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were the Phenicians. Josephus too, tells us that "Canaan, the fourth son of Ham, inhabited the country now called Judea, and called it from his own name Canaan." Matthew (xv. 22,) tells us that Christ cast forth a devil from the daughter of a Canaanitish woman: Mark (vii. 26,) in relating the same occurrence, calls the woman a Greek, a Syrophenician by nation ;" thus proving the identity of those terms at so late a period as the times of the Apostles. This appears to us conclusive upon the connection of Canaan and Ethiopia, and we are surprised that any one, in the face of these facts, should have penned the sentence upon which we are commenting. The Canaanites, so far from being the black, indolent, and unintellectual race, which they are represented to be by the author, are actually identified with the most intelligent and active people of that period, the inventors of letters, the merchants of antiquity, the missionaries of civilization, in comparison with whom their conquerors, the Jews, were but an ignorant and bigoted horde of barbarians.

But let us see to what paternity historians do trace the Ethiopians. Upon this subject, Josephus says:* "Time has not at all hurt the name of Chus; for the Ethiopians, over whom he reigned, are even at this day, both by themselves and all men in Asia, called Chusites." In the proverbial expression, "Can the Ethiopian change his skin, or the leopard his spots ?" the word translated Ethiopian is, in the original, Cush. This connection between the land of Cush and Ethiopia is, we believe, maintained by all historians, theologians, and geographers, with but a single exception, and he gives no countenance to the fancies of our author. "Cush," says Buttman,† "corresponds to the great name Ethiopia. The one, like the other, is originally merely the fixed appellation of the extreme south; the region which, according to the belief of the ancients, lay close upon the fiery zone, and the inhabitants of which were black, from being exposed to the scorching rays of the sun. Each nation placed its Cushites or Ethiopians to the south, throughout the whole of the earth's

*Antiquities of the Jews, B. I, ch. 6, § 2.

Antiquities of the Jews, B. I, ch. 6, § 2. We have used Whiston's translation, and it will be perceived that he spells the name Chus. As he is speaking of the sons of Ham, however, who were Cush, Plint, Misraim, and Canaan, he evidently refers to the first named.

longitude, as known to them; so that the inhabitants of the region of the Euphrates would regard them as occupying the south coasts of Asia generally."

"The Canaanites were negroes, because that portion of them called Gibeonites, sold themselves into slavery. No other race of people sell themselves into slavery but negroes."

How did the Gibeonites sell themselves into slavery? We are told that, dreading the power of Joshua, they made a treaty with him under the pretence that they were not Canaanites, but lived afar from that people; but he afterwards discovered the fraud, and reduced them into slavery. To our uninitiated minds this, if it can be regarded as a contract at all, appears to lack all the essential requisites of a sale. What was the price? So far as there was any, it was security for the lives of the Gibeonites. Has the author never read of any other people who submitted to slavery in order to save their lives? This contract, so far from being confined to the negro, was universally used among the ancients, when the only alternative offered to an enemy was slavery or death; and men of the very race from which he has himself descended, have often thus sold themselves into slavery. Where, or when, has the negro done more than this?

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Canaan, being one of Ham's household, and called his son, must therefore have been a negro."

Will the author furnish us the proposition by which he connects the above antecedent and consequent, since, after the most intense application, we have been utterly unable to supply it. Accustomed to regard the generation of a negro child as one of the few things which are impossible to the white man, we should have been rather disposed to reason thus: Canaan, being one of Ham's household, and called his son, must therefore have been a white man. The assertion that Ham was a negro would evidently only remove the difficulty one step further back, while it would raise another when we should inquire how his other sons came to be white, as they are admitted to have been.

But we must bring this article, already too long, to a close, for it is equally unnecessary and impossible to notice all the rash assertions and inconclusive reasonings of our author, since every paragraph is full of them. We

will merely, in regard to this genealogical table, of which he would make such unwarrantable use, express our concurrence in the opinion of Michaelis, that it is not to be understood as containing the origin of all the nations of the earth, but only of those which were known to the Hebrews. We feel confident that the progress of science will force theologians to place this limit upon this part of Genesis, as it already has upon some others; and that the philosophers of the next century will no more think of wasting valuable time in fruitless efforts to people the world from the garden of Eden, than Botanists and Zoologists now do of endeavouring to trace the bread-fruit tree or kangaroo to that imaginary centre. Such speculations as those which we have just passed in review, can answer no better purpose than to furnish the theme upon which some future Bayle, should he be industrious and fortunate enough to recover them from the dust in which they are destined to be entombed, may make himself and his readers merry with witty remarks upon the whimsies and incongruities of the human mind.

