upon him, and particularly that which was called the potibasis of the king, which, as Athenæus informeth, implied the bread of the king, made of barley and wheat, and the wine of Cyprus, which he drank in an oval cup. And, therefore, distinctly from that he chose plain fare of water, and the gross diet of pulse, and that, perhaps, not made into bread, but parched and tempered with water.

Now that herein (beside the special benediction of God) he made choice of no improper diet to keep himself fair and plump, and so to excuse the eunuch his keeper, physicians will not deny, who acknowledge a very nutritive and impinguating faculty in pulses, in leguminous food, and in several sorts of grains and corns, is not like to be doubted by such who consider that this was probably a great part of the food of our forefathers before the flood, the diet also of Jacob; and that the Romans (called therefore pultifagi) fed much on pulse for six hundred years; that they had no bakers for that time: and their pistours were such as, before the use of mills, beat out and cleansed their corn. As also that the athletic diet was of pulse, alphiton, maza, barley and water; whereby they were advantaged sometimes to an exquisite state of health, and such as was not without danger. And, therefore, though Daniel were no eunuch, and of a more fattening and thriving temper, as some have fancied, yet was he by this kind of diet sufficiently maintained in a fair and carnous state of body; and, accordingly, his picture not improperly drawn, that is, not meagre and lean, like Jeremy's, but plump and fair, answerable to the most authentic draught of the Vatican, and the late German Luther's bible.

The cynicks in Athenæus make iterated courses of lentils, and prefer that diet before the luxury of Seleucus. The present Egyptians, who are observed by Alpinus to be the fattest nation, and men to have breasts like women, owe much, as he conceiveth, unto the water of Nile, and their diet of rice, pease, lentils, and white cicers. The pulseeating cynicks and stoicks are all very long livers in Laertius. And Daniel must not be accounted of few years, who, being carried away captive in the reign of Joachim, by King Nebuchadnezzar, lived, by Scripture account, unto the first year of Cyrus.

16. And Jacob took rods of green poplar, and of the hazel, and the chesnut tree, and pilled white streaks in them, and made the white appear which was in the rods, &c." Men multiply the philosophy of Jacob, who beside the benediction of God, and the powerful effects of imagination, raised in the goats and sheep from pilled and party-coloured objects, conceive that he chose out these particular plants above any other, because he understood they had a particular virtue unto the intended effects, according unto the conception of Georgius Venetus.*

Whereto you will hardly assent, at least till you be better satisfied and assured concerning the true species of the plants intended in the text, or find a clearer consent and uniformity in the translation: for what we render poplar, hazel, and chesnut, the Greek translateth virgam styracinam, nucinam, plantaninam, which some also render a pomegranate; and so observing this variety of interpretations concerning common and known plants among us, you may more reasonably doubt, with what propriety or assurance others less known be sometimes rendered unto us.

17. Whether in the sermon of the mount, the lilies of the field did point at the proper lilies, or whether those flowers grew wild in the place where our Saviour preached, some doubt may be made; because кpívov, the word in that place, is accounted of the same signification with Xɛiptov, and that in Homer is taken for all manner of specious flowers; so received by Eustachius, Hesychius, and the scholiast upon Apollonius, Καθόλου τὰ ἄνθη λείρια λέγεται. And κpívov is also received in the same latitude, not signify

* G. Venetus, Problem. 200.

3 lilies.] "At a few miles from Adowa, we discovered a new and beautiful species of amaryllis, which bore from ten to twelve spikes of bloom on each stem, as large as those of the belladonna, springing from one common receptacle. The general colour of the corolla was white, and every petal was marked with a single streak of bright purple down the middle. The flower was sweet scented, and its smell, though much more powerful, resembled that of the lily of the valley. This superb plant excited the admiration of the whole party; and it brought immediately to my recollection the beautiful comparison used on a particular occasion by our Saviour, I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.'"-Salt's Voyage to Abyssinia, p. 419.

ing only lilies, but applied unto daffodils, hyacinths, irises, and the flowers of colocynthis.

Under the like latitude of acception, are many expressions in the Canticles to be received. And when it is said "he feedeth among the lilies," therein may be also implied other specious flowers, not excluding the proper lilies. But in that expression, "the lilies drop forth myrrh," neither proper lilies nor proper myrrh can be apprehended, the one not proceeding from the other, but may be received in a metaphorical sense: and in some latitude may be made out from the roscid and honey drops observable in the flowers of martagon, and inverted flowered lilies, and, 'tis like, is the standing sweet dew on the white eyes of the crown imperial, now common among us.

And the proper lily may be intended in that expression of 1 Kings vii., that the brazen sea was of the thickness of a hand breadth, and the brim like a lily. For the figure of that flower being round at the bottom, and somewhat repandous, or inverted at the top, doth handsomely illustrate the comparison.

