Benjamin, gave David an army of 1,300,000 or 1,574,000 fighting men;
which, with the addition of women, children, and slaves, may imply a
population of thirteen millions, in a country sixty leagues in length,
and thirty broad. The honest and rational Le Clerc (Comment on 2d Samuel
xxiv. and 1st Chronicles, xxi.) aestuat angusto in limite, and mutters
his suspicion of a false transcript; a dangerous suspicion! * Note:
David determined to take a census of his vast dominions, which extended
from Lebanon to the frontiers of Egypt, from the Euphrates to the
Mediterranean. The numbers (in 2 Sam. xxiv. 9, and 1 Chron. xxi. 5)
differ; but the lowest gives 800,000 men fit to bear arms in Israel,
500,000 in Judah. Hist. of Jews, vol. i. p. 248. Gibbon has taken the
highest census in his estimate of the population, and confined the
dominions of David to Jordandic Palestine.--M.]

[Footnote 120: These sieges are related, each in its proper place, in
the great history of William of Tyre, from the ixth to the xviiith book,
and more briefly told by Bernardus Thesaurarius, (de Acquisitione Terrae
Sanctae, c. 89-98, p. 732-740.) Some domestic facts are celebrated in
the Chronicles of Pisa, Genoa, and Venice, in the vith, ixth, and xiith
tomes of Muratori.]

[Footnote 121: Quidam populus de insulis occidentis egressus, et maxime
de ea parte quae Norvegia dicitur. William of Tyre (l. xi. c. 14, p.
804) marks their course per Britannicum Mare et Calpen to the siege of
Sidon.]

[Footnote 122: Benelathir, apud De Guignes, Hist. des Huns, tom. ii.
part ii. p. 150, 151, A.D. 1127. He must speak of the inland country.]

[Footnote 123: Sanut very sensibly descants on the mischiefs of female
succession, in a land hostibus circumdata, ubi cuncta virilia et
virtuosa esse deberent. Yet, at the summons, and with the approbation,
of her feudal lord, a noble damsel was obliged to choose a husband and
champion, (Assises de Jerusalem, c. 242, &c.) See in M. De Guignes (tom.
i. p. 441-471) the accurate and useful tables of these dynasties, which
are chiefly drawn from the Lignages d'Outremer.]

[Footnote 124: They were called by derision Poullains, Pallani, and
their name is never pronounced without contempt, (Ducange, Gloss. Latin.
tom. v. p. 535; and Observations sur Joinville, p. 84, 85; Jacob. a
Vitriaco Hist. Hierosol. i. c. 67, 72; and Sanut, l. iii. p. viii. c. 2,
p. 182.) Illustrium virorum, qui ad Terrae Sanctae.... liberationem
in ipsa mans