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'Greece could not possibly contain at the same time MORE THAN 'ONE person answering to this description. What man possessing unrivalled power, and assuming divine honors, visited Greece "about thirty years before the Argonautic expedition, and two genera'tions before the Trojan war? HISTORY unequivocally replies, Osiris On Sesostris, king of Egypt. He alone answers the description, and he answers it perfectly.'

Our notions of historical evidence are utterly opposed to Mr. Crosthwaite's; and as we cannot with politeness express all that we think about the greater part of the book, we shall say no more about the gods and goddesses. We have as little satisfaction in his principles of reasoning, even when we are on the ground of common history. For example; he follows Newton in doubting the great antiquity of the state of Sicyon; but instead of believing with Newton that Epaphas and Apis are the same king, he alleges that Epaphas is altered for euphony,' from ApAbas, and means son of Apis.' He says not, in what language: quære, in Welsh? He affirms that, according to Pausanias,' Apis was contemporary with Pelops; and in a note subjoins, as proof, these words from that writer: Apis became so powerful, before Pelops came to Olympia, that the whole peninsula was 'called Apia from him.' This proves the direct opposite. Pausanias means that Peloponnesus, which was so called from Pelops, had received its earlier name, Apia, from this Apis. He must surely have supposed Apis to have lived many generations before, if this were the case; else the name Apia would have had no time to prevail.

The SECOND great event in the heroic age, says Mr. Crosthwaite, was the Argonautic expedition. He notices Bryant's opinion, that no such expedition ever took place, and Dr. Rutherford's astronomical arguments on that side (p. 288); to which he makes reply: but considering the high compliment which he pays to Mr. Thirlwall's Greece, in his introduction, we might reasonably have expected some answer to his objections. Not thinking it right to transfer Mr. Thirlwall's discussion to our pages, it is enough to extract from him the remarks; that Homer nowhere names Colchis;-that he had heard of Æetes (king of Colchis), and of his sister Circe; of the Eæan island, and of the fountain Artacia, a scene memorable in the Argonautic legend; but places all these in the west, near the coast of Italy; that he transports the moving rocks from the Bosporus into the Sicilian sea; that he seems to have been ignorant that the Black Sea had any northern shore, and to have supposed that Jason sailed round the north of Greece and Italy, into the western sea. On the whole Mr. Thirlwall is of opinion that the voyage of the Argonauts is an embodying into a single tale the adventures of the Minyans in establishing a commerce between Thessaly and

the shores of the Black Sea. Assuming, however, that there was one particular adventure, of far more critical importance than all others, in a ship called Argo, it was clearly a generation previous to the war of Troy; but the attempt to settle whether it was thirty or forty years, seems to us vain. Our author's nicety on these points is absolutely puerile.

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The grand hunting match at Calydon is marked in the 'old tables three years after the Argonautic expedition; which seems too early. I think FIVE years near the truth.'—Page 78. His credulity as to the results of this expedition are on a par with the rest. He marks down in his table (p. 303), that the Argonauts plundered Colchos and Spain;' as though this were a notorious fact! We cannot say at what period the story first grew to this size; and Mr. Crosthwaite is never eager to assist in such inquiries.

The THIRD important date in the heroic age he makes to be that of the war of Troy, which was to Greece what the Crusades were to Europe. In fact, it is so closely connected with the preceding, that if both be real definite events, to determine one determines the other with as much precision as can reasonably be looked for.

Mr. Crosthwaite displays considerable ingenuity in his discussion on the kings of Argos; but perhaps his most successful chapter is the eighth of his first part, in which he exposes the errors and discrepancies of the old chronological tables. Some of these, however, rise out of the facts, and cannot be mended by any shifting of the dates. The marriage of Medea to the childless Ægeus; the relationship of Helen to Castor and Pollux; are rejected by Mr. Crosthwaite himself. Yet these facts are as well attested as nine out of ten of those on which he confidently rests. Yet more arbitrarily, he alleges that Labdacus is not father of Laius, but the same person with him, and that Edipus is not son of Laius at all: and again, that Tros, Ilus, and Laomedon are one man. This is playing fast and loose.

