goons. General Guest answered, that the magistrates might put the arms belonging to the city into the hands of such of their inhabitants as were well disposed; and if the provost should write to him, that there was a good spirit appearing among the people, and desire him to deliver out the volunteers' arms, that he might probably do it; but that he judged it was absolutely necessary for his majesty's service that the two regiments of dragoons should be ordered to join general Cope. Various proposals were then made in the council, to beat to arms, to ring the alarm-bell, and re-assemble the volunteers. To these proposals it was objected, that most of the volunteers had left the town, when they laid down their arms: that the messengers sent to recall the deputies, not having overtaken them, the deputies were now in the power of the rebels, who, when they heard the alarm-bell, would probably hang the deputies.

About ten o'clock at night the deputies returned, and brought a letter in answer to the message sent by them.

"His royal highness the prince regent thinks his manifesto, and the king his father's declaration already published, a sufficient capitulation for all his majesty's subjects to accept of with joy. His present demands are, to be received into the city, as the son and representative of the king his father, and obeyed as such when there. His royal highness supposes, that since the receipt of his letter to the provost, no arms or ammunition have been suffered to be carried off or concealed, and will expect a particular account of all things of that nature. Lastly, he expects a positive answer, before two o'clock in the morning, otherwise he will think himself obliged to take measures conform.

"At Gray's Mill, 16th September, 1745. By his high

ness's command.

(Signed)

"J. MURRAY."

When this letter was read, provost Stuart said, there was one condition in it, which he would die rather than submit to, which was receiving the son of the Pretender as prince regent; for he was bound by oath to another master. After long deliberation it was determined to send out deputies once more, to beg a suspension of hostilities till nine o'clock in the morning, that the magistrates might have an opportunity of conversing with the citizens, most of whom were gone to bed. The deputies were also instructed to require an explanation of what was meant by receiving Charles as prince regent.

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About two o'clock in the morning the deputies set out in a hackney-coach for Gray's Mill; when they arrived there, they prevailed upon lord George Murray to second their application for a delay; but Charles refused to grant it; and the deputies were ordered in his name to get them gone.

The coach brought them back to Edinburgh, set them down in the High-street, and then drove towards the Cannongate. When the Nether Bow port was opened to let out the coach, 800 Highlanders, led by Cameron of Locheil, rushed in and took possession of the city. P. 86.

The remainder of this work, which presents several interesting circumstances never before published, we shall reserve for a future article.

ART. IV.-A Dissertation on the newly-discovered Babylonian Inscriptions. By Joseph Hager, D. D. 4to. 1. 15. Boards. Richardsons. 1801.

THOUGH the most ancient and authentic history of mankind had designated Babylon as the first seat of science after the deluge; and, in the time of Alexander, documents bearing proof of the fact were thence transmitted to Greece; it is remarkable that our earliest modern travelers should not have noticed these inscriptions; notwithstanding they describe the size of the bricks that contain them, and the cement with which these bricks were joined, to form the stupendous tower of its founder, Nimrod.

The first person who appears to have observed them, was father EMANUEL, a Carmelite friar; and from his manuscript they were recommended to the learned, as fit subjects for examination, by D'ANVILLE, in his observations on the site of Babylon. (Mém. de l'Acad. des Inscript. tome xxviii.).

The celebrated NIEBUHR, however, did not overlook them; but, without entering into particulars, or ascertaining whether the characters on them were already known, or even similar to any hitherto discovered, he only remarks that he saw inscriptions of the same kind on other bricks at Bagdad and in Persia.

For a more circumstantial account we are indebted to M. BEAUCHAMP, Correspondent of the Royal Academy of Sciences at Paris, who, having resided several years at Bagdad, had leisure to investigate and describe the ruins of Babylon. Accordingly, in his observations upon them (originally inserted in the Journal des Savans for 1790, and translated in the European Magazine for May 1792), he relates that, on one side of the Euphrates are those immense ruins which have served, and still serve, for the building of Helle, an Arabian city, containing ten or twelve thousand inhabitants, where occur those large bricks imprinted with unknown characters, specimens of which I have presented to the abbé BARTHELEMY.'

