the fancy of a sick man, knowing, as he did, the dainty quality of his daughter's cakes. So Tamar came, and prepared the cakes there in his presence, which she might easily do, according to more than one of the existing modes of baking cakes in the East; and, proud of her skill, and gratified by the compliment which his demand had paid to it, she took them to him. Greatly was she shocked to find that he not only refused to eat, but pressed her to sin; and notwithstanding her abhorrence, her resistance, and her declared belief that David would not refuse to bestow her on him, he accomplished her ruin. It seems probable that he had been carried by the rage of his guilty passion beyond his first intention, and now that the wretched act was accomplished, all the terrible consequences—the sin, the danger-rushed upon his mind, and all his love was in one moment turned to hate of the innocent object, whose fatal beauty had been the instrument of drawing this sin upon his soul. He spurned her from his house, and she hurried through the streets in tears, with her robe rent and ashes upon her head, to the house of her brother Absalom. It is said that the rent robe was 'of divers colours; for with such robes were the king's daughters that were virgins apparelled;' in which case her rending the robe which was the distinction of the king's virgin daughters, had a meaning beyond the mere ordinary significance of mourning. It also reminds us of the precious coat of many colours with which Jacob invested his favourite son; and the present instance enables us to discern that dresses of variegated patterns were still costly and distinctive, and had not yet come into general use. When Absalom saw this robe rent, he at once understood what had happened; and his manner of receiving it is conformable to the character this young man finally discloses, rather than that which might have been expected from his position and spirit. He told Tamar to rest quiet-to remember that Amnon was their brother, and not needlessly proclaim abroad his crime and her own dishonour. He took her, however, to his own house thenceforth, and there she remained secluded and desolate.

The king, when he heard of this thing, was 'very wroth;'

VOL. III.

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and yet he did nothing. He saw that he had begun to reap

evils threatened by the How could he, who had

the harvest he had sown, and the prophet were coming fast upon him. himself sinned so deeply, call his son to account for his misconduct? and with what an awful retort, drawn from the example he had set to his children, might not his rebuke be met? Being also passionately fond of his children, to a degree of infatuation which rendered him unable to punish their offences, or even to find fault with them, he was content to let the matter pass, the rather as Absalom, whose honour it touched so nearly, seemed to take no notice of it. Of him it is said that 'he spoke not a word to Amnon, neither good nor bad.' He hated' him for the wrong he had done to his sister; but he was too proud to 'speak good' to one who had brought this dishonour to him, and too wary to put Amnon on his guard by expressing the hatred he nourished in his heart. He intended to make his revenge effectual, and to use it for clearing his way to the throne. We cannot but think that he had already taken up the design upon the kingdom, which he eventually carried out; and that as Amnon was his elder brother, and the heir-apparent, he meant to use his private wrong as the excuse for removing so serious an obstacle from his path. But to this end it was necessary that the king as well as Amnon should be lulled into the conviction that he had no thoughts of revenge, and that the matter had gone from his mind. Yet two years passed before he felt it prudent to show any civility to Amnon; but then the occasion of holding a great sheep-shearing feast on his estate, eight miles off at Baal-hazor, enabled him to accomplish his object. He first invited the king with his court to attend, which his father declined, on the ground that he was not willing to subject him to so heavy an expense. This he expected: he was then able to intimate his wish, that since the king himself could not go, his eldest son Amnon might represent him, and with the other sons of the king grace the feast. Unwilling to mortify him, and hoping this might bring about a perfect reconcilement between the brothers, David consented, though not without some misgivings.

Great was the feast; and it was in the very height of the enjoyment, when Amnon's heart was merry with wine,' that Absalom gave the preconcerted order to his servants, who immediately assailed the heir of the kingdom, and slew him with many wounds. On this the other sons of the king hastened to their mules, and hurried in great affright to Jerusalem. Absalom also fled, but it was to his maternal grandfather, the king of Geshur, who was more likely to praise than to blame the deed he had committed.

