Page images
PDF
EPUB

casion for 'em. Mr. Clay teils me yt he let you know ye misfortune Polymnia met wth on ye road, wch I assure you happened by ye negligence of ye carrier.

Yo' discourse with me about translating Ovid, made such an impression on me at my first coming down from London, yt I ventur'd on ye 2d Book, wch 1 turnd at my leisure hours,* and will give you a sight of, if you will put yo' self to ye trouble of reading it. He has so many silly stories with his good ones, y he is more tedious to translate y a better poet wd be. But tho' I despair of serving you this way, I hope I may find out some other to show you how much I am

Yo' very humble serv', J. ADDISON.

Sir,

I have shown your letter to Mr. Conningham. He will speak to the bookseller about ye Tableaus des Muses, but can't possibly meet at Leiden so soon as you mention, expecting a letter by evry post from England. I should have answerd your letter sooner, had I not bin two days at Rotterdam, whence I returnd yesterday with Colonel Stanhope, whom I found unexpectedly at Penningtons. If I can possibly, Ile come and see you to-morrow at Amsterdam for a day. As I dined with my Ld Cutts t'other day, I talk't of your Cæsar, and let him know ye two German Generals had subscribed. He ask't me who had ye taking of the subscriptions, and told me he believ'd he coud assist you if they were not full. I am, Sir, yo' very humble servant,

Thursday morning. J. ADDISON. To Mr. Tonson at Mr. Moor's, the English house near the Fishmarket, Amsterdam.

LETTER FROM PRIOR TO TONSON. This Letter was evidently written to accompany to England Prior's parody of an "Ode sur la Prise de Namur, par les armes du Roy, l'année

1692. Par Monsieur Boileau Des

This is included among Addison's Poems in Chalmers's edition. Addison afterwards translated several detached stories from Ovid, but no entire book.

[blocks in formation]

S',-If you think this trifle worth yor printing, 'tis at yo' service, and I recommend it to yo' care. I would have you therefore show it immedi ately to Mr. Montagu,+ (Mr. Chan cellour of the Cheq') possibly he may alter a line or two in it, as he has either humour or leisure, to make it any way intelligible. You must priat the French on one side, and with so much room between the stanzas a that the English may answer it, which you see is usually 12 lines, that is 3 alternate stanzas in English to one of 10 lines in French, tho' sometimes it is but 8, and once but 4; I do not pretend it is an exact answer, nor do I care; 'tis only sense to those who understand the original, and probaby may lye the lumber of yo' shop with some of my former works; but this is more immediately yo' business to consider. I will positively have no name sett to it, for a secretary at 30 b hardly allowed the privelege of bur lesque. You may see what S Fleetwood says to it before you print it may be he may find some conceit be:

ter for a title then that I have given it, or another motto. Do all that as you will, but once more no name. Lose no time in this great affair, and send a dossen over to me directed in a cover, a Monsieur Cardonnel, Se cretaire de Monsieur Blathwayt, Secretaire de Guerre de sa Majeste, a la Hague; and then you must give ? dossen to Mr. Chancellour of the Cheq, which I have begged him to dispose of; in doing all this you may lose by publishing a bad piece, and will oblige, S,

Yo' most humble ser, M. PRIOR Besides those I speak of for Mr. Montagu, pray give one to every body you did last time, except the Lords Justices, and Lords of the Treasury,

for Mr. Chancell will do that hiself.

To Mr. Jacob Tonson, att the Judge's Head, Chancery-lane, Fleet-street.

+ Afterwards Earl of Halifax, and himself a poet.

MR. URBAN,

CONSIDERATIONS ON JOSHUA'S MIRACLE. Sept. 17. THE miraculous arrestation of light, recorded in the Book of Joshua, is a favourite object of infidel ridicule. It may also have given rise, in some instances, to honest doubt, in minds not firmly grounded in a belief of Revelation. A French writer (M. Chaubard) has lately shown that it admits of as tronomical demonstration, and, in his opinion, of geological also.* The object of this Essay is to follow up the idea he has suggested, in inquiring how far the Sacred Narrative is corroborated by the traditions of mankind. Such remains, however disfigured, are often of inestimable value, from the resemblance they preserve to the original events.

prejudice, and not perceive that the historian meant to assert that a phenomenon had taken place. Yet, if the passage had stood alone, it might possibly have been given up as bombastic, since it has often been treated as such. But immediately after, there follows an appeal to a book, where the fact had been recorded:

In investigating this subject, the first step to be taken is to ascertain what belief the Hebrews themselves entertained of this miracle; the second, what knowledge of it was retained by other nations.