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Stimulated by these discoveries, and desirous to assist those who may be employed in the elucidation of Oriental antiquities, the Honourable East-India Company directed the governor of Bombay to order their resident at Bassorah to procure ten or a dozen of these bricks, and transmit them, carefully packed up, as early as possible to Bombay; whence they were forwarded to CRIT. REV. Vol. 35. June, 1802.

M

England under the care of captain Timbrill, and arrived in the year 1800.

By comparing the characters impressed on these bricks with those on the ruins of Persepolis, it becomes at once obvious that a striking similarity exists between them; though, from the mode of combination in the Babylonian inscriptions, it is not less obvious that the same principle of interpretation will not equally apply. The Persepolitan characters have been by some believed to be talismanic; whilst others have maintained them to be legends of the Guebres, ancient inhabitants of Persia. Many have considered them as hieroglyphics; whilst a fourth hypothesis states them to be alphabetic letters, like our own. KEMPFER, however, differing from the rest, supposes them to express entire ideas, like the Chinese, but appropriate solely to the palace of Istakhar.

Since the time of this traveler, as characters of a similar kind have been found in Egypt, they have served to point out the connexion which is known to have subsisted between that country and Persepolis; whilst others of them, occurring on cylindrical loadstones, are advanced by Raspe, from a persuasion that they were the same with the Chinese characters, in proof that the Chinese writing had been known and used on this side the Ganges.

The difficulty as to the origin of these characters, Dr. Hager thinks, is settled by these bricks from Babylon, it being evident that Babylon, in point of cultivation, was much earlier than Persepolis, and that the Chaldeans were a celebrated people when the name of the Persians was scarcely known.

To confirm this opinion, and prove that the Persepolitan characters were derived from the Babylonians, Dr. Hager commences his work with a brief examination into the antiquity, extent, and sciences of the Babylonians; proving, from what is still known of their astronomy, architecture, and languages, their well founded claim to antiquity. In this detail, it is argued, that not only the Persians, but also the Indians, were disciples of the Chaldeans; and, even, that the Egyptians themselves, who pretended to have been the instructors of all nations, probably derived their pyramids and obelisks from Babylon. Hence, proceeding to the Babylonian inscriptions, it is maintained-from their similarity to the Deva-nagari, or alphabet styled by the Indians divine and celestial (because they concluded it to have been communicated by the deity from heaven)—that they were not of heavenly origin, but from earth, and the borders of the Euphrates. In confirmation of this suggestion, the Tibetan character, confessedly derived from the Indian, is alleged, to invalidate the opinion of the great antiquity and boasted originality of the Bramins.

The whole subject,' Dr. Hager observes, might have been proved much better, and with more copious arguments, had I not been confined by the narrow limits of a dissertation, and, what is more, by the want of time necessary for describing matters of this

nature.

Thus, in treating of the antiquity of the Babylonians, although the original records of that country, with the cities of Babylon, Persepolis, Alexandria, and other towns, have perished, I might nevertheless have produced the testimony of authors who lived in a time when those records still could be consulted; and thus I might have confirmed, by the testimonies of Manethon, Josephus, Diodorus, Castor, Vopiscus, Æmilius Sura, and many other Greek and Roman authors, the veracity of Ctesias, in so far as he ascribes a high antiquity to the Assyrian empire; but of these I shall only quote Plato, who, in his book Upon Laws, asserts that the Assyrian empire was several centuries older than the war of Troy.

By the same authors, the great extent of Assyria might have been proved; and the vast dominions of Semiramis, if the inscription of Polyænus even should be rejected, might have been attested by several towns and monuments, which acknowledge her as their founder, or even bore her name; and thus in speaking of Aram, I might have adduced the authority of Moses Chorenensis, that the Armenians also pretended to descend from the Aramæans, or that of Strabo, that their ancient language was nearly the same with the Syriac.' P. xix.

