Ezek. xvi. 4: "And as for thy nativity" it was the very reverse of respectable; "for in the day thou wast born thy navel was not cut, neither wast thou washed in water, to supple thee: in salting thou wast not salted; in involving-enwrappingthou wast not involved-enwrapped"-SWADDLED-in a large capacious Swaddling Cloth-as a rich person's child would have been." This is certainly the sense of the prophet. [LXX. καὶ ἐν σπαργάνοις οὐκ ἐσπαργανώθης.]

The idea may be applied to an occurrence in the New Testament; of the propriety of which application the reader will judge with candour, as it is offered with modesty. In No. LXIV. we hinted at the medium state in life of the parents of our Lord. May this article confirm those hints?" The virgin mother brought forth her son, the first born; and she enveloped him in an ample Swaddling Robe, such as befitted, at least in some degree, the heir of David's house; and she took that kind of care of him which persons in competent circumstances take of their new-born infants." If this be fact, observe, how it became a sign to the shepherds: "You shall find the babe wrapped in a handsome Swaddling Cloth-though lying in a manger" [if A manger be correct.] For aught we know, they might have found in Bethlehem, then crowded to excess, a dozen or a score of infants lying in mangers: but none with those contradictory marks of dignity and indignity; of noble descent, and of personal inconvenience; of respectable station, and of refuge-taking poverty; in short, the comfortable lined Swaddling Cloth, which no doubt the mother brought with her, and the rocky, inconvenient. out-cast-looking residence in which the time being had secluded the object of their patriotic hopes, and of their pious researches.

This carries us a little farther: if it were customary for "mothers in their virgin state" to work, and ornament, this article of future expectancy, and if the Virgin Mary had actually worked such an one, then she was not without leisure, means, and skill equal to the performance: consequently, she could not have been excessively poor, nor under the control of others, that is, in servitude; but must have enjoyed advantages, not below those of the medium rank of women in her time and nation.

ADDITIONAL REMARKS ON THE FOREGOING NUMBERS.

No. 1. The very great celebrity of the late Abbé Winkelmann in matters of antiquity, engages us to enlarge a little on the foregoing articles, because we are not ignorant, that in his "Monumenti Inediti" he has published very different sentiments from what the reader has now perused; and has appealed to the subject of our Plate in support of them. His words are, speaking of the mystical Van of Bacchus (the cornvan, or, that in which corn was winnowed) " this van is also seen on a basso relievo, which represents the birth of an infant, and which no longer remains at Rome:" meaning that which is offered in our print. Now,

Our reasons for concluding that the object in our print cannot be the corn-van, are, 1. its shape; which is sufficiently different from that of the corn-van (as may easily be determined by inspection of a terra cotta, representing a young Bacchus, &c. recently placed in the British Museum.) 2. It has no basket-work wrought on its sides, but is perfectly smooth; and this character a draughtsman could not have omitted. 3. No fire-place, hearth, or altar, appears in our print. 4. This child is naked, clearly for the purpose of ablution, and apparently has never been clothed. 5. Our print evidently represents the recent birth of the infant, its immediate birth; as appears from the enregistering of it, by the woman who is writing on a globe, with a style, in order to record the moment of the infant's nativity: respecting which the ancients frequently consulted diviners, who foretold the fate of the child: this was called fata advocare, and fata scribere. The hour, and even the moment of birth, was carefully observed VOL. III.

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and recorded, by those who inclined to procure such predictions: whereas, the ceremony of carrying the child in a corn-van several times round the fire, hearth, or altar, did not take place till the infant was five days old at least; and in this ceremony those who carried the child were naked, says Hesychius, meaning, no doubt, undressed, at least, of which no trace occurs in our subject. These circumstances prove sufficiently that the act of the midwife is that of washing the infant; not that of preparing to carry it in the mystic van, around the hearth, as a mode of consecration to the family gods. No. II. The same author has the following remarks, speaking of a basso relievo which represents the birth of Telephus, Monum. Ined. p. 96. "We should observe on this occasion (compare Euripides, Ion, v. 32.), that the word (onáруavov) sparganon, signified the Swaddling-bands of infants, and likewise the bandages which are used to bind up wounds, &c. The word is clearly used in the first of these senses by Aristophanes (Acharn. v. 430.), as a distinction, where he introduces the person of Telephus on the stage and ought to be taken in the second sense when referred to wounds, as in No. 122. [which represents a chirurgical operation; but which, nevertheless, affords no instance of this use of the word.] He [Aristophanes] farther, in order to distinguish the subject of which he is treating [to whom he refers] gives to the Swaddlingbands the colour of PURPLE; in this following Pindar, in whom the infant Jason has Swaddling-bands of this colour, Pyth. iv. v. 204. Capitolinus notes the same, when speaking of the Swaddling-bands of Clodius Albinus; when that emperor was yet in his cradle (Clod. Alb. p. 81. B.), but Homer gives to the infant Apollo white Swaddling-bands. Hymn. Apollo. v. 121." [Esparganosen (" pannis involvit." Pagninus) is the word, Luke ii. 7.]