1. It must be remarked that we have not merely one, but two accounts of this stupendous event, in the tenth chapter of Joshua. Those who consider it a mere rhapsody,† have not attended to this circumstance; for, although a single passage might be construed figuratively, such a repetition amounts to an affirmation, and demands to be interpreted literally. We have here not only a regular narrative in the course of the history, but also a reference to a register in which it had been recorded.

The history of Joshua says,

"Then spake Joshua to the Lord in the day when the Lord delivered up the Amorites before the children of Israel, and he said in the sight of Israel, Sun, stand thou still upon Gibeon; and thou, Moon, in the valley of Ajalon. And the Sun stood still, and the Moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies."

It is impossible to read this without

"Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the Sun stood still in the

midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day. And there was no day like that, before it or after it, that the Lord hearkened unto the voice of a man, for the Lord fought for Israel."

Bombastic speeches are matter for poetry, but surely they are never entered in national or sacred records. The word Jasher means upright, and the book so called was probably a register of such events as befel the upright nation, as the Hebrews are often emphatically styled. Whatever its contents were, they seem to have been incorporated in substance with the Scriptures, so that the book itself fell into disuse.

It is remarkable that this event is not mentioned in the Psalms, at least not in distinct terms, for which omis

sion it is difficult to account. But it is also worthy of note, that in the best chronological arrangements of the Psalms, none of those divine compositions are ascribed to the age of Joshua, but all are assigned to earlier and later periods. Thus the 88th is attributed to Herman while in Egypt, and the 90th to Moses while in the wilderness, after which a long interval occurs, to David's victory over Goliah. The miracle which seems chiefly to have engaged the attention and gratitude of the Israelites, was the passage of the Red Sea. And we must bear in mind, that, as the worship of the heavenly bodies began early to prevail among them, the re

Elémens de Géologie, mis à la portée de tout le monde, et offrant la concordance des faits historiques avec les faits geologiques, par L. A. Chaubard, 8vo, pp 363. Risler, rue de l'Oratoire, Paris.

+ As Le Clerc and Jorgenson.

Of the alleged discovery of this book nothing need be said here, except that the imposture has been thoroughly exposed by Mr. Horne and others.

§ See the Table of the Psalms, from Townshend, Calmet, &c. in the Companion to the Bible, published by the Religious Tract Society.

GENT. MAG. VOL. II.

3 N

membrance of Joshua's miracles, by which the course of those luminaries appeared to be contracted, would carry such unwelcome convictions with it, as to interest them in neglecting, if not suppressing, every trace of it.* However, like all truth, it breaks out occasionally. Thus Isaiah alludes to it (ch. xxviii. v. 21), The Lord shall be wrath as in the valley of Gibeon, that he may do his work, his strange work, and bring to pass his act, his mighty act. By another allusion to it, he describes the prosperity of future times: Thy sun shall no more go down, neither shall thy moon withdraw itself. (ch. 60, ver. 20.) Habakkuk, describing the progress of Israel from Israel to Palestine, says, The sun and moon stood still in their habitation..... thou didst march through the land in indignation, thou didst thrash the heathen in anger. (c. 3, v. 11, 12.) And as apocryphal writings are good historical evidence for the sentiments of the Jews, whatever may be thought of them in a doctrinal point of view, the words of Ecclesiasticus may be cited as decisive: Did not the Sun go back by his (Joshua's) means, and was not one day as long as two? (c. 46, v. 4.) Josephus, who is more apt to lower miracles than to enlarge upon them, speaks plainly here,

"The day also was lengthened (the like whereof was never heard before), lest, by the speedy approach of the night, the enemy should escape from the victor. As that day was longer than ordinary, it is registered in the Sacred Volumes, which are preserved in the Temple." +

Connected with the Jewish belief, is that of the Mahometans. D'Herbelot, in his great work, under the article JosCHOVA, quotes the Tarikh

Montekheb, as relating that he was sent to destroy the giants, to whom he gave battle on a Friday evening. As night approached, and he would not fight on the Sabbath, he prayed for time to finish the battle; and so the sun remained above the horizon an hour and a half longer than usua!, thus giving him time to exterminate the enemy. According to this ac

count, Arika (i. e. Jericho), and not Gibeon, was the city besieged. Brt so prevalent is the belief of this event among the Mahometans, that it is one of their reasons for appointing Friday their sacred day, in preference to the Sabbath of the Jews, or that of the Christians.

