gums dissolved and gone, and desolation and neglect in absolute possession.

"Remember thy Creator in the days of thy youth, before the winter of old age be come on; before its numerous complaints have taken place; before thou shalt be carried to thy long home; before the vestments of death be decayed, the perfume of the grave vanished, and thy body be turned to dust: for nothing but hope in GoD can support the soul when struggling with disease; can disarm the king of terrors in his approach; can enable thee to reflect on the solitude, the corruption, the dereliction of the grave, and its being demolished, and its place no more known. For even then the Giver of life; thy Creator, can bring thee back into view, and, raising thee from the dead, make thee a partaker of immortality."

The description from first to last, is highly figurative, but it is to be hoped not as unintelligible as Egyptian hieroglyphics are wont to be. That the intention of Solomon was to represent old age as the winter of human life in the first place; then emblematically to set forth its complaints; and then, after having spoken of the mourning for the dead, at the time of their departure, to represent the mouldering of the body until its being reduced to dust, are points that seem to be pretty plain and determinate.

Thus far Mr. HARMER; and Isuppose there is scarcely a man in the nation who knows any thing of the structure of the human body, that will hesitate for a moment to give a decided preference to the elegant illustration given by Dr. Mead of the words of Solomon. EDIT.

OBSERVATION XV.

Of their Discourses, Tales, &c. in their Public Assemblies.

To what has been said of Eastern books, may naturally be subjoined some account of the discourses that have been pronounced there in assemblies of ingenious, or at least inquisitive men, which have not unfrequently giving birth to those writings that have been greatly celebrated among them. Such assemblies have certainly been held in these countries of later time; and to such held in his time, Solomon seems to have referred in the 12th chapter of Ecclesiastes, his words in the 11th verse of that chapter being these: The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the master of assemblies, which are given from one shepherd.

If we suppose that he is speaking of assemblies of men, and not of collections of stones, cemented and joined together to form magnificent structures, to what assemblies is it most probable that he refers? Not surely those gathered together in the Temple, for they were for sacrificing and singing the divine praises; not those in their Synagogue, for the discourses there were not of the nature of this book of Solomon's, being such as arose from the reading the law and the Prophets, nor for the same reason, those that might be pronounced

in their colleges, or their schools of the Prophet as they have been more commonly called, for these, we have reason to believe, consisted of regular and stated disquisitions relating to their law, and possibly sometimes explanations of the Prophets it would best answer the circumstances in which Solomon wrote, and the nature of this book of Ecclesiastes, if we understand him of discourses in assemblies of in-. quisitive and curious men, held occasionally, and founded on the general principle of reason and experience in a word, discourses of an eloquent and philosophical nature.

That there have been such assemblies in these countries, since the time of Solomon, is the first thing to be made out here.

Macamat, according to d'Herbelot, signifies assemblies and conversations, pieces of eloquence or academical discourses, pronounced in assemblies of men of letters. This way of reciting compositions in prose and verse has been as frequent among the Orientals, as it was anciently among the Romans, and as it is now in our academies. The Arabians have many books containing discourses of this kind, which are looked upon by them as masterpieces of eloquence. Hamadani was the first that published such pieces, and his work is entitled, Discourses of the most eloquent Man of his Age, for he was looked on as a miracle of eloquence. Hariri imitated him, and, in

• Dropping the consideration of its being the production of inspiration.

the opinion of many, excelled him, insomuch that the most learned of the Arabian grammarians said, that his work ought not to be written but on silk. These discourses derive their names from the places where they were pronounced, the first being marked out by its being delivered at Sanaa, the capital of Yemen; and the last,' which is the 50th, bears the name of Bassora, a city of Chaldæa, situated near the mouth of the Tigris.

They differ then from the academical discourses of France, which are pronounced before societies of learned and ingenious men, who regularly assemble together at certain times; whereas these Eastern assemblies are supposed to be people gathered together occasionally, without any particular connexion, and brought together from a desire to hear some celebrated speaker, who is disposed to discourse to as many as are willing to hear him in his peregrinations from place to place, or to hold conversation among themselves.

But there have been other discourses of this kind, pronounced in more elevated auditories, but still occasionally collected together, and not properly associated, of which d'Herbelot has made mention in the article of Amak, where he gives us the names of three princes, who were great lovers of learning, and particularly of the

d Profesor Chappelow, of Cambridge, has translated six of these discourses of Hariri into English, which he has en-, titled, Assemblies, or ingenious conversations of learned men among the Arabians, upon a great variety of useful' and entertaining subjects.

Persian poetry, which led them to endeavour, with a spirit of rivalship to engage the most excellent poets of that age, which were then very numerous, to reside at their respective courts. Khedher Khan, who surpassed the other two in power, outdid them also in magnificence, for he was wont to hold a kind of academy, where he assisted in person, sitting upon a raised part of the floor, at the foot of which were placed four great basons, full of gold and silver coin, which he distributed among his poets according to the merit of their compositions.

He afterwards tells us, that the number of these learned men of signal merit, and who accompanied him every where, striving with emulation to convey instruction to his mind by their conversations, or to animate him to glory by their eulogiums, was commonly about an hundred, to whom he gave very considerable pensions, and then mentions the names of ten of the most illustrious of them, among whom Raschidi seems to have been the most eminent, who, after some time, was a competitor with Amak, who had brought most of these eminent men under the notice of the Sultan, and was as their chief and president, and distinguished by the superiority of his appointments, (or of the presents that were made him,) being possessed of a great number of slaves, of both sexes, and having thirty led horses richly harnessed, which excited the envy of the rest, and particularly of Raschidi, who at length found means to supplant him.