But, more than possibly, this word Sparganon Spargamenos, includes a more extensive signification; if, 1. it refers to chirurgical bandages; 2. to the Swaddling-bands of infants, which references are admitted: yet, 3. we think it must refer to an external wrapper, used as a general envelope, for, beside the ornaments described as embroidered upon it in Euripides, we find that this article was dyed a purple colour-imperial purple! As this colour was very expensive, and was restricted to the use of the great, if not absolutely to the imperial family, it seems to be contrary to common sense and usage, that such decoration should be bestowed on an internal-unseen— wrapper, placed immediately next the body but rather on an external wrapper, where its import, as marking rank or quality, might be apparent.

"In

By comparing the passages where this term is used in the Ion, the larger import of it may appear with greater force and clearness. Creusa says, complaining to Apollo, "My son and thine has perished unknown--undistinguished-torn by birds of prey; and the Spargana suitably prepared by his mother [by which he might have been known], are lost:" Zrápyava μarépoç žžaλλážaç. v. 916. What these Spargana were we learn from the scene in which they are discovered. Among them is described a large robe, mantle or envelope, filled with embroidery-the gorgon in the centre, and serpents round the margin. Again, Creusa says, when evincing her previous knowledge of these tokens, Παρθένια δ' ἐμᾶς ματέρος Σπάργαν ̓ ἀμφίβολα σοι τάδε Ενῆψα, ν. 1489. my virgin state I prepared those Spargana, the embellished work of my shuttle, which, when I became a mother, I cast around thee, and wrapped thee up in." The terms used to express these actions do not allow us to restrict them to the binding of bandages close to the infant's body. So says Minerva, relating the circumstances; Ἐπεὶ δ ̓ ἔτικτες τόνδε πᾶιδα, κάπεθον Ἐν σπαργάνοισιν, ν. 1597. "But, after thou hadst brought forth this son, and hadst laid him upon these Spargana." Of these, the Pythian priestess, who had preserved them, says, 'Evláde kékρvifai σπapyávοiši. v. 1351. "Thou wast hidden-enveloped-entirely concealed-in these Spargana:" conse

quently, they could not be mere bands, or narrow strips of cloth; but of a more capacious kind, and proper for forming ample folds around the infant they sheltered and enclosed. And this sense of entire concealment seems to be strongly implied in the use of the term by Creusa, when relating her resort by night to the cave where she lost her child: Ημεῖς ἐν ὄρφνη σπαργανώσαντες πέπλοις, ν. 954. "We in the darkness wrapping us up in a veil, or mantle;"-or, if this be taken as a comparison, "We were surrounded-enwrapped-by midnight darkness, as by a veil ;"-as, she says immediately, "I had no accomplice but secresy and evil fortune;" still it shews, that the word includes an extensive meaning; and imports an envelope, or to envelope, generally and bands, or bandages, only occasionally.

Montfaucon's Explanation of the Subject on our Plate. "On the marble-the married woman sitting on a chair, hath still in her face marks of childbed pains. This must be her first labour. She rests her head upon her left hand. The infant just born is in the midwife's hands, just going to be laid in the cradle. The sculptor hath taken great liberties here, and represented the child big and well grown, and stretching out its hand and turning towards his mother."

