a kind of cistern, with a hole or vent near the bottom, and a vessel beneath to receive the liquor."

CHANDLER'S Travels in Greece, p. 2.

No. 86.-xvi. 27. There were upon the roof about three thousand men and women.] "The Eastern method of building may assist us in accounting for the particular structure of the temple or house of Dagon (Judges 16,) and the great number of people that were buried in the ruins of it, by pulling down the two principal pillars. We read (v. 27,) that about three thousand persons were upon the roof to behold while SAMSON made sport. Samson must therefore have been in a court or area below them, and consequently the temple will be of the same kind with the ancient Teμévy, or sacred inclosures, surrounded only in part or altogether with some plain or cloistered buildings. Several palaces and dau-wânas, as they call the courts of justice in these countries, are built in this fashion; where upon their festivals and rejoicings a great quantity of sand is strewed upon the area for the wrestlers to fall upon, whilst the roof of the cloisters round about is crowded with spectators of their strength and agility. I have often seen several hundreds of people diverted in this manner upon the roof of the dey's palace at Algiers; which, like many more of the same quality and denomination, hath an advanced cloister over against the gate of the palace, Esther v. 1, made in the fashion of a large pent-house, supported only by one or two contiguous pillars in the front, or else in the centre. In such open structures as these, in the midst of their guards and counsellors, are the bashas, kadees, and other great officers, assembled to distribute justice and transact the public affairs of their provinces. Here likewise they have their public entertainments, as the lords and others of the Philis

tines had in the house of Dagon. Upon a supposition therefore that in the house of Dagon there was a cloistered structure of this kind, the pulling down of the front or centre pillars only, which supported it, would be attended with the like catastrophe that happened to the Philistines." SHAW's Travels, p. 283.

No. 87.-xxi. 18. Cursed be, he.] The ancient manner of adjuring subjects or inferiors to any conditions, was by their superiors denouncing a curse on them, in case they violated those conditions. To this manner of swearing our blessed Lord himself submitted, Matt. xxvi. 63. It may be further remarked, that when the curse was expressed in general terms, as cursed be he, i. e. whosoever doth so or so, the superior who pronounced it was as much bound by it as the inferior who heard it; thus there can be no doubt but the curses pronounced, Deut. xxvii. 14, obliged the Levites who pronounced them; and those also, Joshua vi. 26, and 1 Sam. xiv. 24, obliged Joshua and Saul, who pronounced them, as much as the other people. They therefore by pronouncing those curses, sware or took an oath themselves. PARKHURST'S Heb. Lex. p. 20, 3d. Ed.

ment.

No. 88.-1. SAMUEL iii. 21.

The word of the Lord.

WITHOUT recurring to the learned explanations which have been given of this expression, it may possibly receive an agreeable illustration from the following extracts. "In Abyssinia there is an officer named KAL HATZE, who stands always upon steps at the side of the lattice window, where there is a hole covered in the inside with a curtain of green taffeta; behind this curtain the king sits." (BRUCE's Trav. vol. iv. p. 76.) The king is described in another place as very much concealed from public view. He even covers his face on audiences, or public occasions, and when in judgOn cases of treason he sits within his balcony, and speaks through a hole in the side of it, to an officer called KAL HATZE, the voice or word of the king, by whom he sends his questions, or any thing else that occurs, to the judges, who are seated at the council table." (BRUCE's Trav. vol. iii. p. 265.) If such a custom ever obtained among the Jews, the propriety of the expression, the word of the Lord, is obvious, as the idea must have been very familiar to them. This clearly appears to have been the case as to Joseph and his brethren, Gen. xlii. 23. Joseph spake by an interpreter, not of languages, but of dignity and state. Other instances of the same nature may probably be traced in 2 Kings v. 10; Job xxxiii. 23,

No. 89.—ix. 7. A present.] Presenting gifts is one of the most universal methods of doing persons honour in the east. MAUNDRELL (Journey, p. 26.) says, "Thursday, March 11, this day we all dined at Consul Hastings's house, and after dinner went to wait upon

Ostan, the bassa of Tripoli, having first sent our present, as the manner is among the Turks, to procure a propitious reception. 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 defrauded, when this compliment is omitted. Even in familiar visits amongst inferior people, you shall seldom have them come without bringing a flower, or an orange, or some other such token of their respect to the person visited; the Turks in this point keeping up the ancient oriental custom hinted 1 Sam. ix. 7. If we go (says Saul) what shall we bring the man of God? there is not a present, &c.; which words are questionless to be understood in conformity to this eastern custom, as relating to a token of respect, and not a price of divination." To this account it may be added, that when Lord Macartney had his interview with the Emperor of China, in his embassy to that prince, in 1793, the receiving and returning of presents made a considerable part of the ceremony.

No. 90.-xiv. 9. This shall be a sign unto us.] Archbishop Potter (in his Archeologia Græca, vol. i. p. 344.) has some curious reflections on the custom of catching omens, which was common amongst the Greeks, and which he conceives to be of great antiquity, and also of eastern origin. "That it was practised by the Jews, is by some inferred from the story of Jonathan, the son of king Saul, who going to encounter a Philistine garrison, thus spoke to his armour-bearer, If they say unto us, tarry until we come unto you; then we will stand still in our place, and will not go up unto them. But if they say thus, come up unto us, then we will go up; for the Lord hath delivered them into our hand, and this shall be a sign unto us." A remarkable instance of this super

stition is found in the following passage of Virgil: "he introduces Æneas catching Ascanius's words from his mouth; for the Harpies, and Anchises also, having foretold that the Trojans should be forced to gnaw their very tables for want of other provisions, when they landed in Italy; happening to dine upon the grass, instead of tables or trenchers, which their present circumstances did not afford, they laid their meat upon pieces of bread, which afterwards they eat up; whereupon,.

Heus etiam mensas consumimus? inquit Iülus.

See, says Iülus, we our tables eat.

Eneas presently caught the omen, as the poet subjoins:

Ea vox audita laborum

Prima tulit finem: primumque loquentis ab ore
Eripuit pater, ac stupefactus numine pressit.

The lucky sound no sooner reach'd their ears,
But straight they quite dismiss'd their former cares:
His good old sire with admiration struck,

The boding sentence, when yet falling, took,
And often roll'd it in his silent breast."

Eneid 7. 1. 116.

No. 91.-xvii. 6. Greaves of brass.] These were necessary to defend the legs and feet from the iron stakes placed in the way by the enemy, to gall and wound their opponents. They were a part of ancient military harness, and the artifices made use of by contending parties rendered the precaution important.

No. 92.--xviii. 4. Stripped himself of the robe.] D'Herbelot (vol. ii. p. 20.) says, that when Sultan Selim had defeated Causou Gouri, he assisted at prayers in a mosque at Aleppo, upon his triumphant return to Constantinople, and that the imam of the mosque, having added at the close of the prayer these words: "May God preserve Selim Khan, the servant and minister of