number is, 42,360, but the partial fums, as reckoned up by their families in Ezra, amount only to 29,818; and in Nehemiah, to 31,031. The meaning of which is, as Dr. Prideaux obferves, they are only the tribes of Judah Benjamin, and Levi, who are reckoned by their families, in both thefe places, the reft, being of the other tribes of Ifrael, are numbered only in the grofs fum, and this in both computations makes the grofs fum so much exceed the partial fums *.

IT must be allowed that the numbers and names of those priests and levites, Nehemiah, xii. 1-9. who went with Zerubabel, agree nearly with the princes, priefts, and levites, chapter x. 1-13. who fealed the covenant. But this general agreement does not evince an identity of the perfons. Dr. Wall properly confiders the names in the last mentioned catalogue as the families, or defcendants, of those who accompanied Zerubabel and Jefhua, almoft a century before. To explode the incoherent hypothefis of Sir I. Newton, fufficient it is to recollect that Ezra firft arrived at Jerufalem in the 7th of Artaxerxes, with about 1500 attendants, diftin&t and feparate from the colony, in the first of Cyrus ;-and that Nehemiah fet about the reparation of the city-wall, in the pontificate of Eliashib, the grandson of Jeshua, no less than 110 years from the foundation of the second temple.

FOR the imperfections found in the chronology of the Perfian Empire the Editor offers the following

See Prid. Connex. Part i. p. 107.

apology.

apology.

"The fixth chapter was not copied out with the other five, which makes it doubtful, whether the author intended to print it. But being found among his papers, and evidently appearing to be a continuation of the fame work, and, (as fuch abridged in the Short Chronicle), it was thought proper to be added. Had the great author himself lived to publish this work, there would have been no occafion for this advertisement. But, as it is, the reader is defired to allow for fuch imperfections, as are infeparable from pofthumous pieces." This chapter, with all its deficiencies and mistakes, exhibits ftriking fignatures of judicious difcrimination. The author's overfights were those of a masterly genius. Even this leaft elaborate fection of the Ancient Chronology is, in several respects, a valuable acquifition; efpecially, as it fhews the fallacy of confounding Cambyfes and Smerdis with Ahafuerus and Artaxerxes, in Ezra, iv. 6, 7; for thus are rectified the preposterous and fanciful arrangements of Ufher, Prideaux, Bedford, &c. This equitable conceffion, however, does not vindicate conclufions, incompatible with chronology, history, and the circumfcribed period of natural life.

4. The dates affigned for feveral arts and ufages, coeval with focial life, are improbable: for inftance,

Agriculture." Ceres, a woman of Sicily, comes into Attica, and teaches the Greeks to fow corn; for which benefaction fhe was deified. She firft taught the art to Triptolemus, the young fon of Celeus, king of

Eleufis :

Eleufis before Chrift 1030. Arcas, the fon of Callifto, and grandson of Lycaon, and Eumelus the firft king of Achaia, receive bread-corn from Triptolemus: B. C. 1020 *."

THE cultivation of the ground was introduced in the first age, tranfmitted to the last generation of the old world, and revived by Noah, after the Flood t. An art fo indifpenfably neceffary to the comfortable fubfiftence of the human kind, in the progreffive ftagesof population, could in no fubfequent period be loft. Much more probable is the pofition, that its advances to perfection kept pace with the continual improvements in all the fubfidiary arts. At the time of the difperfion, the feveral colonies carried to their new fettlements all the fkill and experience of paft ages, and, among the reft of the useful arts, AGRICULTURE.

To the fons of Japhet immediately after the feparation from Babel, were the ifles of the Gentiles, comprehending Greece, affigned. Extremely abfurd is the notion, that they could increase and multiply, and replenish the earth, without fubduing the foil, by the various arts of making it fruitful. The old fabulous chronology brings the different migrations from Egypt into Greece many ages lower than the days of Japhet. Sir John Marfham connects the arrival of Ceres in Greece with the time of Jofhua's death, 13 generations after the difperfion in the days of Peleg. It is not Short Chronicle, p. 15. + Gen. iv. r. and ch, ix. 20.

credible

credible that the use of corn was unknown in Greece, from its first plantation, by the fons of Japhet, to the days of Joshua; much lefs, that agriculture, one of the primeval arts, was first introduced into that country, in the reign of David.

Early ufe of animal food in Egypt.

"THE Egyptians lived only on the fruits of the earth and abominated flesh eaters*. They originally fared hardly and abstained from animals. Menes taught them to adorn their beds and tables with rich furniture, and brought in among them a fumptuous, delicious, and voluptuous way of lifet." This Menes is, by a fatality of computation, put the third in fucceffion after the fuppofed Sefac or Sefoftris of Sir I. Newton; and, in connexion with so very recent a criterion of time, the term originally is moft unhappily combined. Abftinence from animal food was the natural confequence of brute worship. Every circumstance recorded of the Egyptians, in the days of Abraham, Jacob, and Jofeph, induces the full conviction, that Monotheism, the religion of the Hebrew Patriarchs, was likewife the national religion of that country. Till divine honours were paid to certain fpecies of animals, their flesh was no less commonly used for food than the fruits of the earth and that fuch honours were not paid to them in the life-time of Jofeph may fairly be prefumed from the history of that time. The chief baker's dream

* Short Chron. p. 9.

+ Chron. p. 241.

of

of white baskets, containing all manner of baked meats for Pharaoh, implies the ufe of animal food. Joseph ordered the chief ruler of his houfe to SLAY and make ready, for the entertainment of his brethren, who were to dine with him at noon. This fort of idolatry and abftinence was the invention of a fubfequent age. For the Ifraelites in the wildernefs recollected with difcontent and impatience the time when they fat by the flefh pots of Egypt, and did eat bread to the full. They remembered too the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic. Hence it is evident, that the pot-herbs of Egypt were not then confecrated. Corruptions of this kind were moft probably introduced, firft of all, in the space between the death of Jofeph and the egrefs *.

"THE lower part of Egypt being yearly overflowed by the Nile, was fcarce inhabited before the invention of corn, which made it ufeful: and the king, who by this invention, firft peopled it, and reigned over it, perhaps the king of the city Mefir, where Memphis was afterward built, feems to have been worshipped by his fubjects, after death, in the ox or calf, for this benefaction +." It has been fhewn, that the deification and confequent worship of animals can be traced no farther back than to the fhort interval from Joseph to the Exodus. At this latter term, and no faoner, Pharaoh permitted the Ifraelites to perform facrifices

For the origin of Brute and Image Worship, See Winder's Hiftory of Knowl. vol. i. ch. xiv.

Chron. p. 197.

in