"Another woman holds a large piece of cloth to wrap up the child in the cradle. The cradle is shaped like a little boat, and therefore the Greeks called their cradles okápai and okápiornpia, little boats, or gondolos. The family of the Cæsars had this custom peculiar to themselves, of laying their young princes, as soon as born, in cradles made of tortoise-shell (in testudineis alveis) to be washed. Just as Albinus was born, a fisherman presented his father with a large tortoise, which he, as being a man of letters, taking for a good omen, ordered the tortoise to be gutted, and the shell cleaned, and the infant to be washed with warm water in this shell." This account Capitolinus gives us in the Life of Albinus; and we learn from hence, that these alvei were used for washing infants, and that in this Plate is proper enough for the purpose. "Two other women perform some rite which I never observed any where else. They stand before a square pillar, upon which there is a globe; one with a style, or writing pen, marks something on the globe, the other woman seems very attentive. She who is writing on the globe, marks the day and hour of the birth; for the Romans were very exact in observing this, as we find from several sepulchral inscriptions, in which we see not only the years, months, and days of life mentioned, but also hours, half hours, and sometimes minutes marked." Antiq. Expl. Supp. vol. iii. chap. 3.

No. CCCXV. RESERVOIRS OF WATER IN EGYPT.

"WHAT the janissaries told me, on the subject of ruins found in this place (near Cassar in Egypt) seemed to me deserving of consideration. There must have been formerly in this place a handsome city, which is at present sunk under the earth; and it is difficult to guess by what prodigious overthrow that could have happened. Whenever they dig to form Wells, or to lay foundations, they find ruins of houses, temples, or other monuments. They led me to see one of these Wells, newly sunk, near to which I found a heap of large stones, which they had been obliged to remove, in order to come at Water. As it was not very deep, I threw into it a lighted paper, by which I ascertained some of the circumstances which they had related to me respecting it. As I was embarrassed to conceive how these Wells, which are higher than the Nile, could yield any Water, they told me that they filled themselves when the river rose, and that the Water preserved itself in them a long while, as in a kind of cistern." Paul Lucas, Voy. Egypte, p. 102.

This passage may give a pretty good idea of the nature of those Reservoirs in Egypt; the water of which, in common with that of the Nile, was turned into blood,

Exod. vii. 20. The particularity employed in enumerating the various kinds of places for containing water (verse 19,) deserves notice: the streams, or divisions of the river, the river itself, the ponds, the pools of water, and whatever water was already drawn from them, and set apart for drinking, whether kept in vessels of wood, or vessels of stone. Nevertheless, it is said (verse 24), " All the Egyptians digged round about the river, for water to drink: for they could not drink of the river water." If they were put to the trouble and expense which this extract from Paul Lucas describes, surely this was a severe affliction upon them: the delay, the labour, the cost, could not but be great, and greatly vexatious. We find that these kinds of Reservoirs were used in times of deep antiquity, and no doubt as early as the days of the Pharaohs. Understand, therefore, the passage in Exodus, "Even the cisterns, which were higher than the Nile, and had (at the time) no communication with it, became blood."

No. CCCXVI. RIVER APPEARING LIKE BLOOD.

MR. MAUNDRELL relates a fact, which he uses to explain a custom of antiquity. "Leaving Gibyle we came in one hour to a fair large River-which the Turks call Ibraim Bassa; but it is, doubtless, the ancient river Adonis, so famous for the idolatrous rites performed here in lamentation of Adonis. [Vide ADONIS, and TAMmuz, in the Dictionary.] Upon the banks of this stream we took up our quarters for the following night. We had a very tempestuous night, both of wind and rain, almost without cessation, and with so great violence, that our servants were hardly able to keep up our tents over us. But, however, this accident, which gave us so much trouble in the night, made us amends with a curiosity which it yielded us an opportunity of beholding the next morning [Wednesday, March 17.] For, by this means, we had the fortune to see, what may be supposed to be the occasion of that opinion which Lucian relates concerning this river; viz. that this stream, at certain seasons of the year, especially about the feast of Adonis, is of a bloody colour; which the heathen looked on as proceeding from a kind of sympathy in the river for the death of Adonis, who was killed by a wild boar in the mountains out of which this stream rises. Something like this we actually saw come to pass, for the water was stained to a surprising redness; and, as we observed in travelling, had discoloured the sea a great way into a reddish hue, occasioned doubtless by a sort of minium, or red earth, washed into the River by the violence of the rain, and not by any stain from Adonis's blood." Journal, pages 34, 35.

