the harvest home, or hawkey, was a season of great rejoicing with the Israelites, as it is with us. In "the burden of Moab" it is said, "I will water thee with my tears, O Heshbon, and Elealeh: for the shouting for thy summer fruits, and for thy harvest is fallen. And gladness is taken away, and joy out of the plentiful field, and in the vineyards there shall be no singing, neither shall there be shouting: the treader shall tread out no wine in their presses; I have made their vintage shouting to cease." (Isa. xvi. 9, 10.) The joy of the Israelites on their return from the captivity in Babylon, is compared to this season of festivity: "When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like them that dream. Then was our mouth filled with laughter, and our tongue with singing: then said they among the heathen, The Lord hath done great things for them. The Lord hath done great things for us, whereof we are glad. Turn again our captivity, O Lord, as the streams in the south. They that sow in tears, shall reap in joy. He that goeth forth and weepeth, bearing precious seed, shall doubtless come again with rejoicing, bringing his sheaves with him." (Psa. cxxvi.) Nay, the joy which was to take place at the advent of the Messiah, for want of a more forcible comparison, is likened to the same season of rejoicing: "They joy before thee, according to the joy in harvest, and as men rejoice when they divide the spoil." (Isa. ix. 3.) And it is not a little remarkable, that the acclamation which was made when the Messiah entered his own city, when “ a very great multitude spread their garments in the way," and "others cut down branches from the trees, and strewed them in the way; and the multitudes that went before, and that followed, cried, saying, Hosanna to the son of David: blessed is he that cometh in the name of the Lord: Hosanna in the highest," (Matt. xxi. 8, 9.) is the very same that is used by our harvest people to express their joy, Huzza! Huzza! for that it is a corruption, or shortening, of Hosanna, there can be no doubt and, if uttered with proper sentiments of gratitude and piety, and a proper application, may be fitly used, as "Save, Lord, we beseech thee," our perishing bodies with this "meat which perisheth," and our souls with that bread "which endureth unto everlasting life, which the Son of man shall give unto us." (John, vi. 27-35.) The Scripture gives us no account of the harvest feast, whether it were dinner, or supper; but, if we may judge from the sheep-shearings of Nabal and of Absalom, (1 Sam. xxv. 36. and 2 Sam. xiii. 28.) they were too often, like ours, abused by riot and drunken

ness. Joy and feasting are allowable, but they are to be regulated by the fear of God.

The corn being cut, and carried in waggons or carts, (Numb. vii. 3-8. Isa. v. 18. xxviii. 27, 28. Amos, ii. 13.). was either laid up in stacks (Exod. xxii. 6.) or barns (Matt. vi. 26. xiii. 30. Luke, xii. 18, 24.) and, when threshed out, stored in granaries, or garners, (Psa. cxliv. 13. Matt. iii. 12.) David had" storehouses in the fields, in the cities, and in the villages, and in the castles." (1 Chron. xxvii. 25.)

The most usual method of separating the corn from the straw and husk, seems to have been by an ox treading it; when, most probably, it was laid upon the threshing-floor, and the ox was driven round and round upon it; in which operation the all-bountiful Creator interfered, and expressly ordered, that the ox was not to suffer hunger while surrounded by, and contributing to plenty, and was not to be muzzled, but allowed to eat. (Deut. xxv. 4. 1 Cor. ix. 9. 1 Tim. v. 18.) We are told that "Gideon threshed wheat," (Judges, vi. 11.) as if he had been alone, and threshing with a flail, like our threshers. We are likewise told, that at the plague, on account of David's numbering the people, "Ornan," or Araunah the Jebusite, "was threshing wheat." (1 Chron. xxi. 20.) But we learn also, that he had "four sons with him," and there were "oxen and ، threshing instruments," with the wood of which a fire was made, and the oxen were offered in sacrifice on the occasion. (23-26.) From a passage in Isaiah (xxviii.27, 28.) it should seem that corn was sometimes threshed by drawing wheels over it, and by horses treading it out; and that the process of bruising or grinding was carried on after the threshing: "The fitches are not threshed with a threshing instrument, neither is a cart wheel turned about upon the cummin; but the fitches are beaten out with a staff, and the cummin with a rod. Bread corn is bruised, because he will not ever be threshing it, nor break it with the wheel of his cart, nor bruise it with his horsemen." In Isaiah, xli. 15. we hear of " a new sharp threshing instrument having teeth;" and in Amos, i. 3. of "threshing instruments of iron,"" that is," says Orton, planks with iron teeth, which were drawn over the corn." The common mode of dressing corn seems to have been by winnowing, that is, by making wind to pass over it, or through it, to separate the lighter parts, or chaff, from the grain. Perhaps this term was derived originally from windowing, or letting the wind in upon the corn from a window; and, where this was not strong enough to be effective, by making an artificial

