founder of the Danish kingdom in very ancient times; and there is reason to believe that he was not only the legendary hero, but that he was also worshipped as the patron deity of the early Danes. I shall be glad to hear if I shall be glad to hear if you obtain any more satisfactory explanation of these odd Runes."

Mr. W. S. W. Vaux considers that these are builders' marks, such as are common on Norman stonework.

Dr. Pruner-Bey says-" Phoenicia and its colonies have preoccupied me for years in my quality as an oriental scholar. My favourite guide for reading inscriptions is Levy (at Breslau). But I am at a loss to see more in the inclosed drawings than perhaps a seal on pottery.

But all are very doubtful."

Dr. Charnock considers them to be surnames ;-viz., Dad or Tat, and Dadda or Tatta, which he compares with the Anglo-Saxon names Tata, Tate; Old Saxon, Tato, Tatto; Old German, Dado; Old Norske, Teitr; English, Tate, Tait, Dadd.

The foregoing is all the information I have been able to obtain on this subject. It is, however, somewhat singular that out of the hundred islands composing the Zetland group, the Island of Brassay should be the only one in which any form of inscribed stones have been found. A beautiful specimen of an inscribed stone, found by Dr. Hamilton, is now deposited in the Museum of Scottish Antiquities; and I am glad to be able to announce that the stones which I had the good fortune to find will all be deposited in the same national collection. We do this in the hope and expectation that the Scottish museum will deposit, with us, objects which we more especially wish to collect, viz., ancient crania.

XXIX.-The History of Ancient Slavery. By JOHN BOWER, D.C.L. (Oxon.), Barrister-at-Law.

"Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto."

TERENCE, Heauton. 1, 1. 25.

THE states of freedom and slavery have been coexistent from a very early period of the world's history. The curse pronounced by Noah on his grandson Canaan, the youngest of the four sons of Ham (B.c. 2347), is the first recorded instance of slavery that is to be found. "Cursed be Canaan ; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant. God shall enlarge Japheth, and he shall dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant" (Gen. ix, 25-27, B.C. 2348). Nimrod (the rebel, as his name implies) was the son of Cush, Ham's eldest son, and it is related "that he was a mighty hunter before the Lord" (Gen. x, 8, 9, B. c. 1998); and it seems to have been universally inferred that he was the first slave-taker. Pope says of him,—

"Proud Nimrod first the bloody chase began,
Almighty hunter, and his prey was man."

At all events, we read that Abram (B.c. 1913) had three hundred and eighteen servants, or slaves, born in his house and trained to arms, with whom he pursued and conquered the four kings who had taken captive Lot, his brother's son (Gen. xiv, 13-15); and it would seem that both Abram and the king of Sodom considered the prisoners taken as part of the spoil, because the king of Sodom says,-"Give me the persons, and take the goods to thyself." About sixteen years after this, we find Sarah saying to Abraham, of Hagar and her son Ishmael, "Cast out this bondwoman and her son: for the son of this bondwoman shall not be heir with my son, even

with Isaac" (Gen. xxi, 10); and St. Paul makes Isaac a general type of freedom, and Ishmael a general type of bondage (Rom. ix). Indeed, throughout the entire sacred history we invariably find servants classed, among their masters' property, with flocks and herds.

The first recorded account we have of slave-dealing is in the year 1729 B. C., when Joseph was sold to the Ishmaelites for twenty pieces of silver (Gen. xxxvii, 27, 28); and it is, perhaps, worthy of remark that the first slave-traders should have been the descendants of Ishmael, whose progenitor was the second person upon whom we learn that the ban of slavery was passed, Canaan having been the first.

About 1491 B. C., we find slavery pervading all the Hebrew political economy, and regulated by a code of divine laws (see Levit. xxv, 39, et seq.). It appears also that some Israelites were sold when they had committed theft, for which they could not make restitution (Exod. xxii, 3).

All Hebrew servants were to be released at the sabbatical year, or after six years service (Deut. xv. 12); for the entire seventh year appears to have been a year of freedom (Exod. xxi, 2-26; Jer. xxxiv, 14); but if such a servant then refused his freedom, his ear was pierced with an awl, and he afterwards remained his master's property as absolutely as if he had been a heathen (Levit. xix, 13).