These extracts afford matter for several remarks: 1. Adonis, or Tammuz, was a deity well known in Egypt; and the story of his yearly death was there commemorated :—when it is said, Exod. vii. 22. the magicians with their enchantments turned water into Blood, did they repeat some of those practices, to which they had been accustomed at the solemnity of the bleeding Adonis? 2. At what time of the year was this miracle? If at the feast of Adonis, might these magicians persuade Pharaoh that, so far from this being a miracle by Jehovah, it was a miracle in favour of Adonis: an extraordinary instance of "the river's sympathy" with him? 3. We learn from Pococke (vol. i. p. 199.), that when the Nile is rising, its waters turn red, and sometimes green (in June.) Maillet mentions the same fact :-adding, that in some years the waters of this river corrupt; during which time the inhabitants use the water of their cisterns, or Reservoirs. Now, in order to distinguish this miracle from any such natural occurrence, whatever natural cause might be employed in it, not merely the waters of the river and its canals, but also those more distant and those already drawn, partook of the general mutation, and became undrinkable. [Even those higher than the level of the Nile, as observed above.] Moreover, the river, &c. suffered this change to such a

degree as to kill the fish in it, in the lakes, &c. an event which certainly does not take place annually.... How long did the miracle last? Seven days? or any longer time? This, however, is not the only water that is periodically tinged with a reddish colour, giving it the appearance of blood. Volney says (vol. ii. p. 203.), “At Tyre, a hundred paces from the gate, we came to a ruined tower, in which is a well, where the women go to fetch water. This well is fifteen or sixteen feet deep; but the depth of the water is not more than two or three feet. Better water is not to be found upon the coast. From some unknown cause, it becomes troubled in September, and continues some days full of reddish clay. This season is observed as a kind of festival by the inhabitants, who then come in crowds to the well, and pour into it a bucket of sea water, which, according to them, has the virtue of restoring the clearness of the spring."

No. CCCXVII. WORSHIP OF ADONIS, OR TAMMUZ.

THE foregoing notices naturally introduce the inquiry-In what consisted the ceremonious Worship of Adonis and to what-or to whom-did it originally refer? It was, as already hinted, celebrated very solemnly at Byblos, in Syria: Lucian in his book of the "Syrian Goddess" gives the following account of it. "The Syrians affirm, that what the boar is reported to have done against Adonis was transacted in their country and in memory of this accident they every year beat themselves, and lament, and celebrate frantic rites, and great wailings are appointed throughout the country. After they have beaten themselves and lamented, they first perform funeral obsequies to Adonis, as to one dead; and afterwards, on a following day, they feign that he is alive, and ascended into the air [or heaven] and shave their heads, as the Egyptians do at the death of Apis : and whatever women will not consent to be shaved are obliged, by way of punishment, to prostitute themselves once to strangers, and the money they thus earn is consecrated to Venus." [Vide SUCCOTH BENOTH, in the Dictionary.] We may now discern the flagrant iniquity committing, and that which was farther to be expected, among the Jewish women who sat weeping for Tammuz, that is, Adonis, Ezekiel viii. 14. on which impurities silence is prudence.

To what did this Worship of Adonis refer? Various have been the opinions on this subject: most have thought the death of Adonis referred to the loss or diminution of the sun's effulgence during the winter half year, and the resurrection of Adonis symbolized the sun's return in spring. We cannot, however, wholly rest in this: 1. Because the time of the year, the fifth day of the sixth month, August, or September, is not remarkable for any diminution of solar light; and certainly, not for total loss of solar heat. 2. Because the worship of the sun was, in our opinion, accidental, not primary. 3. Other ceremonies may give light on this, and may lead to a different opinion.

According to Julius Firmicus, on a certain night, while the solemnity in honour of Adonis lasted, an image was laid in a bed—or rather, on a bier; that is, as if it were a dead body, and great lamentation was made over it; but, after a proper time spent in this sorrow-light, that is, a lamp or candle was brought in, and the priest, anointing the mouths of the assistants, whispered to them with a soft voice, as Godwin says, "Trust ye in God; for out of pain [distress] we have received salvation," [deliverance.] Now, these rites seem to be precisely the same with those described in the Orphic Argonautica, where we learn that these awful meetings began, first of all, by an oath of secresy administered to all who were to be initiated. Then the ceremonies commenced by a description of the chaos, or abyss, and the confusion attendant upon it: then the poet describes a person, as a man of justice; and mentions the orgies, or funeral lamentations, on account of this just person; and those of Arkite-Athene [Divine Providence] these were celebrated by night. In these mysteries, after