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With reference to the preceding table, let it be noted that we find a hieroglyphic tablet of the twentysecond year of Sheshonk, or Sesonchis I., to whom history assigns twentyone years only, and one of the fifteenth of Takeloth, or Tacellothes, to whom history gives thirteen only. But the period of the twenty-second dynasty, 120 years, as stated by Africanus, exceeds the sum of the reigns by four years, a difference explained by the reigns of the two princes now men. tioned, to each of which we have therefore added two years, raising that of Tacellothes to the monumental number fifteen, and that of Sesonchis one year higher than the monumental date. Of Osorkon or Osorthon, we have a tablet dated in the eleventh year, his historical reign being fifteen.

Of Tirhakah, Tharak, or Taracus, we have a tablet of his twentieth year; one of the forty-fourth year of Amhathis, or Amasis, one of the sixth of Cambyses, and another of the thirtysixth of Darius Hystaspes, of which those of Amasis and Darius accurately determine the reigns of these princes. It should be remarked, with reference to the time of the Persian empire, that there is little or no difference in the Egyptian statements, except what results from the odd months, down to the reign of Darius Nothus; which thus far sufficiently agree with

the mathematical canon of Hipparchus and Ptolemy, which includes the reigns of less than a year in those of the preceding kings; and, that from Ochus to Alexander, the same correspondence holds between Manetho, as preserved by his oldest copyist, Africanus, and the mathematical statements; his period of the twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth, and thirtieth native dynasties (sixty-four years and four months, which are placed between the death of Darius Nothus and the twentieth year of Artaxerxes Ochus), answering to the forty-six years of Artaxerxes Mnemon, and the first nineteen of Ochus, within eight months; while his residue of two years for the reign of Ochus in Egypt, makes up the twenty-one years of that prince. To Arses, he gives three years instead of the two of the mathematical canon, and this compensates the eight months deficient in the preceding period, while both accounts agree in assigning four years to Darius Codomannus.

It is to be remarked, on the other hand, that the Eusebian and Syncelline versions distort this part of the synchronous Egyptian and Persian chronology. The version of Eusebius allows forty-seven years and four months only for the twenty-eighth, twenty-ninth, and thirtieth dynasties, from the death of Nothus to the twen

reference to the fugitive Jews in Egypt, (Jerem. xlii. 16.—xliii. 10.—xliv. 27, 30 ) whose return would hence synchronise with that of their brethren in Babylon.

But, ascending forty years from в.c. 536, we arrive at B. c. 576, for the invasion of Egypt by the Chaldeans, or two years after the 27th of the reign of Nebuchadnezzar, B.C. 578, which would, therefore, appear to be the date intended by the prophet, (Exek. xxix. 27.) which relates exclusively to the conquest of Egypt by Nebuchadnezzar to repay him for his services against Tyre.

It comes in between the prophet's dates, in the tenth and eleventh of Jeconiah's captivity, and the last date in the prophecy is the twenty-fifth year of that captivity, B.C. 572, which is expressly stated to be the 14th from the destruction of Jerusalem (Exek. xl. 1).

By raising the Egyptian captivity to B.c. 576 from в.c. 570, we raise the end of the reign of Apries, Vaphres, or Hophra, to the same date, (Jerem. xliv. 30), or six years anterior to the accession of Amasis. This is the difference between the reigns of Vaphres as stated by Africanus, nineteen years, and by Herodotus and Eusebius, twentyfive, and will hence leave his accession, в c. 595, where the latter have placed it.

If, with Syncellus, we assign fifty years to Amasis, instead of forty-four, with Herodotus and Manetho, the accession of that prince will ascend to the Egyptian captivity. But we must not depart from the older authorities. And Hellanicus, who visited Egypt before Herodotus, explains the difficulty in a passage preserved by Athenæus, (Deip. xv). He lets us know that a prince named Partamis (doubtless the Patarbemis mentioned by Herodotus, II. 162), ruled Egypt immediately before Amasis.

