avowed their quality. The prefent then of Jeroboam's wife did not difcover her quality, but it was not fo mean a prefent as the Bishop seems to fuppofe.

Sir John Chardin tells us, fomewhere in his travels, of an officer whose business it was to register the prefents that were made to his master, or mistress; and I have fince found the fame practice obtains at the Ottoman court: for Egmont and Heyman, fpeaking' of the prefents made there on the account of the circumcifion of the Grand Signior's children, tell us that all thefe donations, with the time when, and on what occafion given, were carefully registered in a book for that purpose. If a collection of papers of this fort, belonging to the Bashaw of Gaza, the Mofolem of Jerufalem, or the Arab Emirs of the Holy-Land, were put into our hands; or if our countrymen, that refide in the Levant, were to furnish us with minute accounts of the prefents made there which come to their knowledge, it would be not only an amufing curiofity, but would enable us, I make no queftion, to produce inftances of modern gifts parallel to thofe that are mentioned in the Scripture history, in almost all cases, and if not absolutely in all, I dare fay fimilar to thofe that appear moft odd to us, at the fame time, that it would enable us to enter into the rationale of them much better than we do now.

Thus the making prefents of eatables, not only to those that were upon a journey, which, in a country where they carried their own provisions with them, was perfectly natural; but to those whom they vifited in their own houses, as the wife of Jeroboam did to Ahijah, and some of them perfons of great diftinction, as Saul would have done to Samuel, the Judge of Ifrael as well as a Prophet, had not all his provifions been expended, in a journey which proved more tedious than he expected, appears to have been a cuftom perfectly conformable to what is at prefent practifed in the East, and had a ground for it in nature, which modern travellers have explained to us.

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“This custom” (of making presents,) fays Maillet," is principally observed in the frequent vifits which they make one another through the course of the year, which are always preceded by prefents of fowls, sheep, rice, coffee, and other provisions of "different kinds. Thefe vifits, which rela"tions and friends make regularly to each

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other, were in ufe among the ancient Ægyptians, and though they are often "made without going out of the fame city, yet they never fail of lasting three or four days, and fometimes eight. They carry "all their family with them, if they have any; and the custom is, as I have just "obferved, to fend prefents before-hand,

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4 Let. II. p. 137.

pro

"proportionate to their rank, and the num"ber of their attendants."

When they confulted a Prophet then, the Eastern modes required a prefent; and they might think it was right rather to prefent him with eatables than other things, because it frequently happened that they were detained there fome time, waiting the answer of God, during which time hospitality would require the Prophet to ask them to take fome repaft with him. And as the Prophet would naturally treat them with fome regard to their quality, they doubtless did then, as the Ægyptians do now, proportion their presents to their avowed rank and number of attendants. The prefent of Jeroboam's wife was that of a woman in affluent circumstances, though it by no means determined her to be a princess. That made to the Prophet Samuel, was the present of a person that expected to be treated like a man in low life; how great then must be his furprize, firft to be treated with distinguished honour in a large company, and then to be anointed king

over Ifrael!

But though this feems to have been the original ground, of prefenting common eatables to perfons who were vifited at their own houses, I would by no means be understood to affirm they have always kept to this, and presented eatables when they expected to stay with them and take some repast, and other things when they did not. Accuracy is not

to

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to be expected in fuch matters: the obfervation however naturally accounts for the rise of this fort of presents.

In other cafes, the presents that anciently were, and of late have been wont to be made to eminent perfonages for ftudy and piety, were large fums of money, or veftments: fo the present that a Syrian Nobleman would have made to an Ifraelitish Prophet, with whom he did not expect to stay any time, or indeed to enter his house, Behold, I thought he "will furely come out to me, and stand, and " call on the name of the Lord his God, "and strike his hand over the place, and re"cover the leper," confifted of ten talents of filver, and fix thousand pieces of gold, and ten changes of raiment. It is needlefs to mention the pecuniary gratifications that have been given to men of learning in the East in later times; but as to vestments, d'Herbelot' tells us, that Bokhteri, an illuftrious poet of Cufah in the ninth century, had fo many presents made him in the course of his life, that at his death he was found poffeffed

[Sums of money are prefented alfo to others, by Princes and Great Perfonages. So Sir J. Chardin obferves, in his MS, on occafion of Jofeph's being faid to have given Benjamin three hundred pieces of filver, Gen. 45, 22, that the Kings of Afia almost always make prefents of this kind to Ambaffadors, and to other strangers of confideration who have brought them prefents. So the Khalife Mahadi, according to d'Herbelot, gave an Arab that had entertained him in the defert, a veft, and a purfe of filver.] 62 Kings 5. 11. 7 P. 208, 209.

of an hundred complete fuits of clothes, two hundred fhirts, and five hundred turbants. An indifputable proof of the frequency with which prefents of this kind are made in the Levant to men of study and at the fame time a fine illustration of Job's defcription of the treasures of the Eaft in his days, confifting of raiment as well as filver, Job xxvii. 16, 17'.

OBSERVATION III.

[They not only make presents of provifions, but of other things which they imagine may be acceptable, and in particular of conveniences for the making their eating and drinking more agreeable.

So when Dr. Perry travelled in Ægypt, and visited the temple at Luxor, he says,

[ So Sir J. Chardin tells us in his note here, that it is customary through all the Eaft to gather together an immense collection of furniture and clothes, for their fashions never alter. They heap them up in wardrobes, as they heap up mud for morter in building. This is the ground of this metaphor.

I have fome doubt however, I must confefs, of the juftnefs of this account of the ground of this image. If it means any thing more than what is mentioned Zech. 9. 3, which I much question, I should say that poffibly, as the word tranflated duft fignifies plaiftering, and that rendered clay, morter, the heaping up filver like plaiftering may point out the piling up filver, against the walls of their apartments, as if they had been plaistered with filver; and the preparing raiment as morter, may poffibly refer to the walls covered with bitumen, or morter of a dark colour, veftiments being heaped up from the bottom to the top of thefe repofitories of theirs. But the more fimple interpretation, I first pointed out, feems much preferable.]

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