"rael."

The men in the Levant now are feldom, I think, spoken of as going to the fepulchres of the dead to weep and wail there; and even when they attend a corpfe to the grave to be buried, exprefs great calmness and compofure'; but as to this last particular, it appears to have been different anciently, from what is faid 2 Sam. iii. 31, 32, 33, 34. "David faid to Joab, and to all the people "that were with him, Rent your clothes, "and gird you with fackcloth, and mourn "before Abner. And King David himself "followed the bier. And they buried Abner "in Hebron: and the king lift up his voice, " and wept at the grave of Abner; and all "the people wept. And the king lamented over Abner, and faid, Died Abner as a fool "dieth? &c. And all the people wept again

over him." Perhaps alfo as to the going to the grave to mourn, the men' might anciently, on fome occafions, repair thither; for many of the Jews attended Mary when she went to weep, as they apprehended, at the grave of her brother Lazarus. But public mourning of the men was, undoubtedly, much less frequent than among the women; though, it may be, more common than in later times.

Before I difmifs this article, it may not be improper to beg my Reader to confider, whe

Ruffell, p. 116, 118; and Shaw, p. 219.

1

2

John 11. 31.

ther the words of Jeremiah, in the fecond chapter of his Lamentations', may not be to be understood after the fame manner: "Arife,

cry out in the night in the beginning of "the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy "hands towards him, for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger on the top "of every street.'

The claufe tranflated for the life of thy young children that faint may fignify, I apprehend, on account of the lofs of the life of thy young children. children. If it was for the faving their lives, the fupplication might as well have been prefented by day, as by night; but if it means mourning their deaths, the night season, and in particular the first watch of the night, was a proper time for that kind of mourning, according to the prefent ufage of the women of Ghinnah.

The following part of the defcription of Lam. ii. of thofe that laid in the streets, represents them as flain; the lying of children in the streets fhould, in like manner, one would think, be defigned to exprefs their lying dead there for want of food, as those grown up laid there flain by the fword. More efpecially when we find they are described, in a preceding verfe, as fwooning as the wounded in the streets, which fwooning was unto death. The equivocalness, at least, of the expreffion

• Ver. 19.

will appear, if the words be tranflated, literally, from the Hebrew, lift up thy hands towards him "over the fouls of thy young "children." It appears from a drawing in the second tome of le Bruyn, reprefenting the mourning of the women of Ramah at the tombs of their dead relations, that lifting up their hands on high was one pofture into which they threw themselves. And as the word tranflated cry out, fignifies much more frequently finging than crying, it should seem not at all improbable, that Jeremiah refers here to fuch modes of mourning as were obferved by Irwin at Ghinnah.

OBSERVATION CX.

The people of these countries are wont to be carried to their graves, not only with violent wailings of the female part of the funeral convoy; but with devout finging of the male part of it: this last seems to be referred to in the Scriptures, as well as the first, though seldom, if ever, mentioned in the writings of those that have explained them.

Dr. Ruffell has mentioned this devout finging of the male part of the attendants when a corpfe is carrying to the grave. "When the "corpfe is carried out, a number of Sheiks',

A fort of people among them supposed to poffefs great fanctity.

"with their tattered banners, walk firft; next "come the male friends; and after them the

66

corpse, carried with the head foremost upon "men's fhoulders. The bearers are relieved

very often, for every paffenger thinks it "meritorious to lend fome little help on fuch "folemn occafions. The nearest male rela❝tions immediately follow, and the women "close the proceffion with dreadful fhrieks, "while the men all the way are singing pray66 ers out of the Koran '.

Mr. Irwin, I remember, mentions the like finging, as obferved by him at Ghinnah, in Upper Egypt.

There is fo much refemblance, according to Dr. Rufell, between the Mohammedans, Chriftians, and Jews in the Eaft, as to their nuptial obfervances and burial ceremonies, that it is natural to fuppofe this finging is common to all. It is not however a mere conclufion, drawn from what the Mohammedans practife; Dean Addifon has exprefsly told us he found it practifed by the Jews of Barbary.

"The corpfe is born by four to the place "of burial, in this proceffion: in the first "rank march the Chachams or priests, next "to them the kindred of the deceased, after "whom come thofe that are invited to the "funeral; and all finging in a fort of plain

66

fong the 49th Pfalm. And if it lasts not

* Defcript. of Aleppo, p. 116.

" 'till

" 'till they come to the grave, they begin it

again. The Dean tells us, "It may not be unfit "to obferve, that though the modern cere"monies of burial are neither fo numerous "or

or coftly as thofe of old among the Jews; "yet they do not much vary from them for "the washing the body was in use at the time "of Tabitha's death; and the chief mourner

spoken of before, as alfo the weekly lament66 ing of the dead, refers to the women hired "to lament at burials: and which the Scrip"ture calls mourning-women, Jerem. ix. 17, "the fame with the præficæ among the Ro"mans. They likewife agree in the places "of burial, which are now, as formerly, "without the towns or cities where they live, except that in Fez they have a buryingplace within the city, adjoining to the Juderia, or the part where they live '.", Other writers have given an account of mourning-women's being retained in the Eaft *;

66

'Pref. State of the Jews, p. 218.

2 Acts 9. 37.

3 P. 220.

but

of

So the Abbot Mafcrier tells us, from the papers M. Maillet, that not only do the relations and female friends, in Ægypt, furround the corpfe, while it remains unburied, with the moft bitter cries, fcratching and beating their faces fo violently as to make them bloody, and black and blue, but, "to render the hubbub more com"plete, and do the more honour to the dead perfon, whom "they feem to imagine to be very fond of noise, those of "the lower clafs of people are wont to call in, on these "occafions, certain women who play on tabors, and whose "business

Dd 4