meridian. It is obfervable that Aden, in the Eaftern dialects, is precifely the fame word with Eden, which we apply to the garden of paradife: it has two fenfes, according to a flight difference in its pronunciation; firft meaning is a fettled abode, its fecond, delight, foftness, or tranquillity: the word Eden had, probably, one of thefe fenfes in the facred text, though we uſe it as a proper name. We may alfo obferve in this place that Temen itfelf takes its name from a word, which fignifies verdure, and felicity; for in thofe fultry climates, the freshness of the fhade, and the coolnefs of water, are ideas almoft infeparable from that of happineſs; and this may be a reafon why moft of the Oriental nations agree in a tradition concerning a delightful spot, where the first inhabitants of the earth were placed before their fall. The ancients, who gave the name of Eudaimon, or Happy, to this country, either meaned to tranflate the word Yemen, or, more probably, only alluded to the valuable spice-trees, and balfamick plants, that grow in it, and, without fpeaking poetically, give a real perfume to the air: the writer of an old hiftory of the Turkish empire says, “The air of Egypt fometimes in fummer is like any sweet perfume, and almoft fuffocates the fpirits, caused "by the wind that brings the odours of the Arabian spices:” now it is certain that all poetry receives a very considerable ornament from the beauty of natural images; as the roses of Sharon, the verdure of Carmel, the vines of Engaddi, and the dew of Hermon, are the sources of many pleasing metaphors and comparisons in the sacred