However pardonable Dr. Hager may appear for the omis sions here stated, from his impatience to gratify the public curiosity, we can by no means think him excusable for laying so little stress on the most EARLY and AUTHENTIC RECORD of the foundation of Babylon, whilst he builds so much upon his own conjectural etymology of the term Babel. For, admitting Dr. Hager to be right as to his explanation of the term, (though we are far from being convinced that he is,) the solution of his friend entirely removes the difficulty as to the narrative in Genesis, and is supported by so many corroborating instances expressly in point, as will leave a strong suspicion, that the respect expressed for Moses was meant but as a kiss to betray.

It certainly was never my intention to reject the authority of Moses, whose religious books I respect, and whose moral doctrines I revere. But having remarked, that Bel was acknowledged by sacred as well as profane authors, to have been either the first god, or the first sovereign, and founder of Babel, or (according to the Greek termination) Babylon, and that Ninus, his son, built a city about the same time, which he ordered to be called after his own name; I was led to suspect, that as Nineveh signified in Hebrew the habitation of Nin, Babel, for a similar reason, might be called the court, or the castle of Bel.

Thus

This opinion was corroborated by historical authorities. Curtius, speaking of Babylon, says, it was built by Semiramis, or, as it is the common opinion, by Bel, whose court is still shown; and

Ammianus Marcellinus, reconciling both opinions, relates, that Stmiramis built the walls of the city, and that the castle had been built long before by Bel.

Nor am I the first who gave a different derivation to the word Babel. For I find that professor Eichhorn, of Göttingen, in his enlarged edition of Simonis Hebrew Lexicon, has anticipated me, who supposes that Babel may have been contracted from Bab-bel, the court of Bel; and M. Beauchamp, who, during his residence at Bagdad, seems to have diligently applied to the Arabic, speaking of Babel, says, < a person skilled in Arabic will not easily believe, that the word Babel is derived, as commentators pretend, from the root belbel, which, in Arabic as well as Hebrew, signifies to confound!

To these, difficulties, a learned friend of mine, who has undertaken to defend the authenticity of the Pentateuch against the attacks of the German professor Rosenmüller, and to whom I proposed them for an elucidation, replied, that the whole passage respecting the confusion of languages was inserted by some later hand; for he observes, "if an attentive reader, in perusing the Pentateuch, were carefully to include within parentheses, whatever is evidently posterior to the time of Moses, or occurs in the form of explanatory remark, it would be found, that the several interruptions of the original narrative would be removed, and its natural order restored." To this declaration, however, others would hardly subscribe, as they would be lieve that a door would thus be opened for declaring any passage in the Pentateuch to be an interpolation.' P. xxi.

The passage here noticed respecting the confusion of languages stands thus in our translation: Gen. xi. 9. Therefore is the name of it called Babel, because the LORD did there confound the language (LIP) of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth. Upon considering this passage as it stands in the narrative, we cannot have a doubt that the opinion of Dr. Hager's friend is well founded, and that the words in question, instead of being part of the original history, are the gloss only of a commentator upon it. But, were it otherwise, and the inference erroneous, how does, or can, an erroneous inference from a fact disprove its antecedent existence? Yet, that the inference is erroneous, the doctor has not proved; for he admits that the account given by Moses of the building of Babylon with bricks and bitumen is confirmed by ancient writers. But let us revert to the arguments adduced, and see how they apply to the text.

They' (the ancient writers quoted by Bochart in his Sacred Geography) will not allow that Babel was thus called from the confusion of languages. If Babel, say they, was to signify confusion, it ought to be called either Belilah,, or Bilbul,, which is the name still given to confusion by the Rabbins; but balal,, to confound, being one of those verbs which double the second radi. cal, confusion ought literally to be called Mebilah, Mylap, or