Father Peyron has, accordingly, placed Partamis between Vaphres and Amasis, and assigned him a five years' reign; and that an intermediate king reigned is evident from the 3d Psammetic of the monuments, whom Rosellini makes the same with Psammenitus, the son of Amasis, but whose daughter was the queen of Amasis, according to the

more accurate Wilkinson.

tieth of Ochus, which is eighteen years short of the truth, and reduces the reign of Artaxerxes Mnemon from forty-six to twenty-eight years. The same copyist assigns an Egyptian residue of six years to Ochus, thereby lengthening his reign from twenty-one to twenty-six years. In the chronicle of Eusebius these errors are partially corrected, as will be seen from the periods assigned in it to the latter dynasties. The reign of Ochus, however, remains twenty-six years, and the excess is taken off that of Mnemon, his predecessor, to whom forty years are assigned instead of forty-six. Syncellus has the same number, forty years, for Mnemon, while, following what he terms the ecclesiastical canon, he cuts down that of Ochus to five years and it should further be observed that both these chronicles, followed by the moderns, raise the commencement of the twenty-ninth dynasty to the reign of Darius Nothus, whereas it is clear from Diodorus (xiv. 19, 35, 79) that this dynasty did not begin until after the revolt of Cyrus the younger from his brother Artaxerxes Mnemon, in agree

:

Maneth. Afric.

ment with Manetho, according to the copy of Africanus.

It is also important to notice that Manetho's Egyptian reign of Cambyses is six years in the copy of Africanus. This exceeds the truth by two years, yet becomes an additional proof of his integrity as a historian, because it agrees with the reign of Cambyses, as it appears on the hieroglyphic tablets, the original source of Manetho's history, as he himself declares. It is not the full reign of Cambyses, which was eight years, inclusively of the seven months of the Magian conspirators; and hence it is that the accuracy of Manetho in copying the monument has led him into this error.

As the question regarding the Persian reigns from the accession of Artaxerxes Mnemon is of great importance to history, and was misunderstood even by Scaliger, in whose age the mathematical canon of Hipparchus and Ptolemy had not been recovered, we shall here state them according to the several authorities above mentioned, adding to them the numbers of the patriarch Nicephorus and Scaliger.

Eus. Syn. Niceph. Scal. Hip. Ptol.

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It is hence evident that Manetho's chronology of the times of the Persian empire, preserved by writers whose errors it exposes, is fully as accurate as that of the celebrated astronomer Hipparchus, who lived in the next century-a tolerably good criterion, independently of the monumental verifications, of the judgment and integrity of the Egyptian annalist, and of the high value of every name and number of his history, if we possessed them in an uncorrupted state, as well as of the utility of every well-founded attempt to restore his original data and system. The celebrated chronological table of the Chaldean, Persian, and GræcoEgyptian Kings, and Roman Emperors, originated by Hipparchus in the second century B.C., was continued by Claudius Ptolemy, in the second

*

The re

century of the Christian era.
covery of this record has enabled mo-
dern chronologers to correct the mis-
takes of the ecclesiastical historians,
and accurately to connect the histories
of the Old and New Testaments. It
may be proved to be founded on the
same principles, as it was derived from
the same Egyptian school with the
chronological record of Manetho: and
a few observations regarding it will
conduct us to farther elucidations of
that historian.

The record in question, which will be found at page 83 of Ancient Fragments,' accompanied by two spurious ecclesiastical versions from Syncellus, which were used by the early Christian chronographers, is adjusted from the eclipses observed by the Chaldean and Greek astronomers, registered in the Ancient Frag., pp. 83, 4.

calendar of the Egyptian, or uninter. calated year of 365 days, which receded through the seasons, in the space of a canicular cycle of 1461 erratic, or 1460 fixed years of 3651 days, as explained in the passage from Censorinus, cited in Ancient Fragments,' p. 323.

It appears from Censorinus (Anc. Frag. p. 327.) that this period was renewed in the Julian quadriennium, A. D. 136-140: and to this date (when the Thoth, or first day of the Egyptian year, corresponded with the twentieth of the Julian July), which coincided with the accession of Antoninus Pius, the astronomical canon of Hipparchus was continued by Claudius Ptolemy.

This was the fundamental and most commonly received canicular epoch, and the cycle at that time renewed, which necessarily originated B.c. 1325 -1321, was known as the period of King Menophres, as appears from a passage of an unpublished manuscript of the Astronomer Theon of Alexandria, given in Ancient Fragments,' p. 329; and the age of this Menophres coincides with that of Moris, one of the great improvers of Egyptian science, whose death was dated 900 years before Herodotus visited Egypt (II. 13) in the fifth century, B. c., so that Menophres and Moris are no doubt the same monarch.

