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 such 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 account, 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.

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 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

ness to God and the relation of their souls to eternity-it entered not into the minds of any but a few devout and uninfluential Christians, who could only sigh over a wreck, the horrors of which it was not in their power to alleviate or prevent. But as it is not in the nature of sanctified benevolence to remain inactive, or to content itself with unavailing regrets, in the present instance as in many others, it prompted inquiry; inquiry disclosed the wide extent and alarming magnitude of the evil to be combated; and this excited the deepest sympathy of Christian philanthropists, who, opposed as they were by the most appalling discouragements, resolved upon pouring the light and blessed influence of the gospel upon perishing thousands of their countrymen, so long and so fearfully doomed to spiritual destitution, aggravated and rendered more than usually virulent by their separation from those restraints which the manners and institutions of civilized society never fail to impose upon the most neglected of its population. Affecting appeals in their behalf were made to the Christian public without regard to church or sect, party or denomination-all were intreated to enter heartily with one accord, and without a moment's delay, upon this important sphere of labor; and that none might excuse themselves under the notion that their efforts were not needed, or that their lack of service might be compensated by the zeal and liberality of those more immediately interested in maritime affairs, -it was proved that the combined energies of all the Christians in the empire would be inadequate to afford the necessary agency to meet the moral exigencies of so many thousands of immortal beings passing into eternity with unexampled rapidity, multitudes of them cut off without reflection or preparation amid the shock of battle or the horrors of shipwreck, and all of them in deepest need of religious instruction and discipline.

This demonstration, for it amounted to nothing less, exhibited the appalling facts, that in the royal navy there were 30,000 immortal beings in the perilous circumstances we have described, and 250,000, in addition, devoted to the merchant service and our fisheries; that for every sixteen sailors who die of all diseases, eleven die by drowning or in wrecks; that some of these diseases and many of these wrecks are the effects of vice, more especially of the crying and profligate sin of drunkenness.

A document presented in Dr. Harris's prize essay, Britannia,' gives the following statement.

That during a period of sixteen months, from January 1, 1833, to May 1, 1834, the number of vessels reported in Lloyd's books as missing or lost, and which have never since been heard of, amounted to ninety-five in number; and these ships being principally engaged

in foreign voyages, the calculation made on their value, and the number of their crews, including officers, seamen, and passengers, assuming £8,000 as the lowest average value of ship and cargo throughout, and fifteen as the average number of persons on board, the whole gives a total loss in these missing ships only, within the short period of sixteen months, of £760,000 sterling in property, and 1,425 lives.

That these results do not embrace the whole extent of loss in property or lives occasioned by shipwrecks even among those vessels only which belong to the United Kingdom, inasmuch as these returns include only the losses entered in Lloyd's books, from which the returns adverted to were made out; whereas it is well known that many vessels and lives are lost by wreck or foundering at sea, of which no entry is made in Lloyd's books, and of which, as no record is kept, no retura can be produced.'

The pecuniary consideration, important as it is, on such a subject seems almost out of place-at least we have introduced the extract to confirm the data assumed by those who first invited the attention of the Christian public to the moral condition and perils of seamen; the prodigal waste of life, and the consequent ruin of souls. It is also to be observed, that in this alarming account, the seamen of the British navy are not included. What the religious communities of the country were, therefore, specially called to provide for, was the spiritual destitution of 280,000 of their fellow subjects who for centuries had been uncared for and neglected-degraded by ignorance and profligacy—and passing by a thousand fatal casualties, into an eternity of which they had little apprehension. It may perhaps be contended that the navy ought to have been excepted in this painful description, inasmuch as the state provision made for the instruction of the crews of ships of war by the appointment of chaplains to all of them of any magnitude, afford opportunity of obtaining the knowledge and cherishing the influence of religion. Those, however, who are competent to form a correct judgment on this point, will attach little value to chaplaincies, at the best times no better filled than the parochial pulpits of the Establishment; and for which were formerly destined the most worthless and inefficient members of the priesthood. All the ports of the civilized and uncivilized world bear one uniform testimony to the profane, impure, and reckless character of British sailors. At least this was the case when Christian benevolence was first roused into activity on their behalf. If there be any difference in the moral condition of the merchant seamen and those of the navy, it is in favor of the former; both are trained under the same depraving influence, and from our merchant ships and fisheries our men of war are supplied, but their character is never improved by the change. The Church of which they are members, and the state of which they are the servants, provide