We may note here, that this is the first undisputed mention of mules in Scripture-the instance in Genesis xxxvi. 24 being of doubtful interpretation. We here find them in use at the same time that horses also begin to be named among this people. It appears that in this age, while a few horses were kept for state, mules were employed for riding by persons of distinction, both in peace and war. The ass, however, continued to maintain a respectable position, and never wholly gave place either to the mule or the horse. At this time the taste seems to have been decidedly for mules. Eventually we find Absalom possessed of chariots drawn by horses, but he was mounted upon a mule in the great action which he fought with his father for the crown; and it transpires still later that the king himself had a mule known to be his--a mule of state, which he rode on high occasions. The combination in the mule of the useful qualities of both the horse and the ass-its strength, activity, steadiness, and power of endurance-are characteristics of peculiar value in the East; and therefore, although the Jews were interdicted from the breeding of mules, they did not find it convenient to consider that the use of them was forbidden.

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David's declining to attend Absalom's feast on account of the expense which would thus be occasioned to his son, is the first instance history offers of the ruinous cost of royal visits to those who are honoured with them. A comparatively modern instance of this has just met our view in a useful periodical. It is stated that the decay of the Hoghton family is locally 2 Notes and Queries for October 19, 1850.

1

I Kings i. 33.

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ascribed to the visit of King James I. to Hoghton Tower, near Blackburn, Lancashire-the following characteristic anecdote being cited in corroboration of the current opinion :—' During one of his hunting excursions, the king is said to have left his attendants for a short time, in order to examine a numerous herd of horned cattle, then grazing in what are now termed the Bullock Pastures, most of which had probably been provided for the occasion. A day or two afterward, being hunting in the same locality, he made inquiry respecting the cattle, and was told, in no good-humoured way, by a herdsman unacquainted with his person, that they were all gone to feast the beastly king and his gluttonous company. "By my saul," exclaimed the king, as he left the herdsman, "then 'tis e'en time for me to gang too;" and accordingly, on the following morning, he set out for Lathom House.'

Absalom's mother was a native of Geshur, a sister of the king. The position of the little principality of Geshur is clearly, though incidentally, indicated in Scripture. It lay within the kingdom of Bashan and province of Argob, and at the northern extremity of both. It was independent of Og; and the Israelites did not conquer it, though its people submitted so far as to pay tribute. This may account for the fact, that while Geshur was geographically within Bashan, politically it was reckoned to Aram. The region embraced a considerable portion of that wild labyrinth of rocks and ravines called Lejâh. The people appear to have been as wild as the country they inhabited; and probably much of the reckless daring and unnatural rebellion of Absalom was owing to his maternal training. When an exile from his father's court and kingdom, on account of the murder of his half-brother, he found a home and an asylum with his kinsmen amid the fastnesses of Geshur. It is a remarkable fact that, to this day, the Lejâh forms the asylum for every outlaw in Syria.

Thirty-eighth Week-Seventh Day.

ABSALOM'S HAIR.-2 SAMUEL XIV.

His remarkable beauty,

ABSALOM was David's favourite son. his engaging manners, and the rank of his maternal connections, must have contributed to this. But it is also true that the peculiarly affectionate temperament of David rendered him incapable of fully enjoying life, without some special object on whom to bestow the utmost tenderness of his love. Hence we always find some one in the enjoyment of his special favour and regard throughout his whole career. It is now Absalom. Three long years the king endured his absence, and during that time his grief for the loss of Amnon was assuaged, and his horror in the remembrance of Absalom's crime became less keen. He longed to have the young man. back, but on many grounds feared to call him home. Joab discerned the struggle in the king's mind; and although he seems himself to have had no liking for Absalom, he devised the means of impressing upon the king, that he might gratify his own wishes without giving offence to public opinion, which he seems to have much dreaded. He employed a clever woman of Tekoah to appear as a mourner before the king, and tell him a fictitious tale of distress, well calculated to awaken in him the feelings of paternal affection towards his absent son. The application of the recital which she made was less striking than that of Nathan's parable, but it ended by imploring David to fetch home his banished.' The king began to perceive that Joab was at the bottom of this matter, and glad to have the sanction, thus delicately conveyed, of that rough but influential soldier, he authorized him to go to Geshur and bring Absalom home.

If the reader looks through the chapter which records these transactions, he will perceive in this cautious mode of proceeding, in the manner of the woman, and in that of Joab himself, that the kingdom was, even in the hands of David, assuming much of the character of an eastern despotism, notwithstanding