reigned as long as they are reported to have done, if there were no objection to this report, but its being uncommon to find, in authentic and undisputed history, feven kings reigning in fucceffion 35 years, one with another *. He produces, however, four reasons of diffent, fet forth with a fair fhew of plausibility; but they are nugatory.

WHEN monarchy was exchanged for the confulate, no great care was taken to preserve the memorials of arbitrary power. The palace and temple of Numa acquired veneration; but even the very name of the Tarquine family was tranfmitted with marks of infamy. Much ftronger was the defire of configning the whole race to oblivion, than of perpetuating their names in the order of lineal fucceffion. Though the people, immediately after the revolution, decreed the restoration of Tarquin's private estates to his relations; yet the senate destroyed his palace, and diftributed his lands among the needy citizens, retaining for public ufe a fmall portion of a field only, adjoining to the Campus Martius, which the king had, by ufurpation, added to his private property. Collatinus, that virtuous and brave patriot, finding fufpicion and jealousy attached infeparably to his family and name, took the moderate expedient of retiring into private life, even before the expiration of the first confulship. The records of the old kings in Latium, and those also of the second feries from Romulus, were loft in the conflagration of the

• Hooke's Pref. p. 29.

capitol,

capitol, fo early as the second century of the republic. Hence the numerous complaints of imperfect and penurious materials in the Auguftan age, for conftructing a full and continuous hiftory of the early times.

AFTER an equal period of time from the diffolution of the late monarchy in France, fhould the rage for annihilating every reli&t of arbitrary government continue; fhould accidents and violence make alike havoc of public archives ;-it may fairly be prefumed, fix centuries hence, that antiquaries and critics will divide into parties concerning the genealogy of the French monarchs from 1610 to 1774. In this interval of 164 years, from the murder of Henry IV. to the acceffion of Louis XVI. only three fovereigns occupied fucceffively that throne, the mean proportion of as many reigns being 54 years eight months. Those numerous and bulky volumes, which now have for their subject the ftory of a fingle reign, or of one kingdom, will then shrink into little abstracts, with very concise hints of family descents and dates. Serious controverfies may then be agitated, whether the uncommon length of thofe three reigns ought not, as incredible, to be reduced, or the intermediate generations multiplied.

THIS example seems directly applicable to the present difquifition. Sir Ifaac Newton, in order to authenticate his fcheme of retrenching 125 years from the regal government, prior to the republic, endeavours, by a like effort of ingenuity, to invalidate the chronology of the first 60 or 70 olympiads. If this arrangement be adopted, it will be altogether impoffible to connect,

by

by infallible fynchronisms, the profane history with the facred, and to reconcile any one national era of the gentile world with another.

THE Julian period comprehends all other terms in computation, whether circulating or fixed. This, therefore, is the regulating measure and ultimate teft to which not only the firft, but all the fubfequent years of the olympiads, of Rome, Nabonaffar, the Seleucidæ, and those of the world, must be adjusted.

THE number of the Julian period 3937, coincident with A. M. 3232, and the 34th of Uzziah king of Judah, is not the first year of the firft olympiad, but the exclufive fource of computation. That year was biffextile, a character common to the laft or fourth of every olympiad, and confequently A. P. J. 3938, and A. M. 3233, was the first of the first olympiad.

THE building of Rome was begun in the third of the fixth olympiad A. P. J. 3960, A. M. 3255, the 5th of Jotham king of Judah, and the first of Romulus, the year before the Varronian computation, firft Jan. A. P. J. 3961.

IN A. P. J. 3967, A. M. 3262, the 12th of Jotham, the 7th of Romulus, the 6th Varronian year, and the fecond year of the 8th olympiad, began the famous era of Nabonaffar, by which Ptolemy reckoned the years of the four Pagan empires.

THUS, by a multiplicity of chronological characters, is a firm bafis laid for computation in the defcending feries indefinitely. But remove the source of the olympiads almoft three centuries lower, and that of Rome

125

125 years, the chain of chronology is broken, connecting numbers mifplaced, and historical order involved in a labyrinth of perplexity and confufion inextricable.

THAT 34th year of Uzziah was the 202d of the 390 from the apoftacy of the ten tribes, and 88th before the conflagration of the temple, A. P. J. 4126, A. M. 3421, Er. Nab. 160. This conflagration was the first of the 46th olympiad, the year before the archonship of Philombrotus: the 166th Varronian year, and the 29th of Tarquinius Prifcus. But by two bold anachronisms in the "Chronology of ancient Kingdoms amended," is the connexion of the facred hiftory with that of Greece and Rome, deferred not only without neceffity, but contrary to authentic evidence.

To no purpose does Mr. Hooke pretend that we have no better authority for the long reigns of the feven kings in Rome, than for the long reigns of the 14 kings of Alba, their predeceffors. The reverse has been established. The very exiftence of many in the latter class is doubtful; whereas the existence of all the kings fubfequent to Numitor, is much more fully confirmed than that of many pairs of confuls under the republic.

EQUALLY frivolous are the reafons urged for abbreviating the reigns of the fovereigns after Numitor. The history of the longeft reigns, and of the moft active princes, may be comprised within very narrow limits, if the records of the times were deftroyed or little known, except the names of magiftrates and the du

ration of their offices; which, it is admitted, was the cafe in the early ages both of Greece and Rome.

ON the whole, this defender of Sir Ifaac Newton is more fanguine than judicious. His primary object was to abridge the chronology of the regal ftate in Rome to an agreement with a retrenched and mutilated genealogy. But the hiftorical evidence is much stronger, nay decifively certain in favour of an additional generation between Prifcus and Superbus. Mr. Hooke argued fallaciously. By fetting Livy and Dionyfius at variance, he artfully tried to fet afide the arrangement of both. But a minute examination of their teftimony invalidates the poftulates and conclufions of Sir Ifaac Newton.

IF these remarks fhould be deemed rather diffufe, they exemplify the fubfervience of genealogy to the truth of computation, and the orderly form of hiftory. By inferting them here the subjects of the enfuing chap. ters, being in part anticipated, will the more concisely be difcuffed.

CHAP.