ΧΙ.

OBSERVATION XVIII.

I have been fuppofing that the falling down at a person's feet fignifies kissing his feet, which, according to Dr. Shaw, is a way of expreffing respect among the present Arabs; but I am not fure that this is perfectly exact: there is an Eastern way of complimenting, not precisely the fame though very near a kin to it, which very poffibly may be referred to in fome of those passages I mentioned. But if it should, it makes no alteration of importance in Observation XIV; accuracy however requires me to take notice of it. What is more, it is necessary to the explaining fome other paffages.

Pabous, according to d'Herbelot', is a Persian word which signifies kissing the feet, a ceremony very ancient in Persia, for it was instituted by its first king, as a mark, not only of the reverence to be paid kings by their fubjects, but of the taking the oath of fidelity and homage by vassal or feudatory princes to their sovereigns. This ceremony was afterwards changed as to fubjects of lower rank, into kissing the ground in the prefence of their princes: this the Perfians in their language call, Rouizemin, which fignifies the face to the earth; and that of kissing the feet was referved for strangers, and fubjects of the highest quality.

It should feem however that this limited ufe of kissing the ground, which d'Herbelot fpeaks of, did not always continue, fince he tells us, that Mohammed Kothbeddin the Khouarezmian, who succeeded his father in the year of our Lord 1199, was installed in the throne of his ancestors by his great lords, who took the oath of fidelity to him, and paid him due homage. This ceremony was called in the Persian language, which the Khouarezmians made use of, boffi zemin, & roui zemin, that is, kiffing the earth, and the face to the earth, because, according to the ancient Perfian custom, which continues to this day, homage was paid their fovereign by kisling the earth, or touching it with their foreheads in their prefence.

I will not attempt to cite every paffage of d'Herbelot which makes mention of this ceremony; but I must by no means omit a very remarkable account relating to it, in which he describes the behaviour of an Eaftern prince towards his conqueror. This prince, he says, threw himself one day on the ground, and kissed the prints that his victorious enemy's horse had made there, reciting some verses in Persian which he had composed, to this effect,

"The mark that the foot of your horfe " has left upon the dust, serves me "now for a crown.

"The ring which I wear as the badge of my flavery, is become my richest or

"nament.

" While I shall have the happiness to " kiss the dust of your feet, I shall "think that fortune favours me with " its tenderest caresses, and its sweetest "kisses."

This flattery, it seems, was so well received by the conqueror, who was a very vainglorious prince, and fond of adulation, that from that time forward he would always have the unfortunate prince near him; and he so well improved that favourable circumstance as at length to obtain his liberty, and a little after his entire re-establishment.

We may fee, I think, in these fragments of oriental history, that kissing the feet, and laying proftrate in the dust before a person, are not merely expressions of reverence, but also, which is not so well known, of vassalage; and kiffing the earth of the most abject vassalage, sometimes arising from the low rank of those that paid the homage, and sometimes arifing from dejectedness and adulation.

When then the Pfalmist says, Pf. lxxii. 8, 9, "He shall have dominion from sea to "sea, and from the river to the ends of the " earth;" he marks out extent of empire; when he adds, " they that dwell in the wil"derness shall bow before him," it would

be extremely wrong to suppose, he is only specify

Ipecifying one particular part of that extensive authority he had before expressed in general terms, for he greatly enlarges the thought, it is equivalent to saying, the wild Arabs, that the greatest conquerors could never tame, shall bow before him, or become his vassals; nay his enemies, and confequently these Arabs, among the rest, "shall lick the " dust," or court him with the most abject fubmiffions.

Conquered princes themselves, we fee in d'Herbelot, have actually prostrated themselves in the dust before their victors: and therefore the expressions of Ifaiah, ch. xlix. 23,

" Kings shall be thy nurfing fathers, and " their Queens thy nurfing mothers: they “ shall bow down to thee with their face to the “ earth, and lick up the dust of thy feet," are not such an extravagance of Eastern rhetoric, as we may possibly have been ready to fufpect; supposing that this licking the duft refers to kings and queens.

That great commentator Grotius feems to suppose that this kissing the earth by conquered kings is scarcely imaginable. Vitringa reproaches him for it; but Vitringa' gives no instance of this fort, which certainly it would have been right for him to have done, in animadverting on an author of fuch fame. The citations from d'Herbelot may fupply that defect: to which may be added, that it

XII.

is common in the East to treat conquered princes with an infolence we can scarce think credible; and their submissions on the other hand are aftonishing. So when Ægypt was fubdued by the Turks, so lately as the year 1517, the sovereign of that country was hanged over one of the gates of Cairo; and that brutalities of much the same kind obtained in the remotest times of antiquity, may be learnt from Judges i. 7.

Hence some things required by the Prophets might be no more than just severities, and agreeable to the rules of those times, which to us appear somewhat astonishing, such as the death of Agag and of Ben-hadad. The difference between their and our laws of war ought ever to be remembered, in explaining the Old Testament Scriptures.

OBSERVATION XIX.

All the compliments that inferiors make to fuperiors in the East are not, however, equally abject with those I have been mentioning. "If," says Pitts, " an inferior comes to pay his respects to a fuperior, " he takes his superior's hand, and kisses it, " afterwards putting it to his forehead. But if the fuperior be of a condefcending temper, he will snatch away his hand as "foon as the other has touched it; then " the inferior puts his own fingers to his lips, and afterwards to his forehead; and

" fome

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