rection, and not one without some good authority, the confirmation appears to be so strong, that I am utterly at a loss. to conceive, why chronologers have so busily employed themselves, in the first instance, in twisting the events recorded in the heathen world and the Egyptian dynasties, out of their places, and then, falsifying the Hebrew numbers to bring them into an agreement with their own distorted systems. I would not be understood to assert that no difficulties and inconsistencies occur in the accounts of ancient authors; but I would particularly advert to the circumstance that where they do occur, we find abundant materials and historical fragments, still extant, which give a corrected statement of the case. Thus though the lengthened chronologies, delivered by the priests of Egypt to Herodotus and Diodorus, appear to countenance the supposition, that all the 30 dyna Egypt were deemed successive, yet the

of

Old Chronicle gives a full explanation of the inconsistency, by showing that the 16th dynasty was in fact the first of mortal kings; and a closer examination shows that Manetho, in attempting to fill. up the 15 preceding with royal names, has given but repetitions of kings who are to be recognized in later times; and that what have been considered as the first 15 dynasties of kings were nothing more than some cyclical computations.

The great problem of Egyptian chronology is to fix the position of the 18th dynasty. The simple enumeration of Manetho's numbers either downwards from the 16th dynasty, or upwards from Shishak, or upwards from the Trojan war, or as coeval with the emigration of Danaus nd Cadmus, all conspire to place it as incident with the sojourn of Israel in Egypt; and if we seek to alter this we are instantly surrounded with difficulties. se it-the generations, which appear upon the monuments of Egypt

If

as preceding it, would extend themselves above the flood; and this difficulty cannot in any manner be removed by raising the date of the flood upon the authority of the numbers given in the Septuagint and Samaritan versions; because, though those versions give additional years, they give no additional generations, and for the introduction of additional generations there is not the slightest authority."

* The great argument for extending the Scriptural chronology, and of adopting the lengthened chronology of the Samaritan or Septuagint versions, has ever been the supposed impossibility of the world being sufficiently peopled in so short a time as at the era B.C. 2192, or about 150 years after the flood, as to render the dispersion requisite. The argument is completely annihilated by the observations of Mr. Cullimore in his reply to Mr. Cunninghame, in the Morning Watch, viz., "that the Hebrew numbers place upon an average each generation, i.e. the birth of each first-born, at intervals of 30 years, whereas the Samaritan and Septuagint numbers extend their chronology 700 or 800 years, only, by placing upon ar. average each generation, or the birth of each first-born, at intervals of 130 or 80 years, inserting before each

Again, if we lower the 18th dynasty, the difficulties appear to me to increase; for this can only be obtained at the expense of Egyptian history, by striking out, below, recorded dynasties of kings who clearly reigned, and whose monuments and tombs are still existing, severing at the same time all the connexion between the Hebrew, Greek, and Egyptian history, by separating the Exodus from the times of Danaus and Ægyptus, and in allowing the conquests of Ramesses III. to have swept over Judea during the reign of David.

descent 100 or 50 years; by which, in point of population, nothing can be gained, for it is manifest that as the casualties in 30 years must be Less than in 130, where the lives are of the same length, so, according to the short Hebrew numbers, the population in the same number of generations must much more rapidly increase than according to the more extended period; and the population upon the Hebrew computation must, in the allotted 150 years, have been almost one-half as much again as in the most extended of these computations.

Nor can I see what is to be gained by lowering the position of this illustrious dynasty. Men rose not by slow degrees from savage to civilized life; but the world began in a state of civilization, and after ages degenerated into savage life. From the account of Babel, it is evident that stupendous architectural buildings commenced in very early times. And the relation of the destruction of the cities of Sodom and the plain, and of Jacob's transaction with the city of Shechem, as well as the conquests by Joshua of Jericho and Ai, show that the cities of those times were protected by walls and gates, and must consequently have been places of consideration, so that the architecture of the 18th dynasty was by no means beyond the power or contemplation of the age here assigned it, as embracing the interval from Joseph to Moses. That the arts were also at the same time highly cultivated is manifest from the works of Moses in