our Hebrew copies do now, that which fignifies anointed. Wherever the mistake is fuppofed to lie, in our modern Hebrew copies or St. Jerome's, the mistake was easily made, cheth being put for he, or the reverse; and every one that knows the shape of the Hebrew letters, knows how nearly they resemble each other: Jerome, it feems, taking the word to be derived from the verb mashah, he drew out; our copies read mafhach, he anointed.

OBSERVATION XCII.

Though the fitting on mats or carpets on the ground is now the common ufage of the Eaft, with hardly any variation from it; and though it seems, according to a note in a preceding volume', to have obtained, on fome occafions at least, in the time of our Lord, among the Jews: yet it is certain feats raised to a confiderable height from the ground, even fo high as to make a footstool requifite, were in ufe anciently in places where hardly any fuch thing is now to be found.

The Perfian carvings, at Perfepolis, frequently exhibit a venerable perfonage fitting in a fort of high-raised chair, with a footstool"; but the later fovereigns of that country have fat, with their legs under them, on fome carpet

• Vol. 2, p. 66, note.

2

Chardin, tome 3, planche 63, 64, and 66.

ΟΙ

prac

or cushion laid on the floor, like their fubjects. Sitting low in the like manner is tifed now by all forts of people, from the highest to the loweft, in Egypt'; but two very ancient coloffal ftatues there are placed on cubical ftones, in the fame attitude that we make use of in fitting, it being, according to Norden's measures, from the fole of the feet to the knees 15 feet. In like manner, we find the figures on the ancient Syrian coins are reprefented fitting on feats as we do.

From which this conclufion, I think, may be fairly drawn, that they fat in these countries, formerly, not unfrequently as we do, particularly those in high life, though oftener on the ground or floor than obtains among us, even among thofe low in the world.

Accordingly Eli, the judge as well as highprieft of Ifrael, fat on a throne or high feat, when the fatal news of the defeat of his people was brought to him, upon falling from which he broke his neck, 1 Sam. iv. 18.

Nor were fuch lofty feats appropriate to kings and fupreme magiftrates; Solomon reprefents a lewd woman, who fat at her door to inveigle paffengers, as feated on fuch a feat, for it is the fame word in the original which is continually tranflated throne: She fitteth "at the door of her house, on a feat (a

throne) in the high places of the city, to "call paffengers who go right on their ways. 2 P. 69. "Whofo

Norden, vol. 2, p. 74, plate 5.
Z 2

"Whofo is fimple, let him turn in hither, "Sc." Prov. ix. 14, &c.

That custom of fitting at their doors, in the most alluring pomp that comes within their reach, is still an Eaftern practice. "The

whores," fays Pitts, fpeaking of the ladies of pleasure at Grand Cairo, "ufe to fit at "the door, or walk in the streets unveiled. "They are commonly very rich in their

clothes, fome having their fhifts and draw"ers of filk, &c. Thefe courtezans or ladies "of pleasure, as well as other women, have "broad velvet caps on their heads, beautified "with abundance of pearls, and other coft

ly and gaudy ornaments, &c. These ma"dams go along the freets fmoking their pipes of four or five foot long; and when they fit at their doors, a man can scarce pafs by but they will endeavour to decoy him " in '."

The Jewish police, in the time of Solomon, was not fo rigid, it feems, as to prevent the appearance of lewd women in public; and when they did do fo, it appears that they frequently fat at the doors of their houfes, as they do now in that part of the world, to entice the unthinking. At which time they affume all the pomp and fplendor in their power; and this fitting on an high feat was used, undoubtedly, with that view, in the time of

Account of the Religion and Manners of the Maho

metans, p. 99, 100.

Solomon.

Solomon. Agreeably to which he reprefents a lewd woman, in another paffage, as talking. of the decking her bed with coverings of tapestry, with fine linen of Egypt, and of perfuming it with myrrh, aloes, and cinnamon'.

They did not then among the ancients fit univerfally as the modern inhabitants of the Eaft now do, on the ground or floor, on fome mat or carpet; they fometimes fat on thrones, or feats more or lefs like our chairs, often raised so high as to require a footstool. But it was confidered as a piece of fpiendor, and offered as a mark of particular refpect.

It was doubtlefs for this reafon that a feat of this kind was placed, along with fome other furniture, in the chamber the devout Shunamitefs prepared for the prophet Elifha, 2 Kings iv. 10, which our verfion has very unhappily tranflated a fool, by which we mean the leaft honourable kind of feat in an apartment; whereas the original word meant to express her refpect for the prophet by the kind of feat the prepared for him.

• Prov. 7. 16, 17.

Thefe

The word is the fame with that commonly tranflated throne, The candleflick is, in like manner, to be confidered as a piece of furniture, fuitable to a room that was magnificently fitted up, according to the mode of thole times, a light being kept burning all night long in fuch apartments. So a lamp was kept burning all night, in the apartment in which Dr. Richard Chandler flept, in the houfe of the Jew who was vice-conful for the English mation, at the place where he first landed, when he propofed

These high feats were also used, it fhould feem, in other parts of the East befides Judæa, for St. James' writing to the Jews in their difperfions, fpeaks of them as using feats that required a footftool in their religious affemblies, ch. ii. 3.

Some ingenious writers then feem to have pushed matters too far, when they have reprefented the people of the Eaft as anciently fitting cross-legged, or on their hams, as univerfally as they now do.

OBSERVATION XCIII.

The Eastern people fpread mats or finall carpets under them when they pray, and even fuppofe it unlawful to pray on the bare ground; is it not natural to suppose the Jews had something under them when they prayed, and that this was a piece of fackcloth in times of peculiar humiliation?

When they wore fackcloth in the day, it is not perhaps natural to suppose they slept in

to vifit the curious ruins of Afia Minor. Farther we are told by de la Roque, in the account given of fome French gentlemen's going to Arabia Felix, p. 43, 44, that as they found only mats in the house of the captain of the port of Aden, where they were honourably received, which were to ferve them for beds, chairs, and tables, fo in the evening they brought them tapers without candlelcks, the want of which they were to fupply as well as they could, which was but indifferently.

! James 1. 1.