phon, who has need of his offices for the philosophical romance of the Cyropædia, never places at Babylon, is not easily reconcileable with ordinary notions of probability. It is indeed too great a tax upon the credulity of readers to require that they shall accept such an exposition of the prophet's meaning without much stronger evidence for it than commentators have yet vouchsafed or discovered.

It has been observed that we find no intimation in profane history to the effect that the Cyrus of Herodotus was concerned in the restoration of the Jews. The Duke of Manchester cites very valuable and unsuspicious attestations from Persian history to the instrumentality of the later Cyrus or Kuresh in the great deliverance.

"Behmen was the next king; his title signifies possessing arms." He was also styled Daraydast,' 'Long-handed,' which the Persian historians explain, not of the length of his arm, but of the extent of his sway. His mother was descended from Saul. He deposed Bakhtnassar's son from the government of Babel, which he committed to one of Lohorasp's sons, named Kuresh, whose mother was descended from the chil.. dren of Israel. He likewise commanded him to send back the captives of the children of Israel, to the territory of the holy temple, and to appoint, as their governor, whom they themselves should select. Kuresh, therefore, assembled the children of Israel, and appointed Daniel to the government.' The Tarikh Kapehak-khani, after mentioning the fall of Bakht-al-Naser from Babylon, informs us that the government of Syria was committed to the hands of Coresch.' The author of Lebtarikh says, that it was Kuresh who rebuilt Jerusalem, after the destruction it underwent in the time of Nabuchodonosor; but the Tarikh Montekheb insists that it was Ardschir Bahaman who rebuilt it. The account of Merkhond reconciles and confirms both these statements; Kuresh, during the reign and under the direction of Bahaman, restored Jerusalem."

Thus it appears that there were two persons to whom the name Cyrus may be assigned, and either of whom, ac cordingly, might so far be regarded as the predicted deliverer of the Jews. One of them is described in profane history as the deliverer of that people -the other, on the contrary would seem to have led them into captivity; the former may have issued his "com

inand to restore" precisely at the moment when the restoration was to be looked for, precisely at the point where the periods ascertainable from the prophetic testimonies of Ezekiel and Daniel should meet together, just where the period of the captivity should end, and the sixty and nine weeks should have their beginning. Which of these two was the predicted Cyrus he to whom prophecy and profane history, both, bear witness, or he of whose services to the Jewish nation history is silent, and who occupies no position on which lights of prophecy are convergent? In ordinary cases the answer would seem obvious, but there is here no ordinary case,nor is the question to be determined even on the strong grounds we have stated. There can be no doubt that the naming of Cyrus, or Kuresh, by the prophet Isaiah has had a very considerable influence in directing the attention of mankind on the hero of Xenophon's romance or history; but this bias of the mind is the effect of a persuasion that the true name of the deliverer was expressed in scripture. What was the true name-that which an individual bore in his own country, or that into which the fastidious Greeks were pleased to change it? What was the true name, that which distinguished the individual, or that, perhaps, which Greece borrowed when it was a name of office, and used as a personal appellation? The answer is not doubtful. It should then be borne in mind that the name, the personal appellation, of that prince who, according to the testimony of history, delivered the Jewish people, was the same which God assigned to their deliverer in the scriptures of truth, and that the Grecian assumption of such a name is not equivalent to its having been recognised, and borne by the individual in his own family or country. In a word, Grecian history gives to a great Persian conqueror a name which it is almost certain he did not bear among his own people. The history of his own country assigns that name to another Persian prince who also achieved high distinctions; can there be a doubt that the Persian, that is the proper, description, is that which is to be found in Scripture, the real name in use among the Deliverer's own countrymen, and not the "alias" of the Greeks.

If the Duke of Manchester be right, the uncertainty and contradictions which have marked all attempts to interpret certain prophecies of Daniel are fully accounted for. How, indeed, could a prophetic period be traced out, if either of its termini were wrongly chosen.

Another distinction has rendered interpreters of prophecy debtors to his grace. It is that which divides the prophetic periods of Daniel as well as those of an earlier time into two. In his judgment, the seven weeks and sixty and two and one are not portions of the seventy. The one period commences with the utterance of Daniel's supplication in the first year of Darius; the other with the command to build and restore Jerusalem issued by the Persian Curesh or Cyrus. In like manner, he distinguishes the seventy years' servitude under Babylon from the seventy years of desolation, during which the solitary land enjoyed her Sabbaths. All these periods, in the Duke of Manchester's interpretation, very curiously and instructively meet and intercommunicate, and enhance the evidence of just interpretation afforded in one, by the lights which each of the other reflects upon it.

