B.C. 2697-1187B.c. 1510, and B.c. 2347-837B. c. 1510. That is twenty years after the flight of Moses to Midian, and twenty before the Exode, being the 60th of the Jewish lawgiver's age.

We have seen above, that the contents of the Hermaic Genesis, as preserved by Sanchoniatho and in the first book of Manetho, descend to the age of the sacred annalist, and no lower, which seems to refer its author to the same age. Here we accordingly behold the date of that work, computing from the sacred Hebrew root of astronomical calculation to come out at the very time required, and coeval with that of the inspired Genesis itself; and if the author of the former can be historically proved to have been a contemporary of Moses, then nothing is more historically certain than that the Egyptian system of time owes its origin, as much as does any one of the Jewish corruptions, to the sacred; with this difference, that Hermes Trismegistus, whoever he was, derived it from direct collision with the inspired writer himself. It seems not improbable that this personage was one of Pharaoh's magicians, and in all likelihood a fellow-student with Moses in the colleges of Heliopolis or Tanis. It would appear from Manetho that he was a priest of Heliopolis; for that historian was himself one, and in his epistle to Ptolemy he reckons Hermes Trismegistus among his predecessors.

It seems generally agreed that the Book of Genesis was written by Moses while in the land of Midian, between the fortieth and eightieth years of his age; and that it was compiled, under inspiration, from the patriarchal records, probably themselves inspired; but the exact date it is impossible to fix with certainty, save that it falls doubtless in some year between the manhood of Moses and the time of the Exode-i. e. from his twentieth to his eightieth year.

The Hermaic corruption comes out, as above, in the sixtieth year of Moses, or in the middle of the time of his residence in Midian; but whether the inspired record was compiled previous to his flight or after it, appears of little historical importance: for it cannot be doubted but that he was divinely qualified to instruct his fellow-students, in return for the learning he acquired among them (Acts vii. 22), in that pure system of cosmogony and history whereby the origin of time and of the material universe, and the consequent existence of a Supreme First Cause, is demonstrated; which he either then or afterwards committed to writing. Neither can it be questioned but that the magicians, who were so desirous of imitating and exceeding the divine writer in his miracles, would avail themselves of his knowledge in the above-mentioned respects, to improve

their own, and to compose a system which would possess more the appearance of truth, according to human science as then understood.

Let us now see what historical evidence remains towards fixing the age of Hermes, the reputed author of the Egyptian Genesis and astro-chronological system.

The age of his first-known copyist, Sanchoniatho, is itself highly material to this point; for, according to Philo-Byblius, the preserver of the Phoenician annalist, that writer flourished either in the reign of the second Assyrian Semiramis, named also Atossa, which refers him to the fifteenth century before the Christian æra; or in the time of the Trojan war, which refers him to the twelfth; or in the reign of Abibal, the father of Hiram king of Tyre, which belongs to the age of David, in the eleventh century B. C.; and below this no writer refers the age of Sanchoniatho. It follows, that the time of Hermes Trismegistus is of the highest antiquity; and, supposing the first-mentioned epoch of Sanchoniatho to be the right one, that the age of the former must have been nearly coeval with that of Moses. But to Eusebius we are indebted for critically fixing it. "His temporibus," says he, in Chron. Hieron. sub. anno 556, or B. c. 1460, being the eleventh year after the death of Moses, according to this writer, "Tat filius Hermetis Trismegisti fuisse dignoscitur." It follows, that Hermes himself was the contemporary of Moses, agreeably to the result of the Hermaic corruption. This was, in fact, the golden age of science and learning among the Egyptians. Thenceforward their astronomers kept records of eclipses, as appears from the 373 solar and 832 lunar eclipses mentioned by Diogenes Laertius, from Aristotle and Sotion, to have been observed in Egypt before the days of Alexander; a number which M. Bailly computes might have been noted in the space of twelve or thirteen centuries, in a country with a clear atmosphere like Egypt and Chaldea. These records, therefore, ascend to the fifteenth or sixteenth century before the Christian æra. From about the same time Simplicius dates the Egyptian observations, or 2000 years before the reign of Justinian, which began A. D. 527. From the year B. c. 1489, the next after the Exode, the Egyptian intercalary period, of 1460 fixed Sothoic years, originated, when the Thoth, or first day of the moveable year, fell on the thirtieth of the Julian August; for Syncellus tells us that it terminated at the Actian æra, in the fifteenth of Augustus, A. M. 5472, as he computes-answering to the year B. c. 29-whence Theon of Alexandria accordingly deduced a new period. I do not here go into the question as to why the Thoth of the Actian æra was fixed to August 29, the day preceding that of the embolismal period. In the age of Moses the Egyptians in all probability discovered the true quantity of the

