required vigour to drag the fovereign from his throne, carry him in his arms out of the fenate, and throw him down the ftairs. Superbus reigned 25 years, and 27+44+25=96: at which advanced age he was expelled. But ftill, as the report goes, his activity was unabated; for the fame year he prefided in the war against the Ardeates, and during 14 years more conducted in perfon a long train of military operations against the new republic. Thus, according to the hiftorians, whofe authority this writer rejects, Superbus lived above 110 years. On the whole, Dionyfius agrees with Pifo Frugi, in affirming that Superbus and his brothers were not the fons, but the grandfons of Prifcus. This conclufion divefts of credibility the opinion to which Livy inclines, but does not, in plain terms, affert. In one refpect however the two accounts are confiftent: for if Collatinus were a nephew, Superbus might be a grandson, of the first Tarquin.

Examination of Mr. Hooke's Hypothefis.

As a ftrenuous advocate for Sir I. Newton's opinion, concerning the duration of the regal state in Rome, he delivers that opinion in detached parts, and in the refpectable author's own words. Sufpecting that Sir Ifaac's arguments were not fufficient to make a general impulfe on the public, and induce full conviction, he fuggefts a variety of auxiliary proofs. But if his author's arrangements shall be found equivocal, elufory, or incongruous with his own fundamental principles, they

they must be set afide, as indefenfible. These principles are thus concifely ftated.

"THE 14 kings of the Latines, at 22 years apiece one with another, amount unto 280 years, and these years, counted from the taking of Troy, end in the 38th olympiad." Thus are 432 years reduced to 280: "and the feven reigns of the kings of Rome, four or five of them being flain, and one deposed, may, at a moderate reckoning, amount to 15 or 16 years apiece one with another; let them be reckoned at 17 apiece, and they will amount to about 119 years; which being counted backwards from the Regifuge, end alfo in the 38th olympiad and by these two reckonings Rome was built in the 38th olympiad, or thereabout." Historians affign to the feven kings a period of 244 years. The deduction from this article is 125, from the other 152, and the fum total 275.

PAINFUL it is to infinuate a difapprobation of the venerable Sir Ifaac Newton's poftulates and conclufions; much more to pronounce them equivocal and fallacious; but it is unavoidable.

THE 14 kings of the Latins belong to the fabulous times, prior to the era of a correct chronology, and of authentic hiftory. The duration of their reigns, either feparately or collectively, is certainly amplified, as usually was done. But on perufing four different copies of thefe reigns, by Ovid, Virgil, Dionyfius of Halicarnaffus, and Livy, not to mention others in different re

* Hooke's Preface, p. 26.

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cords,

cords, the writer of this Analyfis ventures to affirm, that the names, number, order of fucceffion, and years of fovereignty, are in no two regifters the fame. As, therefore, neither the number of princes, nor the quantity of their distinct governments, can with certainty be defined, an equation is impracticable. But if the precife interval from Latinus to Romulus, that is, from the fall of Troy to the rife of Rome, can be ascertained, let that number of years, whatever it be, fill up the blank, and from this quantity, as better known, the intermediate reigns and generations will be no impracticable difcovery.

THE feven reigns from Romulus to the first pair of confuls belong to a different epoch, that of an aftronomical chronology and genuine hiftory. The names of the fovereigns are in every record the fame, the order of fucceffion the fame, the length of each reign the fame, and the aggregate fum the fame, the space of every interreign, as oft as it happened, the fame. Why then fhould Sir Ifaac Newton, by a plaufible artifice in computation, confound the hiftorical period with the fabulous?

"SOME of the Greeks," he obferves, " called the times before the reign of Ogyges UNKNOWN, because they had no hiftory of them; thofe between his flood and the beginning of the olympiads, FABULOUS, becaufe their hiftory was much mixed with poetical fables; and thofe after the beginning of the olympiads, hiftorical, because their hiftory was free from fuch fables. The fabulous ages wanted a good chronology;

and

and fo alfo did the hiftorical for the first 60 or 70 olympiads *."

THIS is an ambiguous and confequently a questionable criterion. Seventy olympiads make 280 years. To bring the date of authentic hiftory among the genriles fo very low, is to extend the fabulous age so far as to the fifth century nearly before the Christian era. This poftulate is not to be admitted. Few hiftories of indubitable credibility indeed were then published; but the olympiad from its restoration, in the 34th of Uzziah king of Judah, was an infallible term of computation; and facts characterised with this era are not rafhly to be pronounced fictitious or falfe. This is not the proper place for ample difcuffion. The inquifitive and learned reader is referred to Dr. Mufgrave's "Examination of Sir Ifaac Newton's Objections to the Chronology of the Olympiads +."

THE arrangements in "The Chronology of ancient Kingdoms amended," are not only equivocal and elufive, but inconfiftent with the author's own fundamental principles. For instance,

"CARTHAGE was deftroyed in the confulfhip of Lentulus and Mummius, A. P. J. 4568." This was the Varronian year of Rome 608. A term in computation once affumed, for fixing the date of any other historical incident, ought not to be transferred to any other point of time; because the fource of reckoning, if changed,

• Ancient Chronology amended, page 44.

Lond. 1782, o&avo.

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mifplaces

mifplaces the date of the incident refting on that bafis. Sir Ifaac Newton afcribes to Carthage an existence of 130 years prior to the foundation of Rome, in the third year of the fixth olympiad. But if that foundation be. brought lower by 130 years, neither the rife nor fall of Carthage is determined. This arbitrary fhifting of terms is a fort of legerdemain in chronology,

To bring difcredit on the long reigns from Romulus to the fecond Tarquin, Sir Ifaac Newton remarks, “In the latter ages fince chronology hath been exact, there is fcarcely an example of ten kings reigning any where in continual fucceffion, above 260 years:" that is, 26 years the mean quantity. But Whifton, as quoted by Hooke, in his "Confutation of Sir Ifaac Newton's Chronology," obferves, that in England we have had NINE fucceffive reigns, at almost 30 years apiece, from Henry I. to Edward III.

TWELVE, at almost 28 years each, from William the Conqueror to Richard II.

THE French have had fix reigns together, at almost 40 years apiece, from Robert to Philip II.

EIGHT reigns, at above 35 years apiece, from Robert to Lewis IX.

TEN reigns, almoft 33 years apiece, from Robert to Philip IV.

ใ

MR. Hooke is fo very candid as to confefs, "Now I think it must be granted, that the examples which Mr. Whiston has produced of long reigns in fucceffion, both in England and in France, would be fufficient to make it credible, that the feven kings of Rome reigned

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