and fables, which are calculated to display the moral doctrines of the ancient Arabians. There have been many hypotheses concerning the country in which he lived, and the period at which he flourished, but the greater part of the Mussulman doctors make him contemporary with David and Solomon. It has been supposed that he was a native of Ethiopia or Nubia, and in rather a servile condition; that he had been a slave in different countries, that he was at length sold among the Israelites. His wisdom has been ascribed to divine inspiration, which he received in the following manner. While asleep at noon-day, angels came to the place where he was reposing, saluted him, without rendering themselves visible, and declared that God would make him a monarch and his lieutenant on earth. He signified his submission to the will of his Maker, but would rather have preferred to remain in a low condition. On account of this answer, God bestowed upon him wisdom in so eminent a degree, that he was enabled to instruct mankind by a great variety of maxims, sentences, and parables, amounting to ten thousand in number. The anecdotes which are recorded concerning the life of Lokman are found scattered in the writings of several of the orientals; of these we shall notice only a few. As he was once seated in the midst of a circle of auditors, a man of high rank asked if he was not that black slave whom he had before seen attending upon the flocks in the field; he replied, he was; how then, said the other, have you attained to such wisdom, and so high reputation; "By following exactly," said Lokman, "these three precepts; always to speak the truth; to keep inviolably the promises made; and never to meddle with what does not concern me." It was Lokman who said, that "the tongue and the heart were both the best and the worst parts of man." Mahomet frequently refers to the authority of Lokman in support of his own opinions and doctrines, and he is still regarded by the followers of the Mahometan religion as a saint and a prophet. They represent him to have been as virtuous and pious as he was wise, and on that account was peculiarly blessed of God. Some writers assert that he embraced the Jewish religion, and entered into the service of king David, who entertained a high esteem for him, and that he died at a very advanced age. The scanty relics of the fables of Lokman were published by Erpenius, in Arabic and Latin, and Tanaquil Faber gave an edition of them in elegant Latin verse.

POETRY.

LAMIRAS, a famous poet and musician of Thrace, who, according to some authors, was the inventor of the Dorian

mode. He lived before Homer, and is said to have been the first musician who united the voice to the sound of the cithara.

LITERATURE.

THERSIPPUS, an Athenian dramatic writer, who died B. C. 954.

ASTRONOMY.

TCHEOU-KONG, a celebrated Chinese astronomer, who flourished about 1000 years before the Christian era, and is said to have invented the mariner's compass. He erected a tower in the city of Ho-nan for an observatory; and there is still to be seen in it an instrument which he made and used for finding the shadow at noon, and determining the latitude.

PAINTING.

CLEANTHUS, one of the first inventors of painting in Corinth. He is said to have learned the art from one Ardices, his countryman, and was one of those painters who were styled monochromists, because their art extended to no farther than to draw the simple outline of the figure, and fill it up with one colour only. Strabo, however, describes some large compositions of this master. The period of Cleanthus is doubtful; but he probably lived about this time.

PERIOD VII.

FROM AHAB TO JEROBOAM II.

[B. C. 949.]

REMARKABLE FACTS, EVENTS, AND DISCOVERIES.

B.C.

886 Homer's Poems brought from Asia into Greecc. 884 Lycurgus reforms the constitution of Lacedæmon. 869 Scales and measures invented by Phidon.

864 The city of Carthage enlarged by Dido.

In this period we perceive liberty and laws paving the way for the appearance of those great men, of whom the world has reason to be proud. Fabulous divinities and barbarous heroes begin to retire, that more interesting characters may occupy their space.

In this period, poetry and music make a respectable figure.

AHAB, the son of Omri, the king of Israel, succeeded his father, B. C. 918. Of this monarch, it is difficult to determine, whether his wickedness and impiety, in establishing idolatry, and persecuting the true prophets of the Almighty, notwithstanding repeated warnings and extraordinary visitations both of judgment and mercy from heaven, or his weakness and folly in being thus led to his destruction by the advices of a beautiful but abandoned woman, were greatest. His marriage with Jezebel, his multiplied idolatries; the repeated warnings he had from Elijah and other prophets; the extraordinary famine of three years' continuance; the still more extraordinary circumstance attending the restoration of fertility and plenty; the insolent messages sent him by the haughty Benhadad; his repeated and signal victories over the proud boaster, notwithstanding his numerous forces, and the combination of kings that accompanied him; his ill judged mercy to, and covenant with, that late imperious and now cringing tyrant; his discontent at Naboth's refusing to sell his patrimonial vineyard, with the dreadful judgments denounced against the royal family in consequence, and the complete execution of the threatened vengeance by the extirpation of the whole race, are recorded in the first and second books of Kings and Second of Chronicles,

otherwise his character, as an ambassador, ought to have preserved him.