To the conclusion of this period, the earliest recorded chronological system of the priests pointed, and its commencement was the established parapegma of calculation in the days of Theon, A.D. 384, as appears from the above-cited passage.

But, although the recession of the erratic through the fixed year was always regular, and the places of the Egyptian months consequently determinable for any epoch; and, although the cycle of Menophres or Moeris was the fundamental one, the epoch of the canicular period was far from invariable. From each correction of the Egyptian calendar a new cycle was dated, which took its root from the day of the fixed year with which the Thoth at that time happened to coincide.

Such was the epoch from which Hipparchus and Ptolemy deduce their chronological calendar, which, being at its commencement adapted to the Chaldean succession, is named the era of Nabonassar, and dates from the

year B.c. 747, when the Thoth fell on February 26th. This, in reference to Egyptian history, may be named the cycle of Bocchoris, in whose reign it originated, or of the contemporary Diospolite Ramses IX. of whom we have astronomical remains. Its Egyptian epoch was more critically B.C. 761, when the month Thoth and the sign Pisces astronomically coincided, the day of the Thoth answering to February 29th; for to this epoch the Zodiacs of Denderah and other astronomical remains are referable.

Our space, however, will not permit us now to enter into a full elucidation of this part of the question; which is, in fact, more properly connected with the earlier portion of Egyptian history, to which we shall have occasion to recur. Our further investigation will enable us in a great degree to restore the texts of Manetho's early dynasties, and thereby to give a corrected view of Egyptian chronology from the most ancient times, and to test the different systems of ancient and modern specu lators upon the subject.

In concluding the present Egyptian article, of which we have made Mr Cory's Ancient Fragments' the text, we should hardly do justice to that work, if we suffered our readers to remain under an impression that its utility is confined to Egyptian literature. This, as already intimated, forms a prominent department of the Fragments,' which also contain a similar collection of all the original documents of the Phoenicians, Chaldeans, and other primitive nations, which have reached us through the Greek and Latin languages; including the remains of Sanconiatho, Berosus, Abydenus, and Zoroaster.

This work, in effect, comprises the elements of a heathen Bible, containing nearly all the known historical and mythological fragments of the ages which preceded Grecian literature, unobscured by hypothesis or any attempt at system.

Such a book can hardly be more acceptable to the historical enquirer than to the biblical critic. The original documents of which it consists, appear in parallel columns with English translations, thus affording to the antiquary the means of accuracy, and to the general reader the means of gratifying his curiosity without the labour of consulting the numerous folios from which the materials have been derived.

EXTRACTS FROM THE DRAWER OF OUR WHAT-NOT.

THE LAW OF CONTENT.

It is often found that men engage in the pursuits to which their life is to be devoted, with little interest :-but it is seldom found that those who have been long engaged to such pursuits do not create an interest in them. The results which they obtain by their exertions, and which are grateful in themselves, reflect a pleasure upon the means by which they have been acquired. The very effort by which difticulties have been overcome, leaves an agreeable remembrance; the ardour of desire, which is excited in contention with obstacles, throws an interest upon the pursuit itself in which those obstacles have arisen. The vivid excitation of the consciousness of those powers of thought and will which are aroused in the processes of every occupation, and the little triumphs of successful enterprise and exertion which continually attend them, make pleasure to the mind, whatever be its employment. To every man who bends his strength to labour, whether it be the strength of his limbs, or of his exerted mind, there is one great object which he has steadfastly in view: He trusts to owe to powers of his own his independence of the world; and the acquisition of this independ ence, as he secures it, step by step, is one of the most grateful rewards of even ungrateful labour which success can bring to self-love. But most men have motives to the prosecution of their exertions, which do not terminate in themselves. They have those who depend on them, and who are dear to them. When the honourable welfare of these is earned by his own exertions, there is a requital found to the most painful efforts of the human being, in which the noblest and best feelings of his nature are the most keenly interested.

