66 dinance," Jeremiah lamented for Jofiah; and "all the finging-men and finging-women fpake of Jofiah in their lamentations to this day, and made them an ordinance in Ifrael," 2 Chron. xxxv. 25, feems to determine this as to the mourning for Jofiah, being the very word used to describe the nature of the mourning for the daughter of Jephthah, which was, without controverfy, an annual folemnity: "It was a custom (or ordinance) in Ifrael, "that the daughters of Ifrael went yearly to "lament the daughter of Jephthah, the Gi"leadite, four days in a year'." A confidering the nature of the thing ftrongly confirms the fame thought: for it could not be an appointment that these fongs of lamentation over Jofiah fhould be continually fung; or nothing else fung on mournful occafions. But the facred writer feems to mean, that this anniverfary mourning for Jofiah continued to the time of his writing this history. Melancholy mufic is ufed with fongs in mourning for Hoffein, and as mufic generally accompanies fongs in the Eaft, both, probably, were used in lamenting Jofiah. The more powerfully to excite forrow, the Perfians make ufe of fome additional circumftances, bearing fome refemblance to the fituation of those for whom they mourn their funeral panegyrics are delivered in places, according to Chardin, hung round with arms Judges 11. 39, 40. of of various kinds, as Hoffein was furrounded with a multitude of armed men when he died; and some of the people befmear themselves with fome black fubftance, and others with a red, to represent him perifhing with thirst and an effufion of blood. In like manner the Ifraelitifh damfels, who mourned Jephthah's daughter, might wander together in companies up and down the mountains, as fhe had done, which were more covered with trees than the low-lands, and more proper for melancholy services on that account, if we fhould fuppofe, their repairing to her tomb to mourn there too inconvenient to be performed, in general, by the virgins that dwelt in places remote from Gilead. Whether any of the deadly inftruments of war were made ufe of, to enliven the mourning, at the anniversary commemoration of the death of Jofiah, particularly of that kind which proved fatal to him, may be doubted; however I have elsewhere fhewn from Mr. Irwin, that a fword was used at Ghinnah in Upper Egypt, by the women there, that in a folemn proceffion, with fongs and mufic, bewailed the death of a merchant of that country, placing themselves round a fword, by which kind of weapon he was killed, in the defert between that town and the Red-Sea. The mourning for Hoffein continues ten days; how long the annual mourning for Jofiah was is abfolutely uncertain: four days we are told by the historian was the time spent every year Ff 4 in in lamenting the daughter of Jephthah; which might be employed by fome in vifiting her grave with mufic and panegyrical fongs; and by the more diftant virgins, in wandering up and down the mountains with their companions, with melancholy music and fongs of praise. So, among the modern Perfians, fome visit the tomb of Houfain with great devotion'; others commemorate his death, with folemnity, at a great distance from the place in which he lies interred. OBSERVATION CXVII. A very ingenious writer, in his translation of the book of Job, has given this verfion of Job's defcription of the fepulchral diftinctive honours paid to the Emirs, or Arab princes and leading warriors of the land of Uz, and its adjoining countries, in the clofe of the 21ft chapter of that noble ancient Eastern poem, "With pomp he's carry'd to the grave; his name "There lives afresh, in monumental fame : "There he enjoys, in fome delicious vale, "Turf ever green, and springs that never fail ; "Preceded, followed, to his dufty bed, By all the former, all the future dead. 2 And then gives this note on the 33d verfe: 'D'Herbelot, Bibl. Orientale, art. Houflain. "The "The clods of the valley shall be fweet to him.] "The foft clods of the valley (made soft and "tender by gentle fhowers) are fweet to him. "Their fepulchral grots were frequently in "vallies, cut in the bottom of rocky hills. "Such a fituation of a tomb, together with fprings of water or moderate rains to keep "the turf perpetually green, was accounted 66 an happy fepulture among the Arabians, as "being a means of preferving the remem"brance of the deceafed in honour." To make no remarks on the little agreement between green turf and grots in rocky hills together; and not to enquire how the verdure of a spot could have kept alive the remembrance of one buried hard by; I cannot but make this obfervation on the main point, the burying in vallies, that this feems rather to be a deduction from his fuppofed fense of the text, inftead of an account taken from Arabian authors, or travellers into thofe countries, tending to illuftrate these words of Job. A management which too often appears, even in eminent writers. For I apprehend that in truth the Arabs, in elder and later times, rather chofe to inter their dead in rifing grounds than in vallies. As to the modern Bedouin Arabs, we are told, in the account published by de la Roque of those of Mount Carmel, "that the frequent change of the place of their encampment, not admitting their having places fet "fet apart for burial, they always choose a "place fomewhat elevated for that purpose, "and at fome distance from the camp. They "make a grave there, into which they put the 66 corpfe, and cover it with earth, and a num"ber of great ftones, left the wild beasts should "get at the body"." In like manner the ancient burial-place between Suez and Mount Sinai, which Niebuhr visited, was found on the top of an high and Steep mountain. The noble fepulchres of the ancient Palmyrene Arabs, according to Mr. Wood's account, were in the hills in the neighbourhood of that magnificent city. And thus we find the burial-place for people of honour and distinction at Bethel, in the time the ten tribes made a feparate kingdom, was in the mount there'; and the fepulchre of Shebna, a great man in the Jewish court, was in an elevated fituation":"Get thee unto "this treasurer, even unto Shebna, which is "over the house, and fay, What haft thou "here? and whom haft thou here, that thou "haft hewed thee out a fepulchre here, as "he that heweth him out a fepulchre on high, and that graveth an habitation for himfelf in a rock? Behold, the Lord will 66 carry thee away with a mighty captivity." From hence it is apparent, that if great men were fometimes buried in vallies, it was |