entific attainment of him who promulgates them. It is hoped that henceforth no man will regard the decisions of Dr. C. as conclusive upon any subject, literary, or scientific, or moral, where there is requisite for its comprehension, either deep learning or candid investigation. We return to the subjects proposed, and inquire whether there is any reason to doubt concerning the production of the Pentateuch in the age during which it purports to have appeared, derived from the consideration that the art of writing was not then in use. There can exist in the mind of a well informed man, no difficulty on this subject. There are the most satisfactory grounds for concluding that the invention of letters took place in an age long anterior to that of Moses. We shall omit the consideration of those pictured representations by which we may suppose men originally communicated their ideas; and, in regard to alphabetic writing, it may be observed that all the early writers attribute the invention to a very remote age, and to some country of the East. Cadmus, according to their report, introduced letters from Phoenicia into Greece, B. C. 1519-a little after the death of Moses. Anticlides, an ancient Greek historian, as quoted by Pliny, vii. 57, asserts and attempts to prove that letters were invented in Egypt fifteen years before Phoroneaus, 409 years after the deluge, and in the 117th of Abraham. Epigenes informs us that observations made on the heavenly bodies for 720 years at Babylon, were written down on baked tiles. Pliny, from these statements, draws the conclusion that the use of letters, as he expresses it, must have been eternal, i. e. very ancient. Jahn's Biblical Archæology, Sect. 85. That Cadmus first introduced letters into Greece, rests upon the statement of Herodotus, L. V. 58, who, however, expresses himself with an air of doubt, using the limitation, "as it appears to me." He is contradicted by Diodorus Siculus, V. 57, 74, who states that many generations before Cadmus, the Greeks were in possession of written characters, and used them for public monuments. Pausanias I. 43, makes mention of an inscription which he had read at Megara, the date of which was 1678 years before our era, which was therefore anterior to Cadmus, and consequently Pelasgic. See Anthon's Lempriere, Art. Pelasgi. Mitford's Greece, C. ii. Sec. 3, pp. 118, 125. Beloe's Herodotus, v. 58. Note by translator. I might here make a quotation from Voltaire, who asserts that * * The original work of Lempriere, remodelled, greatly extended and vastly improved. The edition of 1833 (the third in quick succession) contains many articles of great interest, involving much research, and presenting the most important results of the critical labors of the profoundest scholars of Modern Germany. In its present form, although doubtless susceptible of much improvement, it is indeed a Bibliotheca Classica. 800 years before Moses, there were books written by the help of the alphabet. See letters of certain Jews, etc. p. 68. The authorities, however, given above, can derive no additional weight from the opinion of an author who did not hesitate to express the most opposite conclusions, when by this means he could effect a favorite purpose. In truth we might well dispense with all the information which has been recited above, inasmuch as there are now actually existing specimens of alphabetic writing, which have come down to us from an age prior to that in which we suppose the Pentateuch to have appeared. I allude to the manuscripts which have been deciphered by Champollion, as well as to the monumental inscriptions which he has enabled us to read. These, however, will again be brought up for our consideration, while examining the objection that "Moses could not have written the Pentateuch, because in his age the materials were not such as would have enabled him to produce so extended a work." It is proposed to meet this imagined difficulty in the next section. SECTION XIV. Did there exist in the age of Moses any suitable material, upon which the Pentateuch might have been written? "THE Egyptian priests told all their chronological lies to Herodotus, but they proved them from no book." Thus writes our courteous, and candid, and accurately informed author, whose enmity to the priestly order loses no opportunity of displaying itself, and whose amazing sagacity enables him to determine, in the absence of all evidence, what took place in a remote country more than two thousand years ago. Upon what authority rests the assertion, that the Egyptian priests did not confirm their statements by a reference to any written documents? Does Herodotus declare this? Certainly not. He rather gives us to understand the contrary, when in his Euterpe, § 145, he says "the Egyptians profess always to have computed the years and kept written accounts of them with the greatest accuracy." Surely this pretension could not could not have been supported in reference to ancient transactions, of which the historian is speaking, if they had not been able to exhibit any written documents even of a more modern date. Does the assumption then, which we are considering, rest upon the fact that there are now in existence, no Egyptian writings derived from a remote period? Were it even so, would it be at all surprising, that in a country over which the tide of conquest has repeatedly rolled, and in which the sway of barbarians has for many ages prevailed, there should have taken place a destruction of all the productions of a learned antiquity? Concerning Heliopolis, whose inhabitants are termed by Herodotus the most ingenious of the Egyptians, where Plato studied philosophy and Eudoxus astronomy, Savary remarks, "a barbarous Persian has overthrown her temples, a fanatic Arab burned her books, and one solitary obelisk overlooking her ruins, says to passengers, this once was Heliopolis." But the fame of Egypt is not supported alone by the testimony of ancient historians, who visited it when just declining from its high and palmy state, and recorded the results of their own observations and inquiries; while its "old magnificence is attested by its architectural remains, and the specimens which exist of its proficiency in the arts, useful and ornamental; there is abundant evidence of the acquaintance with letters which distinguished its people, furnished by the inscriptions which cover its temples and palaces, as well as the rolls of papyrus, which have been brought to light by the ardent spirit of modern discovery." Many most interesting memorials of the latter kind have been made known to us by the indefatigable Frenchman, who has created a new era in the study of Egyp |