Page 251.—_The Orphici of Thrace._] Of the Orphic and Pythagorean discipline, see Herod, ii. 81. and Valckenaer on Euripid. Hipp. 956. The Tomyri of Dodona were the priests of Jupiter, Strabo, 1. vii. p. 506. They were the same probably as the Selloi, whose rigid mode of life is alluded to by Homer, II. xvi. 233. Ἀπθὶ δὲ Σελλοὶ, Σοὶ ναίους’ ὑποθῆται ἀνιπτόποδες χαμαιεῦναι. Soph. Trach. 1168. Heyne, Excurs. ad Il. loc cit. A fragment of the Cretans of Euripides, preserved by Porphyry, shows that the Curetes, priests of Idæan Jupiter, led a life very similar to the Essenes. Καὶ Κουρήταν Βόκχος ἐκλήθην, ὁσιωθέις. Πάλλευκα δ’ ἔχων εἴματα, θεύγω Γένεσίν τε βροτῶν καὶ νεκροθήκης Οὐ χριμπτόμενος· τήν τ’ ἐπψύχων Βρῶσιν ἐδεστῶν πεθύλαγμαι. Page 251.—_Worship of the earlier Samaritans._] When Salmanassar had led captive the inhabitants of the kingdom of Israel, he supplied their place by colonies from Babylon and other places, (2 Kings xvii.) who brought with them their various idols. From this people and the Israelites left in the land, sprung the Samaritans, who, if the Jews may be believed, joined the worship of Jehovah with that of idols. Selden, de Dis Syris, p. 327. Addit. p. 285. Page 253.—_Insult to the beard._] The Scriptures contain proofs of the susceptibility of the Hebrews on the subject of an indignity offered to their beards, 2 Sam. x. 1-5. “The Arabs,” says Niebuhr, “never shave off their beard. In the mountains of Yemen, where strangers are seldom seen, it is a disgrace to appear shaven: they supposed our European servant had committed some crime, for which we had punished him by cutting off his beard.” I am not aware, however, that the cutting off the hair was a judicial punishment among the Jews, unless Nehemiah xiii. 25. Isaiah 1. 6. should be thought to refer to it. The effect produced upon Elisama, by Myron’s action, will hardly be thought to be exaggerated when compared with the following passage from D'Arvieux’s account of the Arabs: “The Arabians have so much respect for their beards that they look upon them as sacred ornaments; nothing can be more infamous than for a man to be shaved; they make the preservation of their beards a capital point of religion, because Mahomet never cut off his. Among them it is more infamous for any one to have his beard cut off, than among us to be publicly whipped or branded with a hot iron. Many men in that country would prefer death to such a punishment. The wives kiss their husbands’ beards and children their fathers’, when they come to salute them: the men kiss one another’s beards when they salute in the streets, or come from a journey. They admire and envy those who have fine beards. ‘Pray do but see,’ they cry, ‘that beard; the very sight of it would persuade any one that he to whom it belongs is an honest man.’ If any one with a fine beard is guilty of an unbecoming action, ‘What a disadvantage is this,’ they say, ‘to such a beard! How much such a beard