Concerning the earlier Egyptian dates, the conquest of Egypt by the Shepherd Kings, and their after-expulsion, we have little to say. Mr. Crosthwaite supposes B.C. 1176 and 1070 to be the true eras; and for any thing that we know, he may be right. But on the one hand, as these dates have absolutely no connexion with any others, as the events are isolated from all received history, they are of no interest to us at all: on the other, we regard the testimony of Manetho as too vague to rest upon, and are willing enough to wait for fresh light on these obscure points from the deciphering of the hieroglyphics.

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We are, however, much disposed to believe that Mr. Crosthwaite is really right, in contending with Sir Isaac Newton (but against all our most celebrated antiquaries), that the Sesostris of

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Herodotus is the Shishak of the Scripture. Not that we for a moment look on it with Mr. Crosthwaite's eyes; who receives with dutiful submission not only the sufficiently extravagant account given to Herodotus by the Egyptian priests, but the yet more monstrous exaggerations of Diodorus, four centuries later. We should rather say, that the Shishak of Scripture has been exaggerated into Sesostris. That the name Shishak or Sesac is Sesoochis, and this again Sesostris, is possible; but suct similarities prove nothing. However, that a king of Egypt, named Shishak, overran Judea, is clear; and we seem authorized from the Old Testament in saying that only one king of Egypt did this before Necho. Now Herodotus's testimony that Sesostris did so, is particularly strong; and he states this of none besides, except Necho. Whether Shishak, however, marched farther than Syria may be greatly doubted.

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Our author's argument drawn from the number of reigns is here illusive. According to him, Sesostris is as many reigns (in Herodotus's story) above Sethon, as Rehoboam is above Hezekiah: now Sethon is contemporary with Hezekiah; for Sennacherib attacked both: therefore Sesostris is contemporary with Rehoboam. But his case has three flaws: (1) He has counted the reign of Anysis as three reigns; thus: Anysis-Sabaco (an Ethiopian invader)-Anysis restored.' Deposition had no tendency to make Anysis live a threefold life. (2) He has omitted to notice that Herodotus makes Cheops succeeded by his brother Cephren; after whom is Mycerinus, son of Cheops. Hence the name of Cephren should be cast out, as not affecting the average duration of reigns. (3) Many in the Egyptian series are elective monarchs, while the Jewish kings are all in the direct line of descent. All these things considered, the names in Herodotus,+ if true, bring Sesostris too low for our author's argument. He appears to think that names may often have been interpolated, but cannot have been omitted erroneously: but both contingencies are highly possible.

We need not follow him into his strictures on Malthus concerning the progress of population. But we have some general remarks to make. He gives us to suppose, by his preface, that his book

Herodotus takes Sesostris from Egypt, through Syria, right north to Colchis; and thence to Scythia and Thrace; which meant, perhaps, the county of the Don Cossacks. Diodorus makes him conquer India beyond the Ganges, and the whole sea coast from Egypt to India; besides Colchis, Thrace, the Cyclades, &c., &c.

The Egyptian reigns are: Sesostris, Pheron, Proteus, Rampsinitus, Cheops, Cephren, Mycerinus, Asychis, Anysis, Sethon; ten names. From Rehoboam to Hezekiah are twelve names. We do not believe Herodotus's list to be complete.

