both, are obferved to eat very faft, and, in common, without drinking'; but when they feaft, and ufe wine, they begin with fruit and fweet-meats and drinking wine, and they fit long at table: Wo to the land whofe princes So eat in a morning, eating after this manner a great variety of things, and flowly, as they do when feafting, and prolonging the time with wine. So the prophet Ifaiah, in like manner, fays, ch. v. 11, "Wo unto "them that rife up early in the morning, "that they may follow ftrong drink, that " continue until night, 'till wine inflame "them." Such appears to be the view of Solomon here.

If great men will indulge themfelves in the pleasures of the table and of wine, it certainly should be in the evening, when public bufinefs is finished.

I have, in a former volume, taken notice of the Eastern people's eating very early in the morning, but the circumftances I have now mentioned in this paper were not then noticed; nor what follows under the next Obfervation.

Egmont and Heyman, vol. 2. p. 35. Haffelquift, p. 40. * Sir John Chardin (tome 3. p. 86, &c.) gives an account of an Eastern fealt, at which he was prefent, which lafted from 11 o'clock in the forenoon 'till 3 in the afternoon, after which was a magnificent dessert.

OBSER

OBSERVATION XL.

The people of the Eaft rife early, accordto the preceding Obfervation, and they also dine very early: and, trifling as this Obfervation feems, it may, poffibly, be of some use in explaining a paffage of Scripture which has occafioned a good deal of difficulty.

"As foon as they get up in the morning, they breakfast on fried eggs, cheese, honey, "leban, &c. About eleven o'clock in the fore"noon, in winter, and rather earlier in fum"mer, they dine.— -They fup early, that "is, about five o'clock in the winter, and fix in the fummer, in much the fame manner that they dine; and in winter, as they "often vifit one another, and fit up late, they have a collation of kennafy', or "other sweet difhes. In the fummer their "breakfast commonly confifts of fruits; and, " befides dinner and fupper, they often, "within the compass of the day, eat water"melons, cucumbers, and other fruits, according to the feafon."

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86

This is Dr. Ruffel's account', to which I would add, that Dr. Chandler, in his Tra

' A mixture of flour and water, fo prepared as to have the appearance of a number of threads. This is mixed with butter and honey, and baked in the oven. Ruffel's Defcript. of Aleppo, p. 107. A kind of vermicelli, I should suppose. • P. 105-107. 2

vels,

vels, explains what is meant by rifing early, for he tells us, that on account of the heat, it is ufual there to rife with the dawn.

They dine early: at latest, it seems, at eleven, and earlier in proportion to the earliness of their rifing, in fummer; perhaps at ten, or a little after their fupper, we are expressly told, is an hour later in fummer than in winter; it is natural to fuppofe the like difference of an hour too, as to the times of their dining in fummer and winter.

And ftrange as thefe arrangements may feem to our modern late rifers, fo late as 200 years ago, eleven was the time of dining in England.

But to return to the Eaft. If they now dine, when they rife early, between ten and eleven, the ancient Jews, if their customs were, in this refpect, like those of the other inhabitants of thefe countries, dined at the like early hour. If they did, then the first time of eating of the pafchal facrifices, in the day-time, after eating the pafchal lamb in the night, must have been as early as between ten and eleven in the forenoon, for they rofe very early then, as early as in the height of fummer.

Such, at leaft, is the account that is given us by Dr. Lightfoot, one of our greatest mafters in Jewish learning, from their ancient books. "On the 15th day of the

Travels in Afia, p. 18. 2 Works, vol. 2. p. 618.

"month"

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"month" (the day on which our Lord was crucified) was an holy-day, the first day "of the feaft, wherein they made ready their chagigah, with which they feasted together "for joy of the feaft. That is worth our noting, every day they fwept the ashes off "the altar at the time of cock-crowing, only on the day of expiation they did it at midnight, and on the three feafts they did it after the first watch. A little after, in the "three feafts, when infinite numbers of Ifrael"ites affembled, and numberless facrifices were "offered, they fwept the ashes off the altar, juft

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after the first watch; for by cock-crowing "the court was crowded with Ifraelites." He goes on to obferve there, that he made no fcruple of rendering two Hebrew words, which he fets down, by cock-crowing, "al"though in the very place alledged it is "under controverfy, whether it fignifies the "cock-crowing, or the proclamation of the

σε

Sagan, or ruler of the Temple, viz. that "proclamation mentioned, The fagan faith unto them, Go and fee whether the time for flaying the facrifices be at hand; if it were time, then he that was fent out to fee, re"turned with this anfwer, The day begins to "break, &c.' He farther remarks, that let the words be taken which way they will, it is clear that the people were affembled together before morning light, and the facrifices pre

From a Jewish treatise called Joma.

K 2

paring

paring for flaughter, by being carefully examined, &c.

Rifing fo very early, as, according to Lightfoot's account, the Jewish people in general did, and more especially, we must fuppofe, the zealots did, they must have wanted their dinner by ten o'clock, eating, as the Eastern people do, their first collation as foon as they rofe; but what they then lived upon were their peaceofferings, or the chagigah, as they termed it, for thofe facrifices, which are called by St. John the Paffover, ch. xviii. 28, being a neceffary part of the folemnity termed the Paffover, though not that particular facrifice denominated the Pafchal Lamb, thofe facrifices, I fay, being flain, "thofe parts of them that pertained to the altar or to the priests were given to them; the rest of the beast was "fhared amongst the owners that had offered it, and from thence proceeded their feastings "together, and their great mirth and rejoicing, according to the manner of that fefti" val'."

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If fuch was the ftate of things, they must have wanted by nine in the morning to finish the affair of our Lord, that they might prepare for dining on the Paffover peace-offerings, which had been killed that morning very early in the Temple. It is evident, from Lev. vii. 15, 16, that the flesh of fome peace-offerings was to be confumed on the

In the fame page.

day