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A great farming land proprietor or elder was probably among the Israelites much the same as a Saxon franklin.

“A franklin was in the compagnie,

White was his berd as is the dayesie.

A householder, and that a grete, was he,

Saint Julian, he was in his contree."--Chaucer.

And there were, without doubt, smaller proprietary farmers, like our ancient yeomen; each the elder of his own city or village. It is manifest that they were surrounded by their dependants and serfs, predial and domestic.

A graphic description is given (1 Sam. xxv.) of one of their wealthy nobles, Nabal, surrounded by his people at his sheep shearing. A man of Maon, whose possessions were in Carmel"And the man was very great, and he had three thousand sheep and one thousand goats, and he was of the house of Caleb"- -a noble house.

The legends inform us of other Hebrew franklins, of Micah, whose father had saved 1,100 shekels of silver, less than 1,100 half-crowns, in such times a considerable sum. This wealth, acquired perhaps from traffic with the caravans, his mother had dedicated to Adoni, to make a graven image and a molten image (which cost less than 200 half-crowns), and to provide an ephod and teraphim, and house of gods:-and also of Joash, the father of Gideon, who had built an altar to Baal at Ophrah and had some bullocks, and whose son was so great as to become the chieftain of the northern clans.

Yet we are not informed that either of them had three thousand sheep and one thousand goats, or any such approximation to Nabal Ben Caleb's surpassing wealth. Perhaps, however, there are to be found in Wales tenant farmers possessing as large a flock of sheep. We read of Saul in quest of his father's stray as es, just before, and driving his herd out of the field after he was appointed king. David was tending the flocks of Jesse when anointed, and to that occupation he returned after the oil had been poured on his head by Samuel out of the horn, perhaps the vial out of which he had poured the oil on the head of Saul. There is no indication of the Hebrews, of that time at least, having had a bottle or any other utensil of glass.

Moreover, after David had become king of the united Hebrews, and Solomon in all his glory had succeeded, and from that time.

VOL. I.

G

downwards, the wealth of the kings consisted in their flocks of sheep and herds of goats, a number of asses (the only useful beasts for riding or for burthen in that mountainous country), some oxen, some tracts of corn land, some vineyards and olive-yards and, perhaps, mulberry trees. The silkworms were not then in the country, so that the large mulberry plantations of the present day were not wanted for the production of silk.

The consideration of the religion, arts, and literature, of these peoples may be usefully deferred, until we are better prepared, by the stories of the legendary period, for the investigation.

CHAPTER V.

TRADITIONS, LEGENDS, AND STORIES OF THE PALAIC ERA.

"Wilt not thou (king of Ammon) possess that which Chemosh thy god giveth thee to possess? So, whomsoever Adoni our god shall drive out from before us, them will we possess."-Judges xi. 24.

"And they observe the good old law,

Pursue the ancient plan;

That they shall take, who have the power,

And they shall keep who can."

"the right

SUCH has ever been the law of the invader, sanctified as of conquest," the gift of El Sabaoth, the god of war. The law of Attila, "the scourge of god," of Zenghis, Alexander, Cæsar, and of Hengist and Horsa, of the Ammonites, the Midianites, the Moabites, the Edomites, and the Philistines, the Arabs, and the buccaneers was the same.

Legends, stories, and traditions.—It is difficult to draw any definite line between a legend and a story. But, perhaps, a legend may be distinguished as an ancient traditional tale, generally comprised in, or derived from, a rhythm or song, originally confided to memory; and a story, as a narrative composed with greater art. Traditions are for the most part preserved in legendary lore.

Stories often have their foundation in legends; but, in that case, they are generally modified or expanded to suit the story-teller's time.

The histories of many nations, or rather the earliest traces or indications of their history, begin in legends.

The proportion of fact to fiction is generally very small; the prowess of the chieftain, and his delighted companions, is enhanced by fabulous numbers of the foe. The hero is a Rustam, his enemies are legions of demons, put to flight. The sun stands still in admiration of his prowess, to light him to the slaughter, and the hosts

of heaven fight in his cause. No metaphor is too extravagant for the entranced poet; no adulation or exaggeration shocks an audience delighted with its own glory and praise. The extravagant is mistaken for the sublime.