solar tropical year, as has been shewn in my paper on the astronomy of the Chaldeans, sect. 5. From the first Sothoic cycle, of 1461 moveable years, originating next after this age, being from the Heliacal rising of Sirius, July 20, in the year B. c. 1325, we learn from Theon that the Egyptian astronomers of future ages made their calculations for the Heliacal rising of that star, which ruled their calendar. This, therefore, connects the invention of the Sothoic cycle with observations of nearly the same age with the improvements above referred to. That the doctrine of equinoctial precession was likewise then understood, is plain from the mention of the Zodiacal period in the Hermaic Genesis.

That Hermes Trismegistus was the contemporary of the sacred historian, or flourished about the same age, was the general opinion of the ancients. Suidas cites an ancient author, referring the history of Joseph, with whose death the Mosaic Genesis concludes, to the Egyptian Hermes. And Artapanus (Euseb. præp. Evang. 1. ix. c. xxvii.) roundly affirms, that Hermes was no other than Moses himself, who instructed the Egyptians in philosophy, and by reason of his interpretation of the sacred writings, was named by the priests Hermes, or The Interpreter ;-an account at least founded on truth, and harmonising with the age of Hermes and the Egyptian Genesis, and with the origin of the latter in a modification either of the instructions or the Genesis of Moses.

In a word, no æra of corruption of the inspired computation comes out more historically and chronologically perfect than that of the Hermaic Genesis, nearly 1100 years earlier than the first Jewish corruption. The astronomical epoch of the former, and the age of its reputed author, are the same. Both fall in the days of the sacred histories, and the state of learning in Egypt at the time was precisely such as to render the corruption not only probable, but inevitable. But the latter will be better illustrated when we come to calculate the age of the Hermaic Genesis from its own astronomical elements. Enough has, however, it is hoped, been said to evince that this Hermaic corruption is of incalculable importance, not only as exhibiting the first origin of the system afterwards so extensively adopted by the Jews; but, above all things, because it refers the inspired and parent record of time to its true antiquity; and, by demonstrating that the Egyptian chronological system is, as well as the ancient and modern Jewish, a corruption of the original Mosaic, furnishes an instant answer, on scientific principles, to those learned men who suppose the Mosaic Genesis to be a compilation from Egyptian traditions. (See Cuvier's " Theory of the Earth.")

ERRATA.—Vol. II. p. 904, lines 28, 29: for Sethoic, read Sothoic.

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III. p.161, line 3 from bottom (in several copies), for Imperial, read Inspired

191

PROGRESS OF JUDGMENTS ON ENGLAND

AND HOLLAND.

