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here. In the first place, her garment of divers colours I should hardly imagine to be her drawers. Would she have rent that part of her dress as expressive of grief? Besides, we know mikneseem, is a quite different word which expresses drawers, in Exodus xxviii. 42; in a preceding part" of which paragraph, the term run ketonet is used, which denotes that part of the dress of Tamar that was of divers colours, to express a part of the dress of the priests quite different from their drawers, and which our translators renders coat.

Secondly, these garments were of different colours, not by being made of striped materials, or by being embroidered, but by having many pieces of different colours sewed together: the original word passeem signifying rather small pieces than colours, of which our translators have given an intimation, in the margin of Gen. xxxvii. 3, explanatory of Joseph's dress, which appears to have been the same with Tamar's.

x

This way of ornamenting their dress continues still in the East: Dr. Shaw himself mentions it, in the same page in which he speaks of Tamar. There he tells us, that they wear shirts of linen, or cotton, or gauze, underneath their tunics. That the sleeves of these shirts are wide and open, and that "those, particularly, of the women, are oftentimes of the richest gauze, adorned with different coloured

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ribbands, interchangeably sewed to each other." A garment of this kind, would of course be a garment of divers places and divers colours both.

OBSERVATION XXXVI.

Eastern Warriors often magnificently clothed.

ROUGH as the Eastern warriors are, in their manners, they frequently wear very pompous

vestments.

Lady Montague, describing in her letters the pompous manner in which she saw the Grand Seignor go to mosque, among other attendants she tells us she saw "the Aga of the Janizaries," which term, it is well known, signifies the general of the most honourable body of Turkish troops, "in a robe of purple velvet, lined with silver tissue, his horse led by two slaves richly dressed. In another place this very agreeable writer, observing that ancient customs still very much continue in the East, tells us, that ladies pass their times at their looms, embroidering veils and robes, surrounded by their maids.

These outer garments, which her ladyship calls robes, and Dr. Shaw burnooses, (which he tells us answer to our cloaks, he expressly says sit very strait about the neck. All which circumstances put together, furnish

Vol. ii. p. 20, 21. a P. 44, 45. b P. 225.

furnish out a very pleasant comment on Judges v. 30, as it lies in our translation: Have they not sped? Have not they divided the prey? To Sisera a prey of divers colours, a prey of divers colours of needle-work (or embroidery of divers colours of needle-work) on both sides, meet for the necks of them that take the spoil.

OBSERVATION XXXVII.

Sometimes a Prince gives his own Garment as a Token of the highest Respect.

PRINCES do dot only order caffetans to be given to those they would honour, they sometimes have presented people with their own garments.

So d'Herbelot, tells us, that when Sultan Selim, the son of Bajazet, had defeated Cansou Gauri, Sultan of the Mamelukes of Egypt, he assisted at prayers in a mosque at Aleppo, upon his triumphant return to Constantinople; and that the Iman of the mosque, having added at the close of the prayer these words, "May God preserve Selim Khan, the servant and minister of the two sacred cities of Mecca and Medinah!" the title was so very agreeable to the Sultan, that he gave the robe that he had on to this Iman, and that from that time forward the Ottoman Emperors have always used it in their letters patent, as kings of Egypt. Maillet tells us the same story," C P. 571. d Let. xii. p. 153, 154. D d

VOL. II.

but differs as to the place, which, according to him, was Damascus; a circumstance of no consequence at all as to these remarks.

Just thus Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was upon him, and gave it to David, and his garments, even to his sword, and to his bow, and to his girdle, I Sam. xviii. 4.

Bishop Patrick, I am afraid, does not represent this story with due simplicity, when in his comment he tells us, this was done to express the most entire and perfect union. "That he might look like another Jonathan," are the words of that writer. Without doubt, the celebrated friendship between Jonathan and David now commenced; but this stripping himself of his robes and putting them upon David

no more than doing a high honour, I apprehend, to an inferior, in the eyes of the servants of Saul, according to modern Eastern customs, not intended to make him look like another Jonathan. Selim, we are sure, when he gave his robe to a Mohamedan ecclesiastic in the year 1519, had no intention to make that ecclesiastic look like another Selim, or even to declare him the most intimate of his friends.

The Bishop's interpretation seems to be the more strange, as something of the like nature has been practised by our own princes. I have seen a robe of queen Elizabeth, given by her majesty to one of our cities, and which, I think, its mayors used formerly to wear on great solemnities; but no one will suppose any

thing more was intended by her, than by sultan Selim when he presented his robe to the Iman; both simply intended to do an honour to those to whom they presented their robes; nor is there any ground to suppose Jonathan intended any thing different from them.

OBSERVATION XXXVIII.

Criminals not permitted to look on the Person of the King.

As the dignity of a prince made the being arrayed in his clothes a mighty honour, so it did not allow of a malefactor's setting his eyes upon him. The majesty at least of the kings of Persia did not allow of this, as appears in the case of Haman, whose face was covered, as soon as the courtiers perceived Ahasuerus looked upon him in that light, Est. vii. 8.

Some curious correspondent examples have been produced from antiquity, and may be met with in Pool's Synopsis; but perhaps it may be amusing to find that this custom still continues; and it may useful, more clearly to ascertain the meaning of covering his face, which has been differently understood by learned

men.

I shall therefore set down from Dr. Pococke's travels, the account he gives of an artifice by which an Egyptian bey' was taken off, which

Vol. 1 p. 179.

The title they give to the greatest men of that country after the Basha.

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