Yet some event, important to the region, is the origin of the well remembered legend; and has become traditional in the song, however much obscured by fiction; and habits and manners are so truly exhibited, as to constitute modified historical truth. The Iliad and Odyssey would to this extent be historical, even if it were proved that Ulysses never existed, and that Troy was never besieged.

Judges and Joshua are examples of the suggested distinction between legend and story. In Judges the features of the original legend are better preserved; although manifestly modified, and set in a frame-work of the compiler's manufacture. In Joshua the legends are wrought into stories, in which almost all the features of the original are lost, or so mutilated as to be hardly recognizable. The original collection of legends comprised in Judges was probably one of the earliest Hebrew compilations deserving the name of a book. It was probably compiled from legends originally in songs or some rhythmical form; and each legend was probably very generally sung or recited in the locality of its hero. Successive editions or recensions have manifestly varied each and every of them. And that which we possess is interpolated with Adonite notions from which the original was probably free. The introductory matter as to the condition of the country, and the introduction to each of the legends are, as in similar collections ancient and modern, the compositions of the collector. Yet distinct traces of the original simplicity are generally preserved.

The compilation which we possess could not have been made earlier than B.C. 721, as it mentions the priesthood of Jonathan and his descendants, in the idolatrous temple of Dan, as having continued to the day of the captivity of the land (Jud. xviii. 31); apparently referring to the conquest of Samaria by the Assyrians.

A collection called the book of Jasher was probably made at about the same time as, or a short time before, the collection of Judges.

As Jasher is cited in Joshua (x. 13), Joshua must have been written after Jasher; and as Jasher is cited in Samuel (2, i. 18) as to an act of David, Jasher could not have been written before his reign.

Jasher probably contained legends of the invasion of Palestine, across the Jordan, from which the stories in Joshua have been derived. If so, probably the compiler of Judges took up the collection of subsequent legends, by way of continuation of Jasher.

Joshua is manifestly a compilation of a subsequent time, and intended as a supplement to the exode.

Consequently, it exaggerates every legend which it adopts, and hurries on to the conquest and distribution of the land, which was promised to the Hebrews by the compilers of the pentateuch, after the Babylonian had taken from them all they had ever possessed.

Nevertheless, the traces of original legend in the stories of the capture of Jericho and of Ai are not utterly effaced. And to a poetical legend unquestionably belonged the bold figure of the sun standing still, and the god hurling stones from heaven upon the foe.

The stories in Genesis of the descent of the Moabites and Ammonites from the daughters of Lot, a descendant from Heber, the story of Ishmael descended from Abraham, the story of Midian and other races descended from Abraham by Ketturah, and the story of Esau the elder brother of Jacob settling in Mount Seir, were probably founded on vague traditions and legends of the immigration, at a remote time, of Hebrew hordes across the Euphrates, to which allusion has already been made.

The Settlement East of Jordan.-The stories in Numbers and Deuteronomy of the wars against Og king of Bashan, Sihon king of the Amorites, of Heshbon, the Midianites, the invasion of Moab, and the settlement of Manasseh, Gad and Reuben in Gilead, were not improbably fabricated out of traditions and legends of the early conquests of the Hebrews, although their simpler character is lost in the process.

The authority referred to in Numbers xxi. 14, as "The book of the wars of Adoni, what he did in the Red sea, and in the brooks of Arnon," was of course anterior to Numbers in which it is cited, and was not improbably the same as the book of Jasher.

The fictitious allotments of the country east of Jordan.-Numb. xxxii. 33. And Moses gave unto them, even to the Bene Gad, and the Bene Reuben, and the half tribe of Manasseh son of Joseph, the kingdom of Sihon king of the Amorites, and the kingdom of Og king of Bashan, the land with the cities thereof in the coasts, even the cities of the country round about.

34. And the Bene Gad built Dibon, and Ataroth, and Aroer, and

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