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of rocks and mountains. This so much provoked Shalum, that he is faid to have cursed his brother in the bitterness of his heat, and to have prayed that one of his mountains might fall upon his head if ever he came within the shadow of it.

From this time forward Harpath would never venture out of the vallies, but came to an untimely end in the 205th year of his age, being drowned in a river as he attempted to cross it. This river is called to this day, from his name who perished in it, the river Harpath; and, what is very remarkable, issues out of one of those mountains which Shalum wished might fall upon his brother, when he cursed 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 courtship to her about ten years after the death of Harpath; for it was not thought decent in those days that a widow should be seen with a man within ten years after the decease of her husband.

Shalum falling into a deep melancholy, and refolving to take away that objection which had been raised against him when he made his first addresses to Hilpa, began immediately after her marriage with Harpath, to plant all that mountainous region which fell to his lot in the divifion of this country. He knew how to adapt every plant to its proper foil, and is thought to have inherited many traditional secrets 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 shaded with young trees, that gradually shot 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 second Paradife. The pleafantness of the place, and the agreeable difpofition of Shalum, who was reckoned one of the

mildest and wisest 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 spacious plantation.

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

The Chinese record a letter which Shalum is faid to have written to Hilpa, in the eleventh year of her widowhood. I shall here tranflate it, without departing from that noble fimplicity of fentiment, and plainness of manners, which appears in the original.

Shalum was at this time one hundred and eighty years old, and Hilpa one hundred and seventy.

SHALUM, Master of Mount Tirzah, to HILPA, Miftress of the Vallies.

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 weeds a forefts. 'These threefcore and ten years have I bewailed the lofs of thee on the tops of mount Tirzah, and foothed my melancholy among a thousand gloomy shades of my own raising. My dwellings are at present 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 these delightful shades, 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 admiration but of a few centuries. It flourishes as a mountain oak, or as a cedar on the top of Tirzab, which in three or four hundred years will fade away, and never be thought of by pofterity, unless a young wood springs from its roots. Think well on this, and remember thy neighbour in the mountains."

Having here inferted this letter, which I look upon as the only Antediluvian billet-doux now entant, I shall in my next paper give the answer to it, and the sequel of this story.

SPECTATOR, Vol. VIII. No. 584.

The Sequel of the Story of Shalum and Hilpa. The letter inserted in my last had so good an effect upon Hilpa, that she answered it in less than a twelvemonth, after the following manner :

HILPA, Mistress of the Vallies, to SHALUM, Master of Mount Tirzah.

In the 789th year of the Creation.

"What have I to do with thee, O Shalum ? Thou praisest 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 vallies, than thou wouldest be with the fight of her perfon? The lowings of my herds, and the bleating of by flocks, make a pleasant echo in thy mountains, and found sweetly in thy ears. What though I am delighted with the wavings of thy forefts, and those breezes of perfumes which flow from the top of Tirzah: Are these like the riches of the valley?

" 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 searchest out the diversity of foils; thou understandeft the influences of the stars, and markest the change of seasons. Can a woman appear lovely in the eyes of fuch a one? Disquiet me not, O Shalum; let me alone, that I may enjoy those goodly poffeffions which are fallen to my lot. VOL. II.

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Win me not by thy enticing words. May thy trees increase and multiply; mayest thou add wood to wood, and fhade to fhade; but tempt not Hilpa to destroy thy folitude, and make thy retirement populous."

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

Shalum.

He treated her in the bower which he had planted amid the woods of nightingales. This wood was made of fuch fruit trees and plants as are most agreeable to the several kinds of finging birds; so that it had drawn into it all the mufic of the country, and was filled from one end of the year to the other, with the most agreeable concert in feafon.

He shewed her every day fome beautiful and furprising scene in this new region of woodlands; and as by this means he had all the opportunities he could wish for of opening his mind to her, he fucceeded fo well, that upon her departure she made him a kind of promife, and gave him her word to return him a pofi tive answer in less than fifty years.

She had not been long among her own people in the vallies, when she received new overtures, and at the fame time a most splendid vifit from Mishpach, who was a mighty man of old, and had built a great city, which he called after his own name. Every house was made for at least a thousand years, nay there were fome that were leafed out for three lives; so that the quantity of stone and timber confumed in this build ing is scarce to be imagined by those who live in the present age of the world. This great man entertained her with the voice of musical instruments which had lately been invented, and danced before her to the found of the timbrel. He also presented her with feveral domeftic utenfils wrought in brass and iron, which

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had been newly found out for the conveniency of life. In the mean time Shalum grew very uneasy with himself, and was forely difpleafed at Hilpa for the reception which she had given to Mishpach, infomuch that he never wrote to her, or spoke of her during a whole revolution of Saturn; but finding that this intercourse went no farther than a vifit, he again renewed his addresses to her, who during her long filence is said very often to have cast a wishing eye upon mount Tiızah.

Her mind continued wavering about twenty years longer between Shalum and Mishpach; for though her inclinations favoured the former, her interest pleaded very powerfully for the other. While her heart was in this unfettled condition, the following accident happened which determined her choice. A high tower of wood that stood in the city of Mishpach having caught fire by a flash of lightning, in a few days reduced the whole town to ashes. Mishpach resolved to rebuild the place whatever it should cost him; and having already destroyed all the timber of the country, he was forced to have recourse to Shalum, whose forests were now two hundred years old. He purchased these woods with so many herds of cattle and flocks of sheep, and with fuch a vast extent of fields and pastures, that Shalum was now grown more wealthy than Mishpach; and therefore appeared so charming in the eyes of Zil pab's daughter, that the no longer refused him in marriage. On the day on which he brought her up into the mountains, he raised a most prodigious pile of codar, and of every sweet smelling wood, which reached above three hundred cubits in height: He alfo caft into the pile bundles of myrrh, and shaves of spikenard, enriching it with every spicy shrub, and making it fat with the gums of his plantations. This was the burnt offering which Shalum offered in the day of his espoufals: The fmoke of it afcended up to Heaven, and filled the whole country with incense and perfume.

SPECTATOR, Vol. VIII. No. 585.

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