AHIJAH, an inhabitant of Shiloh, and an inspired prophet of Israel, who tore Jeroboam's new garment in twelve pieces, and gave him ten of them, as an emblem that the ten tribes, over which he foretold that Jeroboam should reign, would be rent from the house of David. He also foretold the death of Jeroboam's son, and wrote a history of the reign of Solomon, which is lost. He flourished B. C. 958.

SHEMAIAH, an inspired prophet of Judah, in the reign of Rehoboam, who prevented a civil war between Israel and Judah, and prevailed on Rehoboam's new raised army of 180,000 warriors to disband, by assuring them that the division of the kingdom which had just taken place, was ordained by the Almighty. (1 Kings xii. 21-24.) He delivered other two messages to the king and to the people. Shemaiah was also an author, and wrote the History of Rehoboam, which is quoted in 2 Chron. xii. 5.7. 15.

ABIJAH, or Abijam, was the name of a king of Judah, who succeeded Rehoboam. After a reign of three years, during which he imitated the impiety and bad conduct of his father, he died B. C. 955.

ASA, king of Judah, succeeded his father Abijam. He abolished idolatry, restored the worship of the true God, and, with the assistance of Benhadad, king of Syria, took several towns from the king of Israel. He died B. C. 914, and was succeeded by his son Jehoshaphat.

HANANI, a prophet who came to Asa, king of Judah, and said (2 Chron. xvi. 7.) Because thou hast put thy trust in the king of Syria, and not in the Lord; the army of the king of Syria is escaped out of thine hands. We know not on what occasion the prophet spake thus; but Asa ordered him to be seized and imprisoned. Some suppose, that this Hanani was father to the prophet Jehu; but this does not appear clear from Scripture. Jehu prophesied in Israel; Hanani, in Judah. Jehu was put to death by Baasha, king of Israel, who died B. C. 929; and Hanani reproved Asa, king of Judah, who reigned from B. C. 955, to B. C. 914.

BENHADAD I., the son of Tabrimon, king of Syria, bribed by Asa, king of Judah, broke his league with Baasha, king of Israel, ravaged the northern parts of his kingdom, and built market places, or rather citadels in Samaria. 1 Kings xv. 18.

AMASA, the son of Hadai, one of the four princes of Ephraim, who seconded the human advice of the prophet Obed, to restore the 200,000 captive women and children, whom the troops of Pekah had carried off from Judah; and whose kind

ness and attention to these prisoners are to their honour recorded. 2 Kings xxviii. 15.

BAASHA, the son of Ahijah, and the third king of Israel, after its separation from Judah; one of the many monarchs who have waded through blood to a throne. His murder of his predecessor, Nadab, his extirpation of the whole family of Jeroboam, his wars with king Asa, his idolatries, and the judgments denounced and executed against his house, are recorded in 1 Kings xv. and xvi. He died in the twenty-fourth year of his reign.

ELAH, the son of Baasha, the fourth king of Israel after the separation of the ten tribes from Judah. He was murdered while he was in a state of intoxication by Zimri, when he had reigned only two years.

OMRI, was general of the army of Elah, king of Israel. Being at the siege of Gibbethon, and hearing that his master Elah was assassinated by Zimri, who had usurped his kingdom, he raised the siege of Gibbethon, and, being elected king by his army, marched against Zimri, attacked him at Tirzah, and forced him to burn himself and all his family in the palace in which he had shut himself up. Zimri reigned only seven days. 1 Kings xvi. 9.

After the death of Zimri, half of Israel acknowledged Omri for king; the other half adhered to Tibni, the son of Ginath. This division continued four years. When Tibni was dead, the people united again in acknowledging Omri as king of all Israel, who reigned twelve years; six years at Tirzah, and six at Samaria.

Till that time Tirzah had been the chief residence of the kings of Israel. But when Omri purchased the hill of Shemer (1 Kings xvi. 24.), B. C. 924, for two talents of silver (6847.); he there built a new city, which he called Samaria, from the name of the first possessor Shemer, and in which he fixed his royal seat. From this time Samaria was the capital of the kingdom of the ten tribes.

Ömri did evil before the Lord, and his crimes exceeded those of his predecessors. He walked in all the ways of Jeroboam, the son of Nebat. He died at Samaria, B. C. 918.

ELIJAH, or ELIAS, was one of the most distinguished of the Jewish prophets. He commenced the exercise of the prophetic office about 920 years B. C. and his first commission was directed against Ahab, whose impious character and encouragement of idolatry merited reproof. The sovereign, however, was incensed, and the prophet was obliged to withdraw from the threatened effects of his indignation. During his retirement, providence miraculously afforded him the means of subsistence. In the mean time the country was visited with a famine, as a token of Divine displeasure; and at the termina