These keen warm feelings of pleasure, which reach so deeply into the mind, become associated with the external objects and circumstances with which they are connected, and on which they are dependent. The man who sustains himself and others by his manly strength, sees, in the employment in which that strength is put forth, not its painful

and ungrateful labour, though such he may have felt it; he sees in it the his own power-he himself, with his means of these results; he sees in it joy and pride, his affections and strong desires, is identified with that avocacation by which all these seek and have found their gratification. If we could go into the homes of mechanic thoughts and feelings that are at labour, and enquire what are the work to unite mind and heart to the work on which all life is bestowed, we should find that even the impleciations of feeling which reconcile and ments of art are invested with assobind to them the hand which they are daily to fill, even as the walls of the thoughts of many years which make rudest cottage are hung with those it, and it only, a home to its familiar inmates. On which account Wordsworth has, with great tenderness of feeling and fidelity to nature, in speaklate by distressful times, mentioned, ing of one of these homes made desoto the hearts of its dwellers to look among the objects which were painful upon,

"The empty loom, cold hearth, and silent wheel."

sires, the strengths, the loves of the To that by which the hopes, the derished,-to that, whatever it be, will human heart are supported and nouthe heart turn with its own fonded our life is seen by us naked and as ness. No object that has ever touchit is—it is seen clothed with our associations of thought, and powerful through them to take hold upon our feelings. Our fancy easily carries this belief to the life of those whose occupation is to till the earth. The scenes in which their labour is laid, the great changes of nature under which they dwell, and the bounty tinual intercourse, awaken our imagiof nature, with which they hold connation, and make it easy to us to conceive that the employments of such a life may be rich in associations which will take strong hold upon the heart. But if we could enter into that condition, and see how hard it sometimes

lays its lot upon those who strive under it, we should perceive that the process which binds to the soil him who waters its furrows with the drops of his brow, is something of a far deeper and more serious kind than offers itself to our ready conception. Men love the earth indeed on which they have dwelt, and which they have sown and reaped, they love that spot which, from sire to son, the hands of one race have tilled. But what thoughts are they which can bring forth a love so deep, that toil hard and unremitting, wearing out the strength-that scanted returns barely yielding the sustenance of life—that privations, sorrow, and fear cannot shake it?-that they will still live on, the occupiers of their small domain, with the spring-water for their drink and the oatmeal for their food, and be content, rather than part from it? The thoughts are nothing less than the recollections of a life, and recollections left from lives beyond their own. Here they have livedhere they have toiled. They are bound

Of

to the earth not by the joy it has yielded them, but by the labours they have sown in its bosom. They have wedded themselves to it by their own acts of persevering and enduring exertion; and it has attached them to itself even by that bare and poor requital which it has rendered from its unfruitful bosom to their patient industry. such a kind and of such power are the associated remembrances and thoughts which the mind is able to spread around it upon the subjects of its continual employment. And in such associations, exceedingly various according to the nature and circumstances of the occupation, yet all strong in the same strength, is to be found the explanation of that attachment to their own calling which is found among menwhich is the great "Law of Content" to human life—the strength and support of their exertions-and, to no inconsi derable extent, the provision made in nature for their happiness and their virtue.

GENERAL EXPEDIENCY.

The truth is, that the opinion now so readily and generally admitted, that what is right is also, on the whole, most conducive to the general good, so far from having been a connexion primarily and necessarily discerned by the human intelligence, is a conviction arising from much philosophical speculation. It is a conclusion now familiar to our minds. But whence is it deduced? Not from ascertaining the fact which we can never ascertain from induction sufficiently comprehensive; but from confidence in the goodness of the Ruler of the world. Some thing, indeed, we discern towards it; we have discovered an importance in general rules, and can argue that acts which appear expedient in the single case would become inexpedient if they were generally practised. But this is rather a maxim of philosophising than the result of absolute induction. We know that such an act is wrong. We see that a case can be imagined in which it would appear to be expedient, but we dare not admit its expediency. And in order to extricate ourselves from the dilemma we resort to the principle, that it is better evil should

be endured in one instance than that a law of right should be made subject to human judgment. But in that very reasoning we presume that the law of right is made known to us by some different means; and that, simply because it is right, its maintenance must be of more importance than any particular advantage that might be derived from its violation.

We ask what absolute and universal Reason is there that shall demonstrate to all human-kind this importance of General Rules? If the people of some small country in the centre of Asia fall under severe tyranny, and a patriot is tempted to put the tyrant to death, what light of Nature shall explain to him that if he kills that despot, the same rule of judgment will authorise any man in Europe to put to death any other whose life he esteems a public nuisance; and that therefore he is bound to let his fellow-citizens groan under their yoke, on account of the disorder which his principle of action would introduce among nations of which he has never heard, and who will never hear of him or his action? It may be

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