upon this point. As he has expreffly applied it to a passage of Scripture, it would not have been agreeabie to my design to have mentioned this circumstance, had I not had some additional remarks to make upon this head, which possibly may not be ungrateful to the curious reader, and which therefore I shall here set down. I suppose my reader acquainted with Maundrell; but it will be proper, for the fake of perfpicuity, first to recite at full length that passage in him I refer to.

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Thursday, March 11. This day we all " dined at Conful Haftings's house; and after dinner went to wait upon Oftan the Baffa of Tripoli, having first sent our present, as the manner is among the Turks, to procure a propitious recep

" tion.

It is counted uncivil to visit in this country without an offering in hand. All great men expect it as a kind of tribute due to their " character and authority; and look upon " themselves as affronted, and indeed de"frauded, when this compliment is omitted.

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Even in familiar visits amongst inferior people, you shall seldom have them come " without bringing a flower, or an orange, or fome other fuch token of their respect to the perfon visited: the Turks in this point keeping up the ancient oriental cuftom hinted 1 Sam. ix. 7. If we go (fays Saul) what shall we bring the man of God? "there

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" there is not a prefent, &c, which words " are questionless to be understood in con"formity to this eastern custom, as relating " to a token of respect, and not a price of " divination '."

Maundrell doth not tell us what the present was which they made Oftan. It will be more entirely fatisfying then to the mind to observe, that in the East they not only universally send before them a present, or carry one with them, especially when they visit superiors, either civil or ecclefiaftical; but that this present is frequently a piece of money, and that of no very great value. So Dr. Pococke tells us, that he presented an Arab Sheik of an illustrious defcent on whom he waited, and who attended him to the ancient Hierapolis, with a piece of money which he was told he expected; and that in Ægypt an Aga being dissatisfied with the present he made him, he fent for the Doctor's servant, and told him, that he ought to have given him a piece of cloth, and, if he had none, two fequins, worth about a guinea, must be brought to him, otherwise he should fee no more, with which demand he complied3. In one case a piece of money was expected, in the other two sequins demanded. A trifling present of money to a person of diftinction amongst us would be an affront; it is not so however, it seems, in the East. Agree

P. 26, 27. 2 Vol. 2. p. 167. 3 Vol. 1. p. 119.

:

bly to these accounts of Pococke, we are told in the travels of Egmont and Heyman, that the well of Jofeph in the castle of Cairo is not to be seen without leave from the Commandant; which having obtained, they in return presented him with a sequin. These instances are curious exemplifications of Mr. Maundrell's account of the nature of some of the Eastern presents, and ought by no means to be omitted in collections of the kind I am now making.

How much happier was the cultivation of Mr. Maundrell's genius than of St. Jerome's! Though this father lived so many years in the East, and might have advantageoufly applied the remains of their ancient customs to the elucidation of Scripture, to which if he was a stranger, he must have been an egregioufly negligent observer; yet we find him, in his comment on Micah iii. 11, roundly declaring, that by a Prophet's receiving money, his prophefying became divination. And when he afterwards mentions this cafe of Saul's application to Samuel, as what he forefaw might be objected to him, he endeavours to avoid the difficulty, by faying, We do not find that Samuel accepted it, or that they even ventured to offer it; or if it must be supposed that he received it, that it was rather to be confidered as money presented to the tabernacle, than the rewards

4 Vol. 2. p. 76.

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of prophesying. How embarrassed was the Saint by a circumstance capable of the most clear explanation! Fond of allegorizing, he neglected the surest methods of interpretation, for which he had peculiar advantages : how different are the rewards of divination, which were to be earned, from the unconditional prefents that were made to perfons of figure upon being introduced into their prefence!

Before I quit this Observation, I cannot forbear remarking, that there are other things presented in the East, befides money, which appear to us extremely low and mean, unworthy the quality of those that offer them, or of those to whom they are presented; and consequently that we must be extremely unqualified to judge of these oriental compliments. In what light might an European wit place the present of a Governor of an Ægyptian village, who sent to a British Conful fifty eggs as a mark of respect, and that in a country where they are so cheap as to be fold at the rate of ten for a penny'?

5 Prophetæ Hierufalem in pecunia divinabant, nefcientes aliud effe prophetiam, aliud divinationem: -Videbantur fibi quidem effe Prophetæ fed quia pecuniam accipiebant, prophetia ipforum facta eft divinatio. -Nec quenquam moveat illud quod in primo Regum libro legimus : Saul volentem ire ad Samuelem dixiffe puero fuo, &c: non enim fcriptum eft, quod Samuel acceperit: aut quod illi obtulerint. Sed fac eum accepisse, stipes magis æftimandæ funt tabernaculi, quam munera prophetiæ. cocke's Trav. Vol. 1. p. 17. 7 Seven or eight for a medine, or three farthings. Pococke, Vol. 1. р. 260.

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OBSER

OBSERVATION II.

What the presents were that were made the ancient Prophets, we are not always told; but all the particulars of that made by Jeroboam's Queen to the Prophet Ahijah are given us, 1 Kings xiv. 3. I very much question, however, whether that was any part of the disguise she assumed, as an eminent Prelate supposes, who imagines she presented him with such things as might make the Prophet think her to be a countrywoman, rather than a courtier.

It undoubtedly was not a present that proclaimed royalty, that would have been contrary to Jeroboam's intention that she should be concealed; but it doth not appear to have been, in the estimation of the East, a present only fit for a country-woman to have made: for d'Arvieux tells us, that when he waited on an Arab Emir, his mother and sister, to gratify whose curiosity that visit was made, sent him, early in the morning after his arrival in their camp, a present of pastry, honey, fresh butter, with a bason of sweetmeats of Damafcus*: now this present differs but little from that of Jeroboam's wife, who carried loaves, cracknells, (or rather cakes enriched with feeds,) and a cruse of honey, and was made by princesses that

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See Patrick on 1 Kings xiv. 3. Voy. dans la Pal, par la Roque, p. 50,