THIS Table combines the Phenician with the Hebrew Annals, during the lapfe of 180 years, ending A. M. 3163, which is the 69th before the first Olympiad.

THE primary end of inferting it here was to vindicate and confirm the computation of Sir I. Newton, who, by various methods of proof, establishes the conclufion, that Troy was overthrown about the 76th or 78th year from the demife of Solomon. From all the three columns, it is intuitively obvious, that this prince died in the 36th year after the foundation of the Temple, co-incident with A. M. 3030; for 2994+36 =3030. It is equally evident, that the catastrophe of Troy ftands in chronological connexion with the 114th from the foundation of the Temple, A. M. 3108: the rft of Matgenus, the father of Dido, the 21ft of Ahab, and the 18th of Jehoshaphat ;-precifely the 78th from the demife of Solomon: or nearly three centuries fubfequent to the old erroneous chronology.

THE ancient writers, Thucydides, Dion. of Halicarnaffus, &c. define the date of fome events by a determinate number of years prior to the fall of Troy, as the expedition of the Argonauts; others by a pofterior term, as the return of the Heraclidæ, the origin of Rome, &c. But fuch vague arrangements explain nothing; because the term of computation, or fixed point, fuppofed to be universally well known, is itself involved in obfcurity impenetrable.

THE author laft mentioned, with all the folemn formalities of indefectible precifion, informs his readers, that "Ilium was taken, at the end of the spring, on

the 8th day before the end of Thargelion, according to the Athenian Calendar, and 17 days before the fummer folftice *." The year of no national era is expreffed nor was it poffible. At the time when Troy was buried under her own alhes, the Olympiad had not become a chronological epoch, Rome was not built, Nabonaffar, yet unborn, was not the subject of history, The notations, specified by this learned Hiftorian are aftronomical; and by his reckoning the fummer folstice fell on the 12th day of the month July, in the Julian year of the World 2823, almost three centuries, as already noted, before the true date of that memorable catastrophe.

THIS fixed period, fuppofe it marked with every poffible criterion of fcientifical truth, if absolutely confidered, is frivolous; but, if with reference to events prior, co-exiftent, or more recent, important. That, in this latter view, Sir Ifaac understood fuch hiftorical incidents as the Argonautic expedition, the overthrow of Troy, the regrefs of the Heraclide into Peloponnefus, &c. is naturally inferred from his own very judicious remark; "These periods, being fettled, become the foundation for building on them the chronology of ancient times, and, for fettling this chronology, nothing more remains to make these periods a little exacter, if it can be, and to fhew how the rest of the antiquities in Greece, Egypt, Affyria, Chaldea and Media, may fuit therewith t."

* Dion. Hal. Rom. Antiq. B. 1. C. 63.

† Chron. p. 126.

THE

THE illuftrious author might have included Phonicia, whence he supposes," that the Sidonians, in the 15th of David's reign, or thereabout, emigrated under Abibalus, Cadmus, Cilix, Thafus, Membliarius, Atymnus, and other captains, to Tyre, Aradus, Cilicia, Rhodes, Caria, Bithynia, Phrygia, Callifte, Thasus, Samothrace, Crete, Greece, and Libya*." To the fame age is referred the building of Tyre, Thebes,

&c.

In this paffage Abibalus is affirmed to have been a fugitive from Sidon. But in the fragment from Menander, it is faid, that he died and was fucceeded by his fon Hiram, who, with his defcendants, kept poffeffion of the throne, at least two centuries, from the acceffion of Abibalus, to whom Marshall in his Chronological Tables affigns a reign of 19 years, prior to the fole adminiftration of Hiram. On this hypothefis Abibalus was made king of Sidon in the 12th of David. His predeceffor was Agenor, the father of Cadmus, whose elder brother Phoenix, having been born in the country, was called by its name. Cadmus and Phoenix were certainly coeval with Danaus, because he had a daughter, Amymone, by their fifter Europa. Marfham dates the migration of Cadmus from Phenicia, about 10 years earlier than that of Danaus from Egypt; though he connects the arrival of both in Greece nearly with the time of the Exodus. The authority of Jofephus has already been mentioned, ftating that the Ifraelites left

Egypt 393 years before that expedition of Danaus : and the fame writer afferts, that Tyre was built 240 years before Solomon's temple. Both these notations are more probable, as less incongruous with genealogy and history, than the reckoning in the Chronology of ancient Kingdoms amended.

IF Sir I. Newton's affigned term for the downfal of Troy disagree with his own arrangements for the rife of the Baotian Thebes, and the Phenecian Tyre, it harmonises with the hiftory of the age to which it is referred. A few inftances are fubjoined.

1. THE three years of dearth foretold by Elijah in the days of Ahab is recorded, in the fragment from Menander, to have happened in the reign of Ethbaal king of Tyre, and father of Jezebel, the wife of Ahab, king of Ifrael.

2. WITH the termination of the Trojan war is con nected the history of Athens, and the other Grecian ftates; for that city furrendered in the 22d of Menc ftheus, Archon of Athens t.

3. THE father of Pygmalion and Dido was known by fundry names, Agenor, Belus, Matgenus, Mettes, not to mention other variations; but his history is fignalised by two notable events, the fall of Troy in the firft, and the rife of New Salamis in the 8th of his reign.

Compare 1 Kings, xvi. 31. and chapters, xvik xviii, with Jofephus, Ant. B. viii. ch. xiii. 1, 2.

† Par. Chron. Epoch. 25.

4. SUNDRY

4. SUNDRY memorable incidents diftinguish the reign of Pygmalion, e. g.; in his 7th year the flight of his fifter Dido ;-the execution of Jezebel, of Ahaziah and Joram, kings of Jerufalem and Samaria;—and that revolution which brought Athaliah and Jehu each to a vacant throne ;-in the roth the foundation of New Carthage. Obvious is the use of chronological characters, so numerous, fo decifive, and all crowded into fo narrow a compass, that they derive mutual elucidation from contiguity of time, and co-exiftent perfonages.

5. By a fingular felicity of conjecture, which fome. times reconciles apparent contradictions in historical records, has Sir Ifaac rectified that notorious anachronifm, which ignorance, and falfe erudition have laid to the charge of Virgil, in afferting, that Eneas was coeval with Dido. Thofe of the critics who affect the greatest indulgence to this poet's reputation as an ac-. curate chronologer and genealogist, offer two apologies for this confufion of times, events, and characters. Some of them kindly allege the plea of ignorance in the antiquities and hiftory of Tyre. This apology our very learned author repels, by evincing that both Virgil and his commentator Servius, not only had access to the archives of Tyre, Cyprus, and Carthage, but affirm, with the accuracy of hiftorians, the co-exiftence of Teucer, Eneas, and Dido, about the period of the Trojan war. Others admit the poet's fkill in the chronology and history of Troy, but fuppofe that he had recourfe, bellishment, to a poetical licence. This feeble effort,

Cc 3

Tyre, and Africa, for the fake of em

to