"I endeavoured to show in the chronology that there were two periods of seventy years-one, the service of Babylon, the other the desolation of Jerusalem; and that the desolations terminated with the first year of Darius Nothus.

"I hope to establish presently that the termination of each of these periods is a fresh epoch," &c. &c.*

And this, it appears to us, has been established by argument and authority such as bring conviction. The seventy weeks are taken as a continuous period, as are also the sixty and nine. The one week (Dan. ix. 27) is taken to follow immediately on the completion of the seventy, and all this is reasoned out with a minute diligence, a scrupulousness, and a candour, not less remarkable than the ability they grace and recommend. It is difficult to doubt that he who has walked through the mazes of these wondrous prophecies with such security and self

possession held the clue by which he was faithfully guided. The failure of so many eminently wise to unravel its mysteries-the violence done to the structure of the prophecy itself by so many of the pious and good, must lead to a persuasion that the success which has crowned the Duke of Manchester's efforts is the success of truth. He found the point at which the line of prophecy commenced, and therefore he followed it out faithfully to the fulfilment in which it terminated.

We shall give a second quotation from Dr. Hales, to show the straits to which adherence to the old arrangement of chronology reduce interpreters of prophecy. The changes he would introduce as emendations in the dates assigned to the accession of Jewish kings are not of graver character than the chasms he would open up and the altered adjustments he would introduce into the prophecy of the "Weeks." What error and confusion follow in the train of one wrong identification !—

"1. The seventy weeks, or four hundred and ninety years of which it consists, are historically divided into sixtytwo, seven, and one, weeks; and the one week subdivided into a half week. At the expiration of 62+7-69 weeks, or 493 years, MESSIAH THE LEADER was to send forth his armies' (the Romans) 'to destroy those murderers,' (the Jews) and to burn their city.'-Matt. xxii. 7.

And accordingly the Jewish war commenced in the last or seventeenth week, A.c. 65, during the administration of Gessius Florus, whose exactions drove the Jews into rebellion, according to Josephus, Ant. xx. 10, 1.

"2. After the sixty-two weeks,' but not immediately, 'the MESSIAH was cut off,' for the sixty-two weeks expired A.D. 14. (See the Articles of THE MINISTRY OF CHRIST and GOSPEL CHRONOLOGY, Vol. i. p. 94-101, in which is given the luminous account of the passion week, in reference to Daniel's prophecy, by Eusebius.) The passion week, therefore, began two weeks after the sixty-two weeks, or at the end of sixty-four weeks; and there were five weeks, or thirty-five years, after the passion week to the destruction of Jerusalem. So that the seventy weeks must be chronologically divided into sixty-four, one, and five weeks. For the one week in the prophecy is evidently not the last week of the Jewish

WE gladly avail ourselves of the very earliest opportunity of introducing to the notice of our readers, these lectures on that most useful branch of learning-Political Economy. We have no hesitation in saying, that they are the most remarkable that have yet issued from the chair of our University. A science which is chiefly known to us for its long and successful warfare against bounties, restrictions, and protective duties, now hoists for its banner" Advantage of Protection to Home Industry," and in these lectures, arrives at conclusions favour. able to such protection, and supports them by a weight of demonstration which is wholly irresistible. remarkable feature presented to us, for the first time in these lectures, not less than the high character of their author, and the growing importance of the science, gives them a claim to our earliest attention.

This

By the terms of the professorship, each professor is bound to publish a certain number of the lectures which he has delivered. Mr. Butt apologizes, in his preface, for having so long deferred the discharge of this portion of the duties imposed upon him by his office, and he, at the same time, takes occasion to say that their publication at this particular period has no reference whatsoever to the important measures which have lately been introduced by the ministry. This is, indeed, a necessary explanation; for we confess that we were not a little misled by the title of the book, as to the nature of its contents. "Protec

tion to Home Industry: some Cases of its Advantages considered." For what industry, we thought, does Ireland need protection?—what industry has she to protect, but her agricultural industry? Is it conceivable, that at a time when we are menaced with an abolition of that wholesome encouragement which our great and good men of old devised for the upholding of our agri

cultural interests; and on the wisdom of which policy, the power, the renown, the national virtue, which this mighty empire has enjoyed for centuries have stamped their attestation ;—is it possible that a book, coming at such a time, bearing such a title, the work of such an author, should not contain one sentence on the all-absorbing topic of the time? A reference, however, to our author's introduction, explained this apparent anomaly. the time of the delivery of those lectures, in the year 1840, a considerable effort was made for the encourage. ment of Irish manufactures; and Mr. Butt, availing himself of the general attention which this endeavour to revive the languishing industry of the country had created for the subject, took occasion to explain to his class the true economical bearings of the mea

sure.

