tial that the food should be defiled in order to its becoming an emblem or type. The prophet in fact put cow-dung with his bread for three hundred and ninety days, and the case includes at once a fact and a symbol.

Of the Emblem of Aholah and Aholibah.

The holy scripture expressly declares that Aholah is the emblem of Jerusalem.* "Son of man, cause Jerusalem to know her abominations; thy father was an Amorite, and thy mother was a Hittite." The prophet then, without any apprehension of malignant interpretations or wanton railleries, addresses the young Aholah in the following words :

"Ubera tua intumuerunt, et pilus tuus germinavit: et eras nuda et confusione plena."

Thy breasts were fashioned, and thy hair was grown, and thou wast naked and confused.

"Et transivi per te; et ecce tempus tuum, tempus amantium; et expandi amictum meum superte et operui ignominiam tuam. Et juravi tibi, et ingressus sum pactum tecum, (ait Dominus Deus), et facta es mihi."

I passed by and saw thee; and saw thy time was come, thy time for lovers; and I spread my mantle over thee, and concealed thy shame. And I swore to thee, and entered into a contract with thee, and thou becamest mine.†

"Et habens fiduciam in pulchritudine tua fornicata es in nomine tuo; et exposuisti fornicationem tuam omni transeunti, ut ejus fieres."

And, proud of thy beauty, thou didst commit fornication without disguise, and hast exposed thy fornica-. tion to every passer by, to become his.

"Et ædificavissti tibi lupanar, et fecisti tibi prostibu-lum in cunctis plateis."

* Ezekiel, xvi. 2, &c.

These adventures are not unusual in the streets of the Moors, the actors always being real or pretended ideots, whom the people regard as inspired. The byestanders even lend their mantles.See CHENIER.

And thou hast built a high place for thyself, and a place of eminence in every public way.

"Et divisisti pedes tuos omni transeunti, et multiplicasti fornicationes tuas.'

And thou hast opened thy feet to every passer-by, and hast multiplied thy fornications.

"Et fornicata es cum filiis Egypti vicinis tuis, magnarum carnium; et multiplicasti fornicationem tuam ad irritandum me."

And thou hast committed fornication with the Egyptians thy neighbours, powerful in the flesh: and thou hast multiplied thy fornication to provoke me.

The article of Aholibah, which signifies Samaria, is much stronger, and still farther removed from the propriety and decorum of modern manners and language.

"Denudavit quoque fornications suas, discooperuit ignominiam suam.'

And she has made bare her fornications, and discovered her shame.

"Multiplicavit enim fornicationes suas, recordans dies adolescentiæ suæ."

For she has multiplied her fornications, remembering the days of her youth. "Et insanivit libidine concubitum eorum carnes sunt ut carnes asinorum, et sicut fluxus equorum, fluxus eorum."

super

And she has maddened for the embraces of those whose flesh is as the flesh of asses, and whose issue is as the issue of horses.

These images strike us as licentious and revolting. They were at that time simply plain and ingenuous. There are numerous instances of the like in the Song of Songs, intended to celebrate the purest of all possible unions. It must be attentively considered, that these expressions and images are always delivered with seriousness and gravity, and that in no book of equally high antiquity is the slightest jeering or raillery ever applied to the great subject of human production. When dissoluteness is condemned, it is so in natural

and undisguised terms, but such are never used to stimulate voluptuousness or pleasantry.

This high antiquity has not the slightest touch of similarity to the licentiousness of Martial, Catullus, or Petronius.

Of Hosea, and some other Emblems.

We cannot regard as a mere vision, as simply a figure, the positive command given by the Lord to Hosea, to take to himself a wife of whoredoms, and have by her three children. Children are not produced in a dream. It was not in a vision that he made a contract with Gomer, the daughter of Diblaim, by whom he had two boys and a girl. It was not in a vision that he afterwards took to himself an adulteress, by the express order of the Lord, giving her fifteen pieces of silver, and a measure and a half of barley. The first of these disgraced women signified Jerusalem, and the second Samaria. But the two unions with these worthless persons, the three children, the fifteen pieces of silver, and the bushel and half of barley, were not the less real for having included or been intended as an emblem.

