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WHEN Saul had now added perjury to his other evil devices, his confcience became feared, and his defigns defperate. David had escaped to his houfe, but Saul's guards quickly pursued him thither, with expreís orders from their mafter, to incompass it for that night, fo as he should not escape, and to flay him in the morning.

AND here is the first inftance of infatuation upon his wicked counfels. If David was to be destroyed, why not that very night? To what purpose to defer it, unless to give David fome better chance for escaping? Which accordingly came to pafs; for Michal, anxious for her husband's fafety, and more fufpicious of danger, as by nature more timorous, either obferved or had fome intimation of the affaffins that incompaffed the house, and immediately urged her husband to make his escape that inftant; and to effect it the better, fhe let him down through a window; and he fled, and was delivered.

THIS done, her next care was, how to delude his murderers, and, by that means, delay their pursuit. She dreffed up an image, cover'd it with a cloth, and laid it upon a pillow of goats hair, as the text is commonly

under

understood; or rather, fet off the head of it with goat's hair refembling her husband's * : and when the affaffins entered to fecure and to flay David, she told them he was fick, and fhewed him to them, as they thought, ftretched upon his bed.

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THIS device put them to a stand. David was fick; and, poffibly, Saul would rather wait the chance of feeing him carried off by a natural death, than embrue his hands in the blood of his benefactor. Murder is, I believe, a hateful office to the basest spirit; but it is dreadful to the brave. And tho' it be natural to think the worst, of men employed in fuch offices; yet it is obvious to imagine, that they were well enough pleased to have the matter remitted to their mafter, and to wait for new orders upon an affair of fo much importance, and fuch difficult determination.

THEY did fo; and were foon remanded, with express orders, to bring David in his bed, fick as he was, to Saul, that he might have the cruel fatisfaction of flaying him with his own hands.

The oriental goat is distinguished by the most shining and filky hair in the world.

WHEN

WHEN they returned upon this errand, they foon discovered the cheat that Michal had put upon them, and found the image inftead of David.

THE bloodinefs of Saul's intention makes it eafy to conjecture the fury of his refentment, upon the disappointment of his horrid purpofe; he expoftulated with Michal upon the deceit put upon her father, and the escape contrived for his enemy: both which The excufed by another artifice; pleading neceffity, and the imminent danger of her life, if the declined lending David her affiftance.

MICHAL is obferved by criticks to have nothing virtuous or valuable in her character *, except this inftance of conjugal fidelity and affection; and yet even this is very much obfcured by that grofs falfhood, which, to disguise it to her father, difgraced her husband. How much nobler and more amiable was that honeft veracity of the wife of Polyxenus, who being reproached by her brother Dionyfius, the Sicilian Tyrant, for

*She is fuppofed by fome to have been an idolatrefs, by the Teraphim, which deceived Saul's meffengers; and The after reproached her husband with his dancing in honour of God.

being

being conscious to her husband's flight without discovering it, tho' the knew he was accused of treafon against him; asked the tyrant, Whether he could think her fo degenerate, as to know of her husband's flight, without sharing all the danger of it with him?

upon

HOWEVER, this conduct of Michal fuggefts a fair occafion of reflecting once more the infatuation of Saul's counsels : that very daughter which he gave to David as a bait and a fnare, is now made the fure and only means of his preservation.

CHAP. IX.

A Conjecture concerning the Circumftances of this Efcape, grounded on the xviiith Pfalm; fubmitted to the candid Reader. The Tempeft defcribed in this Pfalm, compared with that of Virgil in the first Georgic.

TH

HE indulgent reader will, I hope, allow me, at least, pardon me in a conjecture, that a confiderable part of the

xviiith

xviiith Pfalm may refer to the escape recounted in the last chapter : I mean, from the 1ft to the 29th verfe inclufive.

THAT the 29th verse refers to this escape, can, I think, be no permanent doubt with any man that compares it with the foregoing history: By thee I have run through a troop, and by my God have I leaped over a wall.

WHEN Michal let David down thro' a window, (suppose it a back-window, as, in all probability, it was) and suppose a backwall to be leaped over, he was still in a city; and there was no poffibility of escaping without leaping over the city-wall, as well as flipping thro' the city-watch: he never was under the fame neceffity at any other time, that we know of; and therefore this verse must have reference to this time.

THIS then may, I think, be numbred among what the mathematicians call data; that is, confeffed and granted truths: And, for

my part, I can fee no reason why a fair, candid hiftorian fhould not be allowed the liberty indulged to mathematicians, to deduce from one confeffed truth, fuch confequences and discoveries as naturally arise from thence. Since then the latter part of this verse plainly G refers

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