II. The next thing to be inquired is, what knowledge of this event was preserved by other nations.

Here it is important to fix the time of day in which it may be considered to have occurred. Parkhurst, Adsz Clarke, and Bishop Horsley in his Biblical Criticisms, place it in the evening; Shuckford about noon; Hales and Mr. Hartwell Horne in the morning. M. Chaubard, from an attentive consideration of the narrative, concludes that Joshua, having marched all night, fell upon his enemies soon after sunrise. It seems too that all the events from verse 9 to verse 27, where the sunset is spoken of, happened within the compass of a sinze day, prolonged to an extraordinary length by miracle.

We may here adduce a principle laid down by Mr. Thomas Dicke in his Christian Philosopher :

"When a passage of Scripture is of interpretations, that interpretation ought doubtful meaning, or capable of different to be preferred, which will best agree with the established discoveries of science.” §

No notice is taken of it in the apocryphal book of Enoch; but in point of fact the writer passes rapidly from the death of Moses to a much later period in these words: "Then arose other sheep, all of whom conducted them, instead of those who were dead." (ch. lxxxviii. ver. 65.)

+ This extract is from the old English translation, which was made in reality from Arnauld's French one. What does Whiston mean by the 18th Psalm of Solomon? which he quotes as saying of the heavenly luminaries, "They have not wandered from the day that he created them; they have not forsaken their way from ancient generations, unless it were when God enjoined them [so to do] by the voice of bis servants." See his translation of Josephus in loco.

It is obvious that the time must have been either morning or evening, and not noon, since the sun and moon are described as being both visible.

P. 432, 3d edit. We do not wish to have it implied, that we agree with y sentiment in this book, e. g. the commencement of note 10, p. 532.

Now it is clear that the phenomenon could not have had the same appearance under every meridian, but that the prolongation of light in Palestine must have protracted the night, or the twilight, as it happened then to be, in other parts of the globe. But it is remarkable that while the East is full of conflicting traditions, as to the time of its occurrence, all that occur in Europe are such as fix it to the morning in Palestine, because they testify to a supernatural lengthening of the night. M. Chaubard grounds his calculations upon the celebrated double night at Thebes, which was said to have given existence to Hercules; from which he argues, that, as the darkness was fixed in Greece for an additional number of hours, the miracle took place immediately after sunrise in Palestine. Satisfied apparently with this coincidence, which the most sceptical reader must allow to be a striking one, he has forborne to pursue the inquiry further. Our object is to show that it may be pursued all round the habitable globe.*

1. We naturally ask, if Homer has made any allusion to this stupendous event, or made any poetical use of it? He has done so; and has described it as a Greek naturally would, namely, as an extension of night. He introduces it as a device of Minerva, to prolong the first interview of Ulysses and Penelope, after the slaughter of

the suitors:

"Nor had they ended till the morning ray;

But Pallas backward held the rising day,

The wheels of night retarding, to detain
The gay Aurora in the wavy main." ↑

Pope's Odyssey, b. 23, 1. 259.

2. The story of Phaeton is connected with this event by Ovid, in language which could hardly have been closer or more decisive :

"Nam pater obductos, luctu miserabilis

ægro, Condiderat vultus; et, si modo credimus,

unum

Isse diem sine sole ferunt."

Ovid, Met. b. 2, 1. 329.

This is precisely the result which the miracle would have produced under the meridian of Italy. The poet speaks as if some such tradition existed in that country.

3. Proceeding farther westward, it would have been night, or nearly so, in America. Supposing it to have been four a. m. in Palestine, it would have been about eight at night in Florida. The inhabitants of that country relate, that on one occasion the sun ceased to appear for a whole day. They add, that his disappearance caused an inundation of the great lake Theomi, which burst its bounds, and overflowed the adjacent lands for twenty-four hours; after which the sun re-appeared in all his brightness, his warmth exhaled the waters, and the earth returned to its The people consenatural state. quently regard that luminary as their preserver from a flood.§ This tradition coincides exactly with the theory of M. Chaubard, who considers that the temporary suspension of the mo

We must refer, once for all, to M. Chaubard's work, for every thing connected with the scientific part of the subject.