Such is a brief summary of the institution and law of slavery among the Hebrews. If not directly appointed by God himself, yet as he has sanctioned it by giving a divine law for its regulation, it seems impossible to resist the conclusion that it was, in its inception, a divine institution. But the divine law was not in any way abrogated by the Christian dispensation. Of this (Matt. xviii) distinct proof is given in our Saviour's parable of the two debtors; and also in the Epistle written by St. Paul to Philemon, on behalf of his runaway slave, Onesimus. St. Paul entreats Philemon for the freedom of Onesimus by almost every variety of argument: 1st. on account of Philemon's reputation for goodness; 2nd, the respect due for his own character; 3rd, his friendship for St. Paul; 4th, the reverence due to St. Paul's age; 5th, the

compassion due to his bonds; 6th, Onesimus's repentance and conversion to Christianity; 7th, the tender interest St. Paul took in his concerns; 8th, a promise of restitution for pecuniary loss; and 9th, a gently urged insinuation that Philemon was himself indebted to St. Paul for much more than the freedom of his repentant slave, even his own conversion to Christianity. All is submitted to Philemon's own generosity, and Onesimus was sent back to his master as the bearer of the Epistle written in his behalf. Neither any law of the Christian dispensation, nor even the apostolical authority, is urged in behalf of Onesimus's right to freedom by virtue of the Christian Dispensation.

About A.D. 189, we find Titus Flavius Clemens, commonly called Clemens Alexandrinus (because he was generally supposed to have been born in Alexandria, although he was more probably born at Athens), and other Gentile writers who had embraced Christianity, urging that slaves should be treated on the golden rule of doing to others as we would be done by, but not urging any argument on the subject of a Christian. right to freedom.

At Cecropia,-so called from Cecrops, who founded it about B.C. 1556, and taking the name of Athens, about two hundred years later, from A0nm, the protectress of the city, we find that slavery prevailed concurrently in point of time with the same institution under the Hebrews, and was certainly in full force at the time of the Trojan war, B.c. 1184. Homer, who probably wrote in the ninth century before Christ, mentions Cyrus and Egypt as about this time the common marts for slaves (Odys. xvii, 448). Tyre and Sidon, as we learn from the book of Joel (iii, 3, 4, 6, B.c. 800), were notorious for the prosecution of this trade; for it is there said of them "The children of Judah and the children of Jerusalem have sold ye unto the Grecians, that ye might remove them from their border." And the prophet Ezekiel (xxvii, 13, B.C. 588) says, "Javan (or Greece) Tubal and Meshech* traded the persons of

* Tubal and Mesech are said by some commentators of the present day to be Tobolsk and Moscow, both in the Russian empire.

men and vessels of brass in thy market" (Ezek. iii, 27-41); and in the first book of Maccabees (B.c. 144) we read that when Antiochus was about to attack Judah and Jerusalem, "The merchants of the country, hearing the fame of them, took silver and gold very much, with servants, and came into the camp to buy the children of Israel for slaves."

I now propose to cull the general details of the system from the copious literature of Greece and and Rome, and then to glance at it among more modern nations.

The descriptive appellation of the Greek freeman was ελευθερος eλev@epos; of the slave, dovλos; the Roman freeman was liber; the slave, servus; while in both states there was an intermediate caste, called among the Greeks απελευθερος οι μετοικος, and among the Romans libertus or libertinus.

The Greek philosophers never seem to have considered slavery as at all repugnant to their very high sense of public morality, although a slave was reckoned by them as a mere living machine and possession. Aristotle (who was born about 384 B.C.) calls a slave in one place eμvxov opryavov (Ethic., VIII, 13), and in another place, ктημа тI EμÝνxov (Polit. 1, 4); and Plato, who was born about forty-six years earlier (B.c. 430), as well as Aristotle (De Rep., v, 469), seem to maintain that slavery is perfectly right when barbarians only are made slaves, but that no Greek should be held in slavery by a Greek. It is singular to remark that heathens should have drawn for themselves the same distinction which had been settled by a divine law for the Hebrews; and we shall by and by observe that the resemblance to the Hebrew law is even still more striking in the Roman empire.

It has generally been considered that there were two kinds of slavery among the Greeks,-those taken in war, and those that were purchased. The Sopiaλwroι, however, as a class, do not seem to have been fairly reckoned among the Sovλo. When a victorious tribe laid claim to the territory which their spear had won, the majority of the vanquished used still to live on, and cultivate the land which had been wrested from them, and paid a certain rent to their conquerors. They were also called upon to do military service with their masters.