places; and if they did not, a consciousness of the want of agility might well make them frequently tremble, and their attendants for them, of whom this clause seems to speak. They shall be afraid (tremble for them) on account of what is high.

Dr. Mead was not willing to allow that the next clause, And the almond-tree shall flourish, was designed to express grayheadedness, though it is very commonly so interpreted.

Dr. Mead objects to this explanation, among other things, that the colour of the flowers of the almond-tree does not agree to a hoary head, as they are not white, but purple. As to this, I would observe, that they are, according to the account of others, white, with a purple tinge, so slight as to be whiter than a peach blossom; and so as to lead Hasselquist, when describing the beauties of the spring about Smyrna, to tell us, that he found the almond-tree, on the 14th of February, snowwhite with blossoms, adorning the rising grounds in the neighbourhood of that city. If Hasselquist represented the almond-trees as snow-white, a writer of the age of Solomon may well be supposed to compare an hoary head to an almond-tree in blossom, as the ancients, especially poets, are by no means exact

• Medica Sacra, p. 44. Præterea, quod de amygdali floribus aiunt, huic rei minime convenire videtur, qui non album sed purpureum colorem exhibent.

f Lemery, Dict. des Drogues, Art. Amygdala,

P. 28.

in their describing colours; a general agreement satisfies them.h

The hair of the Eastern people is almost universally dark; an old man then, with a white head, appears, among those that are young, somewhat like an almond-tree in blossom, among the dark unclothed twigs of other trees.

The Doctor's explaining it of the deadening the sense of smelling in the aged, is by no means natural.

mon.

Farther whether gray-headedness be, or be not, what is emblematically called the flourishing of the almond-tree, the gray-headedness of the aged is frequently mentioned in the Scriptures, and therefore, one would think, would be hardly omitted in this description of SoloI am old and gray-headed, said Samuel to Israel, when he was giving up the government of that people, 1 Sam. xii. 2; With us are both the gray-headed and very aged men, much elder than thy father, said Eliphaz to Job, chap. xv. 10; Thou shalt rise up before the hoary head, and honour. the face of the old man, is a precept given by Moses to Israel, Lev. xix. 32.

Before I dismiss this article, I cannot but take notice of the explanation the lively and ingenious, but inaccurate, Monsieur Voltaire gives of this clause of Solomon. He supposes

Thus even St. John represents our LORD as saying, Look on the fields, for they are white already to harvest. Others represent the corn then as of the colour of gold, and, rigidly speaking, it is undoubtedly more yellow than white. Russell, vol. 1. p. 99.

it means baldness, in a poem of his, in which he pretends to give us the substance of this paragraph. Quand l'amandier fleurira, (c'est à dire, quand la tête sera chauve.)" Too often this witty and learned, but prejudiced writer, apparently misrepresents the Scriptures wilfully; here he might very probably be sincere: but it seems a very harsh mode of representing, the stripping the head of that ornament that is so graceful, and which has appeared to be so in the eyes of the generality of people, as well as of Absalom, by the almond-tree's being covered with most beautiful blossoms, and appearing in its most highly-ornamented state. This, in another writer, would be thought to look very much like a blunder, and would be considered as a strange want of taste or recollection.

k

To which is to be added, that though baldness is undoubtedly a frequent attendant on old age, it is hardly ever mentioned in the Scriptures in that view. It is taken notice of there in no fewer than ten or twelve places, but never, except possibly in one place, 2 Kings ii. 23, as a mark of age; it is, on the contrary, either spoken of as an effect of disease, or else the voluntary laying aside that ornament of the head, in token of affliction and mourning. So the Prophet Amos says,' I will turn your feasts into mourning, and all your songs into lamentation; and I will bring up sackcloth upon all loins, and baldness upon every head; and I 2 Sam. xiv. 25, 26. Chap. viii. 10.

will make it as the mourning of an only son, and the end thereof as a bitter day. How astonishing is it, that this man of genius should make baldness one of the circumstances of the bitterness of old age, which the Scriptures neither mention, nor is it, in fact, one of those things that render old age days concerning which we are forced to say we have no pleasure in them! And if it did, how odd to suppose baldness, or the loss of hair, was emblematically represented by the appearance of blossoms on an almond-tree, when young leaves on a tree are so often compared to hair by the poets, and consequently, the coming on of blossoms on an almond-tree must be understood to be the very reverse of baldness :

Diffugere nives; redeunt jam gramina campis,
Arboribusque comæ.

HOR. Carm. Lib. iv. Ode 7.

Unluckily the thought does not appear in the translation of Francis:

The snow disolves, the field its verdure spreads,
The trees high wave in air their leafy heads.

Nor in this translation of the 21st ode of the first book. Dauph. Ed.

Vos lætam fluviis, & nemorum COMA,
Quæcunque aut gelido prominet Algido,
Nigris aut Erymanthi

Sylvis, aut viridis Gragi,

This leads me to remark, that though Dr. Mead's reason against understanding the blossoming of the almond-tree as an emblem of gray-headedness, deduced from the colour of those blossoms, is not valid; yet it must be admitted, that what he says of gray-headedness being consistent with vigorous and unailing old age, is very just; to which we may also add, that it is very untoward to suppose that the appearance of these blossoms, which marks out the finishing of the winter, the coming on of the spring, the pleasantest time of the year, and exhibits the tree in all its beauty, should be used to represent the approach of the winter of human life, followed by death, and a disappearing from the land of the living. Surely the one can hardly be intended to be descriptive of the other! and if not, some other explanation must be sought for; though this explanation seems very early to have obtained, if we may judge from the translation of the Septuagint.

I am not willing however to admit the translation of this clause, which supposes that writer meant, to point out that kind of imbecility which attended the old age of David, according to what is said, 1 Kings i. 4.

Such an effect of age, in the view of an Asiatic prince, as we all know the writer of this book was, and who had himself a most numerous seraglio, may be supposed to be looked upon as one of the greatest bitternesses of old age; but in such a case the expression would neither be hieroglyphical nor distant enough.

VOL. III.