Before entirely dismissing this subject, however, we feel called upon to comment in a tone of severity, the necessity of which we deeply regret, upon the illiberal and unbecoming manner in which the author dismisses a writer to whom all, who may have examined this question, and who possess the slightest spark of scientific enthusiasm, must feel so deeply indebted as to Mr. Prichard. Such men merit, and will always receive, the generous admiration of those truly scientific minds which feel a pride in. encountering a foeman worthy of their steel, and scorn the demagoguical art of endeavouring to silence a too powerful adversary by affixing to him an odious and unpopular appellation. Instead of the mere abolition claptrap for sophomores, which it is represented as being, his work is marked by a spirit of calm philosophy, which has commended it even to those who repudiate its conclusions; and modesty, if not wit, should have dictated to our author the propriety of more reserve in his censure of a work which has been characterized as "admirable" by Alexander Von Humboldt. Commendation of it is, however, unnecessary to students of the subject which it treats, and though we should bring hundreds, what name could add weight to that Humboldt? Who is he who scoffs at

his "sophomoric learning?" We will not do either the injustice of instituting a comparison between them. We are certainly no worshippers of mere names, yet in differing in opinion with Alexander Von Humboldt we should always do so with hesitation and respect. In detecting and successfully exposing a fallacy in his reasonings, we should feel that we had earned a laurel of which we might well be proud; but in endeavouring to scoff him from a hearing, we should be equally conscious that we but rendered ourselves ridiculous and contemptible. The same may be said, with but little modification, of Mr. Prichard. We certainly dissent from his conclusions; we by no means think his armour proof; but he who would send an arrow through it, must use a bow of wellseasoned yew; a common green hickory one is impotent against it. BETA.

New-Orleans, La.

ART. IV.-MEN AND WOMEN OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY. Men and Women of the Eighteenth Century. By ARSENE HOUSSAYE. Redfield: Clinton Hall, New-York. Bentley London. 1852.

AT first sight we are disposed to consider the title of this work a misnomer, when we find the stage of the eighteenth century confined to Paris, and the actors selected as its representatives are, all French. But, after all, the more we analyze the character of that period in Europe, at least, we discover the influence of French literature, language, art, diplomacy and manners, everywhere paramount. A universal empire is something very different from political ascendancy, or mere success in arms. France extended farther in reality under the Bourbons of the eighteenth century, than when Napoleon was at the head of the Confederation of the Rhine. The English and German mind, if not subjugated, were at least in a state of provincial vassalage, at that time, to the dominant activity of French thought. That language bade fair to become the universal tongue; and the tastes, the social

customs and deportment of all who laid claim to refinement, were modelled on those of the French gentleman. One of the best practical tests we know of, is the general estimate put on a knowledge of the language of a country in indicating its importance, and assuredly at the present time, French, though of course deemed a valuable accomplishment, bears a much lower relative stand than what

it did twenty years ago. English now seems destined to become the tongue of universal use-and the daily vehicle of incessant barter is fast crowding out the syllables in which strategists have written of their science, and diplomatists practised theirs. During the eighteenth century, France reflected the quintescence of the spirit of the times, and M. Houssaye, in his sympathetic and imaginative examination of the men and women of that epoch, appears guided by a species of patriotic instinct.

The characteristic feature of the century was the most intense form of purely personal activity-it was superlatively subjective. Art had developed itself to the uttermost, and in doing so had expelled nature with the sharpest prongs. She was an intruder that disturbed the author and the painter, and these worthies, in the plenitude of their power, resolved to take vengeance by banishing her, so far as it was possible for creatures of flesh and blood. Thus passion everywhere, both in books and in life, degenerated into sentiment-manners triumphed over morality-the means were more valued than the end-and theories in government, fictions in art, and opinions in philosophy, took the place of substantial happiness, the truth of nature, and solid facts. Real men had been shoved out by the wigged and be-powdered shadows, and human activity never displayed more utterly its vanity, than in a period when, by a practical atheism, it was asserting its fancied omnipotence. The King was the State, and the personal scheme in government was transmitted through all the channels of power,-a despotism everywhere reflected the opposite of the impersonal ideal of all constitutional forms, where the office is always, at least in theory, greater than its administrator. The history of such a nation, and such a time, must, of necessity, be biographical-and for this reason, French history is completely made up of memoirs, lives, letters, and reminiscences. It possesses no organizations-like the munici