Page images
PDF
EPUB

the daughters of Cohu had their minds wholly fet upon riches; for which reafon the beautiful Hilpa preferred Harpath to Shalum, because of his numerous flocks and herds, that covered all the low country which runs along the foot of Mount Tirzah, and is watered by several fountains and streams breaking out of the fides of that mountain.

Harpath made fo quick a dispatch of his courtfhip, that he married Hilpa in the hundredth year of her age, and being of an infolent temper, laughed to fcorn his brother Shalum for having pretended to the beautiful Hilpa, when he was master of nothing but a long chain of rocks and mountains. This fo much provoked Shalum, that he is faid to have curfed his brother in the bitterness of his heart, and to have prayed that one of his mountains might fall upon his head, if ever he came within the fhadow of it.

[ocr errors]

From this time forward Harpath would never venture out of the valleys, but came to an untimely end in the 250th year of his age, being drowned in a river as he attempted to crofs it. This river is called to this day, from his name who perifhed in it, the river Harpath, and, what is very remarkable, iffues out of one of those mountains which Shalum wifhed might fall upon his brother, when he curfed him in the bitterness of his heart.

Hilpa was in the 160th year of her age at the death of her husband, having brought him but 50 children before he was fnatched away, as has been already related. Many of the antediluvians. made love to the young widow, though no one was thought fo likely to fucceed in her affections as her first lover Shalum, who renewed his court to her about ten years after the death of Harpath; for it was not thought decent in thofe days that a widow should be seen by a man within ten years after the deceafe of her husband.

Shalum falling into a deep melancholy, and re

folving

folving to take away that objection which had been raised against him when he made his first addreffes to Hilpa, began immediately after her marriage with Harpath, to plant all that mountainous region which fell to his lot in the division of this country. He knew how to adapt every plant to its proper foil, and is thought to have inherited many traditional fecrets of that art from the first man. This employment turned at length to his profit as well as to his amusement: His mountains were in a few years fhaded with young trees, that gradually fhot up into groves, woods, and forefts, intermixed with walks and lawns, and gardens; infomuch that the whole region, from a naked and defolate profpect, began now to look like a fecond paradife. The pleafantnefs of the place, and the agreeable difpofition of Shalum, who was reckoned one of the mildest and wifeft of all who lived before the flood, drew into it multitudes of people, who were perpetually employed in the finking of wells, the digging of trenches, and the hollowing of trees, for the better diftribution of water through every part of this fpacious plantation.

The habitations of Shalum looked every year more beautiful in the eyes of Hilpa, who, after the fpace of 70 autumns, was wonderfully pleafed with the diftant profpect of Shalum's hills, which were then covered with innumerable tufts of trees, and gloomy fcenes, that gave a magnificence to the place, and converted it into one of the fineft landscapes the eye of man could behokl.

The Chinese record a letter which Shalum is faid have written to Hilpa, in the eleventh year of her widowhood. I fhall here tranflate it, without de parting from that noble fimplicity of fentiments and plainnefs of manners which appears in the original.

Shalum was at this time 180 years old, and Hilpa, 170,

L

JHS

Shalum

Shalum, Mafter of mount Tirzah, to Hilpa, Mif trefs of the Valleys.

In the 788th year of the Creation. WHAT have I not fuffered, O thou daughter of Zilpah, fince thou gavest thyself away in marriage to my rival? I grew weary of the light of the fun, and have ever fince been covering myself with woods and forefts. These threefcore and ten years have I bewailed the lofs of thee on the tops of mount Tirzah, and foothed my melan-choly among a thoufand gloomy fhades of my own raifing. My dwellings are at prefent as the garden of God; every part of them is filled with fruits and flowers, and fountains. The whole mountain is perfumed for thy reception. Come: up into it, O my beloved, and let us people this fpot of the new world with a beautiful race of mortals; let us multiply exceedingly among thefe delightful fhades, and fill every quarter of them with fons and daughters. Remember, O thou daughter of Zilpah, that the age of man is but a thousand years; that beauty is the admira⚫tion but of a few centuries. It flourishes as a mountain oak, or as a cedar on the top of Tirzah,. ' which in three or four hundred years will fade away, and never be thought of by posterity, unlefs a young wood fprings from its roots. Think well on this, and remember thy neighbour in the mountains."

[ocr errors]

Having here inferted this letter, which I look up. on as the only antediluvian Billet-doux now extant, I fhall in my next paper give the answer to it, and the fequel of this ftory.

WEDNESDAY,

**********************

N° 585. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 25.

Ipfi lætitia voces ad fidera jantant
Intonfi montes: ipfæ jam carmina rupes,
Ipfa fonant arbufta-

VIRG. Ecl. v. ver. 63.

The mountain tops unfhorn, the rocks rejoice; The lowly fhrubs partake of human voice..

DRYDEN.

The fequel of the ftory of Shalum and Hilpa.

THE

HE letter inferted in my laft had fo good an effect upon Hilpa, that the answered it in lefs than a twelvemonth, after the following man

ner.

Hilpa, Miftrefs of the Valleys, to Shalum, Master of Mount Tirzah.

In the 789th year of the creation. WHAT have I to do with thee, O Shalum? Thou praifeft Hilpa's beauty, but art thou not fecretly enamoured with the verdure of her meadows? Art thou not more affected with the profpect of her green valleys, than thou wouldest be with the fight of her perfon? The lowings of my herds, and the bleatings of my ftocks, make a pleafant echo in thy mountains, and found fweetly in thy ears. What though I am delighted with the wavings of thy forests, and thofe breezes of perfumes which flow from the top of Tirzah: Are thefe like the riches of the • valley?

[ocr errors]

'I know thee, O Shalum; thou art more wife * and happy than any of the fons of men. Thy dwellings are among the cedars; thou searcheft

·

out

[ocr errors]

out the diverfity of foils, thou understandeft the • influences of the stars, and markeft the change of · feafons. Can a woman appear lovely in the eyes of fuch a one? Difquiet me not, Ó Shalum, let me alone, that I may enjoy thofe goodly poffeffions which are fallen to my lot. Win me not by thy enticing words. May thy trees increase and multiply; mayeft thou add wood to • wood, and fhade to fhade; but tempt not Hilpa to deftroy thy folitude, and make thy retirement populous.

The Chinese fay, that a little time afterwards fhe accepted of a treat in one of the neighbouring hills to which Shalum had invited her. This treat lafted for two years, and is faid to have cost Shalum five hundred antelopes, two thoufand oftriches, and a thousand tun of milk; but what most of all recommended it, was that variety of delicious fruits and pot-herbs, in which no perfon then living could any way equal Shalum.

He treated her in the bower which he had planted amidft the wood of nightingales. This wood was made up of fuch fruit-trees and plants as are moft agreeable to the feveral kinds of fingingbirds; fo that it had drawn into it all the mufick of the country, and was filled from one end of the year to the other with the moft agreeable confort in feafon.

He fhewed her every day fome beautiful and furprising scene in this new region of wood-lands; and as by this means he had all the opportunities he could wifh for of opening his mind to her, he fucceeded fo well, that upon her departure fhe made him a kind of promife, and gave him her word to return him a pofitive anfwer in lefs than fifty years.

She had not been long among her own people in the valleys, when the received new overtures, and at the fame time a moft fplendid vifit from Mih

pach,

« PreviousContinue »