in his land; but Mofes remonftrated, that the flaughter of the facred animals, in his dominions, would exafperate the inhabitants. Here is direct evidence for the existence of brute worship, and confequently of abftinence from animal food, in the time of that very generation, which recollected the flesh pots of Egypt. From the Exodus to the reign of Menes, who it is faid fucceeded Orus, the fon of Sefoftris, in the 16th of Afa, king of Judah, and first introduced into Egypt the fumptuous mode of living on animal food, the interval is 542 years. Sir Ifaac Newton conjectures, that animal food was firft permitted in Egypt, more than five centuries after it had been prohibited, as a facrilegious profanation. That the lower part of that country, enriched by the yearly overflow of the Nile, was fully inhabited, long before it was conquered, by the Phenician fhepherds, who fled from Joshua, is evident from this circumftance, that fo early as the days of Jofeph, the land of Egypt had become the granary of the world, and supplied all the contiguous nations with bread, during a grievous famine of seven years. In the passage, above quoted, this very eminent writer difcovers a commendable degree of caution, in leaving undetermined the time and name of the king, who invented the art of raising corn, and fertilifed the foil by means of the Nile. But if a date, pofterior to the Exodus, be affigned for thefe improvements, it will be difficult to account for the power of the Egyptian empire, and the no lefs fudden than prodigious multiplication of the Ifraelites, at a period when, it is affirmed, that the

country

country was scarce inhabited. The Aborigines, doubtlefs, brought into their new fettlement all the arts of the old, and of the restored world. Abfurd is the fuppofition, that tillage once introduced could anywhere fall into disuse.

The rife of arts, and the foundation of cities in Afia Minor, Crete, Greece, and Libya, SIR I. NEWTON refers to the age of Cadmus, in the reign of David, an era too recent for credibility.

IN our language, as in every other, the fense of no word is, perhaps, more equivocal than CITY. Its moft general meaning implies an affemblage of buildings occupied by a community of inhabitants. "Rome, properly speaking, was at firft but a forry village, whereof even the principal inhabitants followed their own ploughs*." Prefumable it is, that many of the moft ancient cities, did, in the structure, fize, and number, of buildings, resemble fome of our British hamlets. As the inhabitants multiplied they were enlarged. As the feats of empire, arts, or commerce, they rofe gradually in importance.

"CAIN, who built the first city, called it after the name of his fon, Enoch. The beginning of Nimrod's kingdom was Babel, and Erech, and Accad, and Calnoh, now Bagdat, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Afher the fon of Shem, and built Nineveh, the CITY of Rehoboth, and Calah." The

Hooke's Rom. Hift. vol. i. ch. 1.

6

first

first and last are called GREAT cities. Sidon, Gerar, Gaza, Sodom, and four other cities in Paleftine, if not likewise Jerufalem, the metropolis of the ancient Jebufites, had become, fome of them at least, very populous, not to speak of lefs honourable distinctions, prior to the arrival of Abram *. According to that one true hypothefis, which refts on the firm bafis of historical evidence, Abram was certainly born in the 130th, not the 70th of his father's life. Hence Sir W. Raleigh deduces a very reasonable inference: "In this patriarch's time, all the then parts of the world were peopled; all regions and countries had their kings. Egypt had many magnificent cities, and fo had Palestine, and all the bordering countries; yea, all that part of the world befides, as far as India: and thofe not built with sticks but of hewn ftones and ramparts; which magnificence needed a parent of more antiquity than those other men have fuppofed. Therefore, where the scriptures are plainest, and agree best with reason and nature, to what end fhould we labour to beget doubts and scruples, or draw all things into wonders and marvels? giving alfo ftrength to common cavillers, and to those men's apish brains, who only bend their wits to find impoffibilities and monfters in the story of the world and of mankind t."

IT cannot be denied, that fome of Sir I. Newton's arrangements incur this cenfure. For inftance-" In

*See Gen. iv. 17. and ch. x. 10-19.

+ Hiftory, p. 228.

the

the year before Chrift 1080, Lycaon the son of Pelafgus builds Lycofura; Phoroneus the fon of Inachus, Phoronicum, afterwards called Argus; Egialeus the brother of Phoroneus and fon of Inachus, Ægialeum, afterwards called Sicyon and these were the oldeft towns in Peloponnefus. Till then they built only single houses, fcattered up and down in the fields. About the fame time Cecrops built Cecropia in Attica, afterwards called Athens; and Eleufine, the fon of Ogyges, built Eleufis. Thefe towns gave a beginning to the kingdoms of the Arcadians, Argives, Sicyons, Athenians, Eleufinians, &c. *"'

THOSE who give credit to the fabulous antiquities of Egypt, mention three colonies, thence tranfplnted into Greece. Sir J. Marfham connects the firft expedition under Phoroneus with the birth of Ifaac; the next under Cecrops with that of Aaron; and the third under Danaus with the time of the Exodus. The intermediate fpace is four centuries. On Sir I. Newton's computation it is remarked, 1. That the foundation of thofe cities, and the rise of these kingdoms, are mentioned as events of the fame date, į“ much about the fame time." 2. That the time affigned for fuch buildings is prior to the introduction of the arts, letters, mufic, metals, and their fabrication, from Phenicia under Cadmus. Perfection in architecture is not conceivable without the previous fkill of feparating metals from their drofs, and of fhaping them into various uten

Chron. p. 10.

fils by the mould or the hammer. These arts were certainly much more ancient in the Leffer Afia, than the reign of David *. 3. Sir Ifaac Newton feems to affume the poftulate, that the Egyptians, who condufted fucceffive colonies into Afia the Lefs, Crete, Greece, and Libya, found these countries either defolate, or in a ftate of barbarifm. But it has been fhewn, that the fons of Japhet were the first planters in a much more remote age. 4. Cadmus, it is affirmed, brought Letters, with other arts, fciences, and cuftoms, of the Phenecians, into Boeotia, about 35 years after Lycaon built Lycofurat; that is, about the 12th year of David's reign. The date of this useful improvement is not now the fubject of difquifition; for whether it be placed higher or lower, certain it is, that alphabetical compofition was not applied to the hiftory of the Greek colonies before the order, dates, and all the circumftances of the feveral migrations from other countries had entirely

* Cain the eldest son of Adam built a city, and Tubal Cain; one of his descendants, was an inftructor of every artificer in brafs and iron. This implies that the fabrication of metals was previously known. So large a veffel as the ark could not be conftructed, without nails, bars, and plates, and fo huge a pile, as the tower of Babel, required no mean degree of skill in mechanifm. At the difperfion nations were first formed, and fo numerous was each colony, that the collec tive body in every diftinct country poffeffed all the knowledge of the primitive world, with the ever accumulating improve. ments of the new. Thus muft the knowledge of the most ufeful arts have been coeval with the difperfion.