current of air with a fan, or some other instrument. God says by Isaiah, "Thou shalt thresh the mountains, and beat them small, and shalt make the hills as chaff. Thou shalt fan them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the whirlwind shall scatter them." (xli. 15, 16.) Again, "I will fan them with a fan in the gates of the land." (Jerem. xv. 7.) It was said of Christ, by John the Baptist," His fan is in his hand, and he will thoroughly purge his floor, and gather his wheat into the garner; but he will burn up the chaff with unquenchable fire." (Matt. iii. 12. Luke, iii. Î7.) The fan, or winnowing machine, with us, called sometimes a gig, consists of a horizontal beam, or axle, on an upright frame, with four other horizontal beams at a distance from it, to which they are connected by a short perpendicular post at each end, this is called a gig-stock; on each of these four horizontal beams is fixed a piece of canvass, the whole length, and perhaps half a yard wide; and by turning these round with a winch on the axle, a strong wind is generated. The expression "whose fan is in his hand," may mean either some smaller instrument held in and worked by the hand, or this large instrument supported by a frame, and merely turned by the hand. The fan, with us, is a different thing. It is a large kind of semi-circular, and somewhat of a fan-shaped basket, perhaps five feet wide and three broad, deepest (about fourteen inches) in that part next the man who holds it, and growing shallower, till it gets to nothing on the opposite side. Corn is sometimes dressed in this, in small quantities, by resting the thick part on the knee, and by tossing it up repeatedly and quickly, which causes an air that carries off the lighter parts, and leaves the dressed grain behind. Wheat too is sometimes sifted, by supporting the edge of one side of a sieve on a high fork or stick, while the opposite side is held by a man; corn is put in, which the man sifts while another turns the winnowing machine. It is to some method of this kind, perhaps, that our Saviour alludes, when he says to Simon Peter," Behold, Satan hath desired to have you, that he may sift you as wheat," that is, subject you to the strictest scrutiny, to try whether you be really genuine heavy wheat, or only light chaff. In Isaiah, xxx. 24. a time of such plenty is promised, that "The oxen and the young asses that ear the ground shall eat clean provender, which hath been winnowed with the shovel and with the fan;" alluding, perhaps, to another mode which we still have of dressing corn, by throwing it with a shovel, with a sweep, or in a semi-circular manner, to a distance, when the lighter part falls short, the corn falls in

a heap; and, if there be any heavier particles, as dirt, &c. they roll beyond.

It is said, in the passage just quoted from Luke, iii. 17. that the chaff is burnt. On which Dr. Doddridge observes, "Howsoever it be certain that the word axupov in Greek authors does generally signify all that is left of the corn when the grain is separated, including the straw (see Raphel. Annot. ex Xen. in loc. and Gen. xxiv. 25-32, Septuag.), yet I apprehend that in this place it must be equivalent to xvous, and signify chaff, as distinguished from straw." But, as what we call chaff, or the husks of corn, is likewise useful food, or provender, for cattle-and Brown says, that "the Hebrews' provender seems to have been a mixture of chopped straw," which we also call chaff, " and barley, or of oats, beans, and pease, (Gen. xxiv. 25. Is. xxx. 24.)"-so, I should apprehend, that what was burnt was the rubbish, or seeds of weeds, which, if they had been put upon the muck heap, and carried again upon the land, would have vegetated, and multiplied the nuisance.

The corn, after it was thus dressed, was either bruised in a mortar, (2 Chron. ii. 10. Prov. xxvii. 22. Is. xxviii. 28.) a practice still used in Scotland in respect to barley to be put into soups, where you may often see at the door of a cottage a large square stone, with a semi-circular or conical hole in it, called a knocking stone- or else it was ground in a mill. Anciently," says Brown, (article grind,)" they had only hand-mills for grinding their meal: women and slaves, such as Samson was at Gaza, and the Hebrews at Babylon, and the Chaldeans under the Persians, were usually the grinders; and they performed their work in the morning, singing loud, and ground but what sufficed for that day: and it seems they sat behind the mill, (Matt. xxiv. 41. Judges, xvi. 21. Lam. v. 13. Isa. xlvii. 2.) None of the two millstones were ever to be taken in pledge, as the want thereof hindered from grinding the daily provision of the family, Deut. xxiv. 6. The Romans had their mills driven by asses or slaves. Nor is it much above 600 years since windmills were first brought from Asia into Europe. Both the millstones were hard, and it seems especially the nethermost, which was fixed; and so the heart of leviathan is likened to a piece of it, to represent his undaunted courage and obstinacy, Job, xli. 24. The ceasing of the sound of the millstones imported the place's being turned into a desolation, Jerem. xxv. 10. Rev. xviii. 22." The handmill, called also the quern, is probably used at this day in some of the Western Islands of Scotland, at

least it was when Mr. Tennant made his tour amongst them. In the account of that journey, he has given a print of the quern, with the "two women grinding at the mill," (Matt. xxiv. 41.) The mill consists of a bottom, or nether stone, fixed; the upper one has two handles or pegs on each side, which are held by the two hands of the women, who give it a sort of semi-rotatory motion, like the grinders in the human mouth. They are sometimes small enough to be worked by only one person. P.

On the Uses of Genuine Biography.

WHILE the Louvre remained, in all its unrivalled magnificence, enriched with the spoils of Europe, and decorated with whatever is beautiful in all the arts, won from time in all ages it was doubted whether the facility afforded the student, by the collection of these matchless works into one place, was not more than counterbalanced by circumstances inseparable from such an aggregation. The different styles of the several masters destroyed each other, as to the effect which each would have produced alone; or presented to the eye only a mass of splendid confusion. Pieces of great merit were eclipsed by the neighbourhood of others which surpassed them; and many a production, that would have commanded admiration had it been seen by itself, was neglected and overlooked when placed in competition with hundreds of master-pieces, each of which had received from the hand of time, and with the common consent of nations, the seal of immortality. The mind also was distracted with the unbounded variety, and wandered over the dazzling and lengthened profusion, not knowing where to fix, and unable to choose amidst the lavish display of rival genius. Even those works to which the palm of superiority had been unhesitatingly assigned, engaged only a superficial attention. When the meditation began to be absorbed by one, another solicited regard: and the intellectual appetite palled upon the exuberance of the feast provided for it. Nor was the variety without confusion, where all styles of execution and all subjects were mingled: the pleasure which would. have been felt, had each been contemplated apart from the rest, with all its varieties of time, place, and circumstances, was lost in the absence of all these; and as the elements,