is somehow intended to uphold the Biblical Chronology: yet we have been unable to discover what connexion there is between that and his real subject. Whether Troy was conquered 300 years earlier or later whether Shishak was or was not the prince named Sesostris by the Greeks, whether or when the Shepherd Kings conquered Egypt; all this seems a matter of great indifference to one who reveres the Old Testament history. But when Mr. Crosthwaite says that what they call Neology is really 'infidelity and blasphemy,' he ought to feel that he is injuring the cause which he means to defend, unless he adds some refutation of those whom he so stigmatises. Yet it appears clear that no refutation can be seriously intended; for in his Canons of reasoning adopted from Dr. Hales, the first is: To adhere to 'the scriptural standard:' an axiom which would be utterly absurd, if he were writing to prove the accuracy of that standard. He seems therefore to us, rather to have stepped out of his way to give a lash at the Germans, with a view to display orthodoxy, and excuse his profound ignorance of their inquiries into Greek history and mythology. Moreover, he seriously injures the Biblical cause, by making it to appear that whoever rejects these Pagan fables must reject the Old Testament history.

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Consistently with this spirit, he puts forth a geological proof of the Noachian deluge, such as might naturally have been written forty years ago, but which shows astonishing ignorance, or bad faith, at the present day. Having stated broadly (p. 16), that the whole aspect of this globe confirms the Scripture ac'count, and declares to every age that there is a God who 'recompenses the wicked;' he is at the pains to add some very notorious facts in detail, concerning the marine productious found at great elevations in all parts of the world. If he is not aware that the ablest geologists exceedingly doubt (to say the least) whether the argument is sound, he is singularly ignorant; but if, knowing it, he tries to beguile the reader into supposing that the facts indisputably prove a single universal deluge, this is a 'pious 'fraud' which ought to be rejected with indignation.

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The many extraordinary things which we have found in this book, did not prepare us for the following notable information : p. 115, Mr. Champollion does not appear aware that the Coptic, in which he interprets most of the hieroglyphics, is compara'tively a modern language, a corrupt mixture of Hebrew, Arabic, and a portion of Greek.' If Mr. Crosthwaite will take the trouble to study Tatham's Coptic Grammar, and compare either the inflexions and structure of the language, or the crude forms of all the familiar verbs and nouns, with those of Hebrew, Arabic, and Greek, he will see, if indeed he possesses ordinary competency for the inquiry, that his assertion is utterly the reverse of the truth.

After noticing defects so grave pervading the whole work, it may seem trifling to descend to verbal criticism. But it is hardly worthy of a scholar to talk as he does of the Biarchy at Sparta, meaning the Diarchy, or rule of two kings: to write Delphos for Delphi, Colchos for Colchis, and systematically to use cotemporary; a word as opposed to analogy as cotent, cotemn, cotemplate. While we are forced to say, that, for the extent of erudition here displayed, we consider the book to be of the most slender value; it is in some respects convenient, as giving to the reader within a small compass many tables of received dates and lists of kings; and what is of no small interest, the whole of the Parian Chronicle. It is solely for such reasons that we should care to afford it room on our shelves.

Art. IV. 1. The Sixth Annual Report of the British and Foreign Sailors' Society. 1839.

2. Address from the Committee of the Greenwich Christian Instruction Society.

WE

E notice these documents, and invite the attention of our readers to them, not for the purpose of exhibiting the moral and religious claims of sailors, nor yet of reporting what the Christian communities of Great Britain have done or are ready to attempt in responding to these claims; our object is rather to expose the impediments which bigotry, in the form of ecclesiastical intolerance, has thrown in the way of all the really benevolent exertions which have been for several years in operation, to raise the character of this numerous and important race of men, so far as those exertions have been intended to embrace that portion of our seamen who constitute the British navy.

The time is not so far distant, but we well remember when seamen were altogether overlooked in our moral statistics, and when scarcely any reference was made to them, except to contrast their general recklessness and profligacy on shore with their matchless courage and indomitable spirit on their natural element. Scarcely were any accurate notions entertained of the aggregate amount of lives devoted to the sea, or of the comparative numbers employed in our merchant ships and other craft engaged in trade, and those who at the same time manned our fleets; still less were their Bills of Mortality swelled by casualties and shipwrecks, and the number of deaths by these, compared with those inflicted by disease and the course of nature, either investigated or deemed worthy of consideration; and as to any idea of their accountable

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