ESSAY XI.

DEATH of ABRAHAM.

PASSAGE.

THEN ABRAHAM

GAVE UP THE GHOST,

AND DIED IN A GOOD OLD AGE, AN OLD MAN AND FULL OF YEARS, AND WAS GATHERED TO HIS PEOPLE.

THERE is a most beautiful iteration in these words, which give us the fenfe they are intended to exhibit, with aftonishing propriety. The venerable patriarch is, as it were, placed before us in his coffin, with the fmile of fatisfaction

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faction fettled upon his features.. He died in a good old age, an, old man, and full of years. We have here one of the few inftances wherein tautology is delightful, especially where the famenefs of the fenfe is relieved by variety in the expreffion but even the fenfe itself is extremely copious and fuil. He died in a good old age, an old man, and full of years: i. e.. as if the writer had faid, after having paffed an hundred and threefcore and fifteen years in a ftate of virtue and obedience; in the whole courfe of which, coufcience could find nothing to reproach him, but the memory delighted.

lighted to contemplate the purity of the past, then perceiving the gentle approaches of diffolution, he laid himself down on the bed of refignation, and, equally calm and contented, departed from this world: to the next, as in the ferenity of flumber. None of thofe frightful appearances, or dolorous founds were, we may fuppofe, near his pil-low, which, even in death, was fmoothed by piety, and the gloomy apartment illumed by the chearful radiance of reflection. The laft hour, in fuch cafes, lofes its horFor no greedy heir was watching and wishing the flight of his foul;: no interested relations were com

puting the time when Fate would afford the opportunity to plunder and to pillage. Haply, Ifaac only was prefent, and the tears which be shed were the irrefiftible drops of nature, flowing from the filial heart: the reft was all compofure; for he died in peace, and was gathered to his people; which, by the bye, is an exquifite phrase, fignifying, he was buried with his ancestors (at least with her to whom, when living he was united) in the field of Ephron. There is, indeed, much beauty in the chapter wherein the particular circumstances attending the purchase of this field is related, and we cannot

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