precisely similar to those of the predecessors of Amos on the tablet of Abydos, and only placed in an ascending order from right to left, instead of from left to right, but the succession is the same: and the remaining signet of this second line, together with the lower line of signets, would exactly fill up the spaces which are lost from the tablet of Abydos, and lead to the conjecture that they are here supplied; which conjecture is reduced almost to a certainty by finding the well-known signet of Osortasen to be the first to the left on the lower line, and by finding the last signet of the second line placed between that of Osortasen and the fifth predecessor of Amos in a tomb at Benihassan, examined by Major Felix.

The sculptures of Karnak consist of four lines of rings; but we regard the two upper lines as indicating men of inferior rank, notwithstanding their deification-that is, they are not classed in the Pharaoh line, or regarded as legitimate possessors of the crown. It is worthy of remark that the Nentef, to whom Thothmos offers as his ancestor, is not only without the solar disk in the line of kings, but he appears again as last of one of the upper lines, as if this were Nentef's line of ancestry; and we find among them both Pepi and Mer, en, ra, whom we know, from other sources, to have been early conquerors, but not Pharaohs before the time of Osortasen and contemporary with the builders of the Pyramids and we state this in order to discard not only Nentef, who could not possibly be a Pharaoh, because he is put into the place of Amos-a place which is, beyond contradiction, barred against him-but to exclude the whole class to which he belongs, and to exclude the upper line of the tablet of Abydos, as well as these upper lines of the chamber of kings, although some of the rings have the solar disk; for, although where the disk is wanting, we may be sure that it is not a Pharaoh, we cannot always be sure that where the disk. is present the person signified was the legitimate sovereign. Usurpers, and even adventurers, sometimes assumed it; and we have many instances in the sculptures of one name being erased to substitute another in its place. We require distinct proof of the fact, and not an inference drawn from the solar disc, before we can admit that a fresh-discovered signet belonged to a Pharaoh and we require it to be proved that such an one was not in whole or in part the contemporary of some other Pharaoh before we can admit the plea of finding room for another ruler to be a just ground for extending our received chronology.

:

What we have written has been with the intention of showing that we believe it practicable as well as desirable so to arrange

the chronology of Egypt as not to disturb the received opinions, resting upon Usher's arrangement of scriptural chronology, as deduced from the text of the Hebrew Bible. It is a subject to which we have devoted our best attention, and in reference to which we have examined, with all the care and diligence in our power, the difficulties which have been propounded by those who have made the antiquities of India or of Egypt their peculiar study; and we have found that these difficulties are not worthy of any sort of comparison with the objections which at once arise on the adoption of any other hypothesis, and which, after all, would be only an hypothesis resting on no solid foundation; besides, no such hypothesis stands or falls alone other facts of the greatest importance are connected with it: some of these our author intimates in the introduction, saying

"If, after having ascertained the date of the foundation of the Egyptian empire, we enquire whether it tallies with Scripture tradition as to the creation of mankind, and whether it corroborates the chronological systems based upon it—what bearing it has upon the assumptions of the Greek and Latin Churches-or (if we agree, not to dispute about a few thousand years, where objects so infinitely higher are concerned), how the result of our computations affects the question of creation-must we blink the point altogether instead of answering it? Again we enquire whether the study of Egyptian history would lead us to the conclusion that there was one universal or several partial and local floods; and whether the most ancient traditions, those of Egypt especially, exhibit any indications of violent interruptions in the early stages of human advancement; and, lastly, what light is thrown, by our researches, on the great question of the unity of the human race and its primordial epochs" (xxxviii).

Now, we on our part assert that the Chevalier Bunsen does not at all know what dangerous ground he is venturing upon here. We are well contented that he should make the most that he can of Egyptian antiquities, and will give him a patient hearing and discuss them on their own merits; but we will not allow enquiries and discoveries which are only of yesterday, the truth of which are confessedly sub judice, and the results of which may turn out the very reverse of that which men confidently expect, to interfere with our settled convictions: we will not allow the foundations of our faith to be shaken by mere antiquarian research. To meet such antiquarians on their own ground, we have only to remember that Moses, at whatever time he lived, was certainly better versed in Egyptian history, as living in the court of Pharaoh, and learned in all the learn ing of the Egyptians, than Manetho or any of the other autho

rities upon which so much reliance is placed: and the children. of Israel, for whom he wrote, could not but be well acquainted with both the state of Egypt and with the time of their sojourning there; and their knowledge of the facts is a guarantee for the veracity of Moses in addition to his own personal character. Besides, the whole narrative has so much fulness and such straitforward simplicity that we rise from its perusal with a full conviction of its truth; and we feel confident that "the sojourning of the children of Israel, who dwelt in Egypt, was four hundred and thirty years"—that is, from the time when Abram first went down into Egypt, as Usher explains it, and supported as it is by tradition and by the words of Stephen in the Acts.