At

Mr. Butt introduces his subject by calling the attention of his class to this circumstance, that the revenue of Ireland consists almost altogether of her agricultural produce-that this, and this only, constitutes the funds out of which the wants of all classes of Irishmen, whether necessaries or luxuries, must be supplied; and that whatever we use of the productions of other countries we must pay for by the export of our agricultural produce, and by this way only. He then goes on to explain the effect of encouraging Irish manufactures

"It is proposed to call into existence manufacture at home-a manufacture which we may admit, for the sake of argument, is not equal to competition with those of other countries, and which, therefore, requires a voluntary protec tion on the part of our people. I cannot see how the creation of such a manufacture would diminish the amount of agricultural produce that we would raise. It appears to be matter of demonstration that it would increase it. The quantity of agricultural produce

that we now raise is not produced on account of the demand for imported manufacture in this country. We are able, indeed, to pay for the manufac tures we import, because we do raise our present amount of agricultural produce; but from this it is not possible the converse, that we are able argue to raise the produce because we import the manufactures. Our ability to raise the produce depends, and must depend, upon resources at home. The manner in which we shall apply that produce rests with ourselves.

to

"So far as our exportation is the result of commerce between us and other countries, it gives us, no doubt, the opportunity of disposing of our revenue to advantage-that is, to the advantage of those who possess a share of that revenue. We must not be led astray by general terms. The advantage is to those, and those only, who have some of that revenue to dispose of; and this is just where the claims of our own countrymen intervene. A certain class of Irishmen have the disposal of a revenue, consisting of the produce of our country which is food for man. In re

turn for this we want manufactured goods; we want to employ that revenue in paying artisans to work upon these goods. We have the choice-we can exercise the choice-whether we will apply that revenue in paying the starving, because unemployed artisan of our own country, or send it abroad to pay those of another.

"If the manufacture produced be higher in price, or inferior in quality, to that which we could import from abroad, we do indeed, by using it, diminish the quantity, or deteriorate the quality of the goods we receive in return for our revenue; but we do nothing more-the revenue itself is not, and cannot be diminished our ability to pay for these goods remains just as it was before. The effect of our using Irish instead of imported manufacture would be, to leave all the present ability of paying for labour undisturbed-to leave, therefore, the amount of our produce the same, but to turn that produce from exportation to feeding our own people."

These extracts will, we trust, sufficiently convey Mr. Butt's opinions on this subject. His views are so clear and so forcibly expressed, and withal appear in themselves so obvious, that we can add nothing to them but the expression of our full and entire accordance; plain and obvious, however, as are these truths, when thus put forward, we are bound to acknow

ledge that until we took up this book they had never occurred to us; and we prize these lectures, not more for their exposition of the effects of encouraging home industry, than because they impress upon their reader the long prevalence of a wrong habit of thought amongst political economists, and caution him-not less by the conclusions at which they arrive than by direct precept-against the errors into which this habit has led.

The habit of which we speak is that of attending to the production of wealth solely, or of not sufficiently regarding its distribution. To such an extent, indeed, is the prevalence of this habit evidenced by the writings of political economists, that it would almost appear as if it were tacitly assumed that distribution went hand in hand with production, or followed in its train; and that if a nation but produced wealth it must necessarily be distributed amongst her people in certain regulated proportions.

We think that we can account for this habit, by recollecting the circumstances which called political economy, as a distinct science, into being. It may have been said to have been created for the purpose of exposing and overthrowing false schemes and systems, which legislators had devised to facilitate the production of national wealth, With these errors it had first to grapple; in this field its triumphs have been chiefly won; and it thus not unnaturally retains a bias which from its early struggles and successes it contracted. In justice, however, to another eminent political economist, Mr. Senior, one to whom the science is deeply indebted, we are bound to say, that this very view, nay the very case of Ireland, which is now so ably put forward by Mr. Butt, seems to have been once present to his mind, and will be found in his lectures as published in the Encyclopædia Metropolitana. But, strange to say, he uses it there only as an illustration. It receives at his hands no further consideration than is contained in an incidental allusion. Surely no stronger instance could be given of the force of that wrong habit of thought, of which we have just spoken, than this, that this peculiar aspect of the social condition of Ireland should have occurred to Mr. Senior, and, yet, never received from