country time enough to be placed in the hand of this imaginary person, at its first appearance.

The form of the tulip too, much better suited the views of this elder writer, as much

h Ali, the son-in-law of Mohammed, one of the great objects of Persian veneration, is the prince here meant. * Spectator, No: 425.

Chardin, tome 1. p. 173.

Vol. 1. p. 70.

VOL. III.

M

more proper for the holding what was liquid, than the flat make of the narcissus: "The tulip which resembles a cup." Not however a cup for drinking, that appears not to have been his thought, but a vase designed to give out its contained fluids in drops, which kind of vessels are often used in the East, for the sprinkling those they would honour, with odoriferous waters, made sometimes like a long-necked bottle, but might as well be made without the long neck, and in shape like a tulip, before it is opened, and its leaves spread out. By such a vessel, in form like a tulip, whose petals are nearly closed together, an effusion may be made of many drops.

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Every body knows that the dew appears in drops in the morning, and as the day advances they disappear: the Scriptures frequently refer to this circumstance. They two first begin to appear on the approach of warm weather. It is no wonder then, that the appearance of these pleasing and enlivening drops of the morning is introduced into a description of spring.

The introducing also an allusion to the Eastern manner, of softening the horror of the repositories of the dead, is very amusing to the imagination, and a beauty in this description. They are wont to strew flowers and pleasing herbs, or leaves of trees, on the sepulchres of their friends; but more than that, Dr. Shaw tells us, that the intermediate spaces

-Niebuhr, Des. de l'Arab. tab.1. "Ex. xvi. 13. Hos. vi. 4.

between their graves are frequently planted with flowers, as at other times paved with tiles. We meet with the like account in some other writers. Now in such cases, the same respect for the dead that leads the people of these countries to visit their graves, and to cover them with flowers, must excite them to water those vegetables that are planted on or near these graves, in a dry time, that they may flourish and yield their perfumes. With reference to such a management, the spring is here represented as covering the burial-place of Ali, with enlivening drops of dew, a prince whose memory the Persians hold inthe highest veneration.

This however is to be considered as a mere poetical embellishment, for the tomb of Ali does not lie open to the dew or the rain, but is under the shelter of a most sumptuous mosque, whose dome, and two towers, are said to be covered with the most precious materials of any roof in the world-Copper so richly gilt, as that every eight square inches and a half are coated by a toman of gold, equal to ten German crowns, which makes it look extremely superb, especially when the sun shines."

It cannot be certainly determined, by the French translation of these verses, whether they represent the Spring in the person of one of the male or female sex; but it seems most

• P. 219.

Voyages de Niebuhr en Arabie, et en d'autres Pays, o me 2d, p. 210.

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