It was not in a vision that the patriarch Salmon married the harlot Rahab, the grandmother of David. It was not in a vision that Judah committed incest with his daughter-in-law Thamar, from which incest sprang David. It was not in a vision that Ruth, David's other grandmother, placed herself in the bed with Boaz. It was not in a vision that David murdered Uriah, and committed adultery with Bathsheba, of whom was born king Solomon. But, subsequently, all these events became emblems and figures, after the things which they typified were accomplished.

It is perfectly clear, from Ezekiel, Hosea, Jeremiah, and all the Jewish prophets, and all the Jewish books, as well as from all other books which give us any information concerning the usages of the Chaldeans, Persians, Phenicians, Syrians, Indians, and Egyptians:

* See the first chapters of the minor prophet Hosea.

it is, I say, perfectly clear that their manners were very different from ours, and that the ancient world was scarcely in a single point similar to the modern one.

Pass from Gibraltar to Mequinez, and the decencies and decorums of life are no longer the same; you no longer find the same ideas. Two sea leagues have changed everything.

ENCHANTMENT,

MAGIC, CONJURATION, SORCERY, &c.

It is not in the smallest degree probable that all these abominable absurdities are owing, as Pluche would have us believe, to the foliage with which the heads of Isis and Osiris were formerly crowned. What connection can this foliage have with the art of charming serpents, with that of resuscitating the dead, killing men by mere words, inspiring persons with love, or changing men into beasts?

Enchantment (incantatio) comes, say some, from a Chaldee word, which the Greeks translate "productive song." Incantatio comes from the Chaldee. Truly, the Bocharts are great travellers, and proceed from Italy to Mesopotamia in a twinkling! The great and learned Hebrew nation is rapidly explored, and all sorts of books, and all sorts of usages, are the fruits of the journey; the Bocharts are certainly not charlatans. Is not a large portion of the absurd superstitions which have prevailed to be ascribed to very natural causes? There are scarcely any animals that may not be accustomed to approach at the sound of a bagpipe, or a simple horn, to take their food. Orpheus, or some one of his predecessors, played the bagpipe better than other shepherds, or employed singing. All the domestic animals flocked together at the sound of his voice. It was soon supposed that bears and tigers were among the number collected: this first step accomplished, there was no difficulty in believing that Orpheus made stones and trees dance.

If rocks and pine-trees can be thus made to dance a ballet, it will cost little more to build cities by har

mony, and the stones will easily arrange themselves at Amphion's song. A violin only will be wanted to build a city, and a ram's horn to destroy it.

The charming of serpents may be attributed to a still more plausible cause. The serpent is neither a voracious nor a ferocious animal. Every reptile is timid. The first thing a reptile does, at least in Europe, on seeing a man, is to hide itself in a hole, like a rabbit or a lizard. The instinct of man is to pursue everything that flies from him, and to fly from all that pursue him, except when he is armed, when he feels his strength, and above all when he is in the presence of many observers.

The serpent, far from being greedy of blood and flesh, feeds only upon herbs, and passes a considerable time without eating at all: if he swallows a few insects, as lizards and camelions do, he does us a service.

All travellers relate that there are some very long and large ones; although we know of none such in Europe. No man or child was ever attacked there by a large serpent or a small one. Animals attack only what they want to eat; and dogs never bite passengers but in defence of their masters. What could a serpent do with a little infant? What pleasure could it derive from biting it; it could not swallow even the fingers. Serpents do certainly bite, and squirrels also, but only when they are injured, or are fearful of being so.

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I am not unwilling to believe that there have been monsters among serpents as well as among men. will admit that the army of Regulus was put under arms, in Africa, against a dragon; and that there has since been a Norman there who fought against the. water-spout. But it will be granted, on the other hand, that such cases are exceedingly rare.

The two serpents that came from Tenedos for the express purpose of devouring Laocoon, and two great lads twenty years of age, in the presence of the whole Trojan army, form a very fine prodigy, and one worthy of being transmitted to posterity by hexameter verses, and by statues which represent Laocoon like a giant, and his stout boys as pigmies.