It is worthy of observation, that, when Homer meddles with the Sun, he adheres to fact, and prolongs, not the day, but the darkness. Thus, after the contest for the body of Patroclus, he makes the night approach sooner than usual, which may have been a common notion about this circumstance:

"Meantime, unwearied with his heavenly way,
In Ocean's waves th' unwilling Light of Day
Quench'd his red orb, at Juno's high command,
And from their labours eas'd the Achaian band."

Pope's Iliad, b. 18, 1. 283.

M. Chaubard places the occurrence of this phenomenon in the month of July, from a consideration of the preceding chapters.

§ Noël, Dictionnaire de la Fable, vol. II. art. SOLEIL.

tion of the earth must have occasioned a variety of partial inundations.

4. The same calculation will give five p. m. or thereabouts, to the island of Otaheite. Here a coincident tradition is found, which is mentioned by Mr. Ellis, in his Polynesian Researches, and which will best be related in his own words:

"One of the most singular of their traditions respecting the Sun deserves attention, from the slight analogy it bears to a fact recorded in Jewish history. It is related that Maui, an ancient priest or chief, was building a marac, or temple, which it was necessary to finish before the close of the day; but on perceiving the Sun was declining, and that it was likely to sink before the work was finished, he seized the Sun by his rays, bound them with a.cord to the marac, or an adjacent tree, and then prosecuted his work, the Sun remaining stationary till the marac was completed. I refrain from all comment on this singular tradition, which was almost universally received in the islands."-Vol. III. p. 170.

The devoted author of these interesting volumes, was not aware of the value of the tradition which he has recorded. By relating it, he has supplied an important link in the chain, although, taking the story singly, he discerned only a "slight analogy." Where there are two traditions on the same subject, it may be inferred, that they are not mere fables, but have their origin in fact, however that fact may have been clouded or disguised. Thus we find the same tradition in these islands repeated with a change of circumstances:

"The island of Oahu is said to have

been peopled by Maui and his wife, who came hither in a boat. . . . One day, his wife being busily employed in making cloth, the materials extended so much, that she had not time to finish it before night, whereupon Maui laid his hand upon the Sun, and held it from going down till the work was completed."-Journal of Messrs. Bennet and Tyerman, edited by James Montgomery, vol. I. p. 433.

The same story, as Mr. Ellis has related, about the temple, occurs with some slight variations, in this work,

vol. II. p. 41. It is there told of Maui, the same personage, who is styled "a man-god." This narrative adds, that "ever since, the Sun's course has been slower than formerly." This curious statement affords room for a deal of speculation; but at all events, it shows how fully the story is believed in those islands, and how deeply seated the belief of it is in the people's minds.

5. In China the time will be about nine a. m. Here it is said, that in time of the Emperor Yao, the Sun did not set for ten days, and that consequently the Chinese were afraid of a general conflagration. This event, as was natural, has been claimed for very different hypotheses, and Parkhurst is inclined to refer it to the later phenomenon in the age of Hezekiah. But what is singular is, that it is connected with a partial inundation, which happened in the same reign, as M. Chaubard's theory would require. What is intended by the ten days is not quite clear; Parkhurst refers them to the ten degrees of the dial of King Ahaz; others suppose that as many hours of additional light in Joshua's case are meant. But whoever allows the later event to have taken place, on the strength of Chinese history, cannot reasonably object to the earlier one. As for the dread of a general conflagration, it probably arose from the sensation of heat, occasioned by the stationary position of the Sun at that time of the day.*

6. In Hindostan, where the time will be between six and seven a. m., we find a mythological story which supplies the necessary link in the chain. Rama, the Indian Hercules, being anxious to heal the wound of his brother Lakschman, is informed by the deities, that it can only be cured by the application of certain herbs, which must be gathered on a particular mountain before sun-rise. The mountain is distant, and night draws on. Hanuman, the messenger of Rama, sets out on his errand, when Ravan, the king of the giants, and Rama's mortal enemy, commands the

Ancient Universal History, 8vo edit. vol. XVIII. p. 104, compared with Kæmpfer's History of Japan, vol. I. p. 147. As it is impossible to reconcile the Chinese chronology in this instance with that of Scripture, we must profess ur general principle plainly, which is, to be guided by fact, whatever discrepancies exist in other respects.

« ՆախորդըՇարունակել »