'CONSIDER how it is that historical documents and records ori'ginate; even honest records, where the reporters were unbiassed by personal regard, a case which, where nothing more were ⚫ wanted, must ever be among the rarest. The real leading features of an historical transaction, those movements that essentially characterize it, and alone deserve to be recorded, are nowise the foremost to be noted. At first among the various 'witnesses who are also parties interested, there is only vague ' wonder, and fear or hope, and the noise of Rumour's thousand 'tongues; till, after a season, the conflict of testimonies has subsided into some general issue; and then it is settled by majority of votes, that such and such a crossing of the Rubicon, an impeachment of Strafford, a Convocation of the Notables, are epochs in the world's history, cardinal points on which grand world-revolutions have hinged. Suppose, however, that the majority of votes was all wrong; that the real cardinal points lay far deeper, and had been passed over unnoticed, because no Seer, but only mere on-lookers, chanced to be there! Our clock strikes when there is a change from hour to hour;

BUT NO HAMMER IN THE HOROLOGE OF TIME PEALS THROUGH THE UNIVERSE WHEN THERE IS A CHANGE

" FROM ERA TO ERA. Men understand not what is among 'their hands as calmness is the characteristic of strength, so 'the weightiest causes may be the most silent......... It is not ' in acted as it is in written history: actual events are nowise so simply related to each other as parent and offspring are; every 'single event is the offspring not of one, but of all other events, prior or contemporaneous, and will in its turn combine with all ' others to give birth to new: it is an ever-living, ever-working chaos of being, wherein shape after shape bodies itself forth 'from immediate elements.............Alas! for our chains or chainlets of causes and effects, which we so assiduously track through certain hand-breadths of years and square miles, when 'the whole is a broad, deep immensity, and each atom is chained ' and completed with all. Truly if history be philosophy teaching by experience, the writer fitted to compose history is hitherto an unknown man. The experience itself would require all knowledge to record it, were the all-wisdom needful for such philosophy as would interpret it to be had for asking. Better were it that mere earthly historians should lower such preten'sions, more suitable for Omniscience than for human science; and aiming only at some picture of the things acted, which picture 'itself will at best be a poor approximation, leave the inscrut'able purport of them an acknowledged secret; or at most in

reverent Faith, far different from that teaching of Philosophy, pause over the mysterious vestiges of Him, whose path is in the great deep of time, whom History indeed reveals, but only ALL history, and IN ETERNITY, will clearly reveal.'

But it is time that we should use our own words, to clothe thoughts which are germain to those of our able contemporary. The only genuine historian is he who is versed in the Book of God. Setting aside the mere annalist or journal-keeper, they who have treated the narrative of facts as inferior to the discussion of principles, which have been the sources of actions, are nearest the standard of the true historian. In church history, which should have been the true history, Milner alone seems to have stumbled upon the right idea, but to have left it almost as soon as it was formed. "The candid and the learned Mosheim" was farther astray than even his panegyrist Gibbon; for "the history of the church is a history of the invisible as well as of the visible church; which latter, if disjointed from the former, is but a vacant edifice; gilded, it may be, and overhung with old votive gifts, yet useless, nay, pestilentially unclean."

In the spirit, and almost in the letter, of these remarks, did we, in our last Number, endeavour to give a rapid sketch of the circumstances connected with the present revolution-or rather, we should say, present state of the revolution in France. The details of facts are rather within the province of a newspaper; and if there were such a thing as a religious newspaper, to its charge should we confide topics like the present. But until some such is established, conducted by men who have a larger vision for politics than to bound the whole within the horizon of a favourite placeman, and a more exalted view of religion than the five points of Calvinism, we shall continue to direct the eye of the subjects of the King of kings to the overthrowing of nations, which He is accomplishing by means of the very men who in senates, and in religious committee-rooms," say, in the pride and stoutness of heart, The bricks are fallen down, but we will build with hewn stone; the sycamores are cut down, but we will change them into cedars."

The character of the Belgians is thus given by Charles V. :"Moderate in his prosperity, and equally calm in adversity, without pride, without ostentation, sober, naturally frank, the Belgian is at the same time prudent and circumspect, patient to obstinacy, and industrious to an excess: faithful to his religion, and affectionate to his chiefs, as long as they respect justice and the laws; but so soon as his rights are touched, his patience ceases, and he becomes untameable. Whenever tyranny has sought to oppress him, he has resisted, yielded and died; but it has always been with a free spirit." A people so constituted Napoleon held under military thraldom. The English Govern