In the last century, the superior antiquity of China and India was often urged as an objection to the Mosaic history. The claims of China were disposed of by proving that the astronomical data were derived from the Jesuits, and the history was found to be a fabrication: and the Indian pretensions have been set at rest by Prinsep and others, who have shown that authentic history cannot ascend higher in India than the age of Alexander the Great. When the Zodiacs of Denderah were brought to light in the beginning of the present century, Bailly and the French astronomers affected to find in them evidence of antiquity which incontestably proved that they had been made before the time which Moses assigns for the Deluge: a few years rendered it certain that they were constructed in the time of the Cæsars, and so we rest assured that it will be now with decyphering the hieroglyphics: some element will appear which has been overlooked, or some new element will be discovered, by means of which seeming contradictions will be reconciled, and the Scriptures, according to the literal Hebrew, will stand out in unimpaired integrity.

Chevalier Bunsen remarks that, although the Egyptians stand forth pre-eminently a people of reminiscences and of monuments, we find among their books nothing historical :

"That these sacred books did not contain any history of the Egyptian nation is no less certain than that the Old Testament does contain that of the Jews. The idea of a people did not exist (among the Egyptians) still less that of a people of God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth. History was born in that night when Moses, with the law of God, moral and spiritual, in his heart, led the people of Israel out of Egypt..... On the extinction of the united kingdom of the twelve tribes, the popular mind became directed more to religious subjects; and thus the true historical style could never attain its complete cultivation among this people; but, in the same period, the muse of history found her favourite nation in the Greeks, and raised

VOL. XXVI.-M

up in Herodotus the master of research-the originator of the strictly historical connected narrative of the immediate past" (23).

We cite this passage merely for the fact that there are no discoverable traces of history, properly so called, among the writings of the Egyptians, or any ancient people save the Hebrews; and that it is only by connecting the Greek historians with the scriptural narrative that any reasonable hope can be entertained of combining the series and succession of events, so as to conceive of the several steps and stages by which mankind. attained the position or sunk to the degradation in which we may severally find the different nations of the earth at the present day. Accounting for this fact is quite another affair; and on this question we entertain very decided opinions, and that not at all in unison with our author, if we are to understand him as meaning that the writings of Moses, or even those of Herodotus, were expressions of the popular mind. Setting aside the inspiration of Moses, as a distinct and far higher ground for confidence, the writings of such men is in advance of their generation, and they lead the people, not the people them. It is implied even here, by the heart of Moses being spoken of as its source; but it should not be left ambiguous by looseness or inaccuracy of expression.

Herodotus and the Grecian writers were altogether ignorant of the writings of Moses; and in this respect we possess an immense advantage over them in prosecuting historical researches into the early history of mankind, which advantage we ought not to neglect, while we may also properly avail ourselves of their investigations of the Egyptian monuments-the only records of ancient history to which they had access. "But as those monuments, even where intelligible, do not contain the word of living tradition, so are the lists of kings and series of years mere dry skeletons without life and vital coherence-names without events, dates without history-even without any such strict and intelligible chronology as the historian requires." During three centuries and a half, from Herodotus even to Apollodorus, the critical research of Greece was engaged in disentangling the confusion and adjusting the chronology of Egyptian history. "What the school of Aristotle had prepared, and Manetho, under Greek auspices but with Egyptian learning, had matured, Eratosthenes, of Cyrene, and Apollodorus, of Athens, especially the former, carried to perfection" (150).

We have not formed so high an opinion of Eratosthenes as that which is here expressed by the Chevalier Bunsen; not from thinking meanly of the critical researches of the Greeks, but simply because they had no sufficient materials for accu

And

rate investigation. The monuments are all of one people, and the interpetation of them was entirely in the hands of the same people; and a single class among that people, vain-glorious and superstitious to a proverb, with no possible means of detecting falsehood or qualifying exaggeration by collateral checks. The priests alone had possession of the books and understood their contents, and Egypt alone was the theme-Egypt at that time degraded and under foreign sway-but which they prided themselves on representing as having been formerly, and that during incalculable periods of time, governed, by demigods, and monopolizing the riches and the homage of the universe. with great show of reason could they do this, seeing that they have in their still existing palaces and temples prouder monuments of former splendour than any other land can boast of; but as even Herodotus was deceived in their legends concerning Sesostris, which the moderns are all but unanimous in rejecting as fabulous, so we think that many of the remaining traditions will hereafter be found to rest on no better foundation, and will have to be rejected in like manner. We cannot go into particulars at present, since the volume now before us is only introductory, and does not enter upon the historical questions themselves; but we have thought it fair to warn the author beforehand that we shall expect those points, to which our assent is required, to be both consistent with each other and in accordance with what we know concerning the history of other countries, especially as contained in the writings of Moses.

And there is one point to which we would beg leave to direct the special attention of the Chevalier Bunsen-that is, the astronomy of Egypt, as illustrating its chronology, and as enabling us to detect some of the sources of discrepancy between the various dates that have been assigned by Josephus, Clemens, and others, for such events as the Creation, the Deluge, and the Exode.

It appears from a note, at the thirty-ninth page, that the author is acquainted with a paper by Mr. Cullimore, on the "Tablets of Karnak and Abydos," which was read, in 1830, before the Royal Society of Literature; but he does not seem to be aware that another paper was read before the same body, which appeared to us a still more important one, as it treated on chronology in general. Mr. Cullimore called it, "Criteria for Determining in which Version of the Holy Scriptures the original Hebrew Computation of Time is Contained, with the Eras of Corruption." Such a determination could not but be of the greatest use in settling the Egyptian chronology; and the astronomical element resorted to by Mr. Cullimore is the precession of the equinoxes, in consequence of which the vernal