But that the lily of the valley, mentioned in the Canticles, "I am the rose of Sharon, and the lily of the valley," is that vegetable which passeth under the same name with us, that is, lilium convallium, or the May lily, you will more hardly believe, who know with what insatisfaction the most learned botanists reduce that plant unto any described by the ancients; that Anguillara will have it to be the ananthe of Athenæus, Cordus, the pothos of Theophrastus, and Lobelius, that the Greeks had not described it; who find not six leaves in the flower, agreeably to all lilies, but only six small divisions in the flower, who find it also to have a single, and no bulbous root, nor leaves shooting about the bottom, nor the stalk round, but angular. And that the learned Bauhinus hath not placed it in the classis of lilies, but nervifolious plants.

18. "Doth he not cast abroad the fitches, and scatter the cummin seed, and cast in the principal wheat, and the

4 fitches.] There are two Hebrew words rendered fitches by our translators, ketžach and kesmet; the latter probably rye, the former is considered by Jerom, Maimonides, and the Rabbins to be gith, in Greek μeλavov, in Latin nigella. Parkhurst supposes it to have been fennel.

appointed barley, and the rye in their place ?" Herein though the sense may hold under the names assigned, yet is it not so easy to determine the particular seeds and grains, where the obscure original causeth such differing translations. For in the vulgar we meet with milium and gith, which our translation declineth, placing fitches for gith, and rye for milium or millet, which, notwithstanding, is retained by the Dutch.

That it might be melanthium, nigella, or gith, may be allowably apprehended, from the frequent use of the seed thereof among the Jews and other nations, as also from the translation of Tremellius; and the original implying a black seed, which is less than cummin, as, out of Aben Ezra, Buxtorfius hath expounded it.

But whereas milium or kéyxpos of the Septuagint is by ours rendered rye, there is little similitude or affinity between those grains; for milium is more agreeable unto spelta or espaut, as the Dutch and others still render it.

That we meet so often with cummin' seed in many parts of Scripture in reference unto Judæa, a seed so abominable at present unto our palates and nostrils, will not seem strange unto any who consider the frequent use thereof among the ancients, not only in medical but dietetical use and practice for their dishes were filled therewith, and the noblest festival preparations in Apicius were not without it; and even in the polenta, and parched corn, the old diet of the Romans (as Pliny recordeth), unto every measure they mixed a small proportion of linseed and cummin seed.

And so cuminin is justly set down among things of vulgar and common use, when it is said in Matthew xxiii. 23, 66 You pay tithe of mint, anise, and cummin." But how to make out the translation of anise we are still to seek, there being no word in that text which properly signifieth anise : the original being ävnov, which the Latins call anethum, and is properly Englished dill.

That among many expressions, allusions, and illustrations made in Scripture from corns, there is no mention made of oats, so useful a grain among us, will not seem very strange

5

cummin.] An umbelliferous plant resembling fennel; producing a bitterish, warm, aromatic seed.

unto you, till you can clearly discover that it was a grain of ordinary use in those parts; who may also find that Theophrastus, who is large about other grains, delivers very little of it. That Dioscorides is also very short therein. And Galen delivers that it was of some use in Asia Minor, especially in Mysia, and that rather for beasts than men: and Pliny affirmeth that the pulticula thereof was most in use among the Germans. Yet that the Jews were not without all use of this grain seems confirmable from the Rabbinical account, who reckon five grains liable unto their offerings, whereof the cake presented might be made; that is, wheat, oats, rye, and two sorts of barley.

19. Why the disciples being hungry plucked the ears of corn, it seems strange to us, who observe that men halfstarved betake not themselves to such supply; except we consider the ancient diet of alphiton and polenta, the meal of dried and parched corn, or that which was wμvois, or meal of crude and unparched corn, wherewith they being well acquainted, might hope for some satisfaction from the corn yet in the husks; that is, from the nourishing pulp or mealy part within it.

20. The inhuman oppression of the Egyptian task-masters, who, not content with the common tale of brick, took also from the children of Israel their allowance of straw, and forced them to gather stubble where they could find it, will be more nearly apprehended, if we consider how hard it was to acquire any quantity of stubble in Egypt, where the stalk of corn was so short, that to acquire an ordinary measure it required more than ordinary labour; as is discoverable from that account which Pliny hath happily left unto us.* In the corn gathered in Egypt the straw is never a cubit long: because the seed lieth very shallow, and hath no other nourishment than from the mud and slime left by the river; for under it is nothing but sand and gravel.

So that the expression of Scripture is more emphatical than is commonly apprehended, when 'tis said, "The people were scattered abroad through all the land of Egypt to gather stubble instead of straw." For the stubble being very short, the acquist was difficult; a few fields afforded it

*Lib. 18. Nat. Hist.