It may, however, be necessary for us to give a brief list of the materials for the early history of Egypt, possessed before the discovery of the reading of the hieroglyphics. They were,

1. The old Chronographer, which Scaliger, Prideaux, and some others, supposed to be an abridgment of the work next named, while Shuckford and others believe it to have been the work of another author.*

2. The Universal History of Egypt, by Manetho, a priest of Heliopolis, and keeper of the sacred books of Egypt, in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, by whose command he compiled his work from the memorials contained in these books, and from the inscriptions then existing on the temples and columns; a work executed soon after the translation of the Septuagint. Concerning its authorship there is no doubt, though there is concerning the authenticity of many statements said to have been contained in it. We think, however, that from the days of Abraham until the close of his history, Manetho made use of authentic documents,-authentic at least in their outline, if not in detail; and though previous to this time, his history, if properly understood, like all the history of the primitive nations, that only which is contained in the bible excepted, -is disfigured by the absurdity of the fables which compose it; yet from that time downward, the chronology of Manetho, if we do not mistake the tendency of the proof afforded by Egyptian monuments and Pharonic legends, bids fair to regain some of the reputation it enjoyed in the early ages of the christian church. The principal objection which has been urged against Manetho, relates to his chronology, but which we shall see is entitled to little weight.

3. The third source of early Egyptian history, is the catalogue of the kings of the Theban and Diospolitan families, by Eratosthenes, a Cyrenian, of great genius, eminence, and learning, and keeper of the royal library of Alexandria in the time of Ptolemy Euergetes.

4. The Chronographia of Sextus Julius, surnamed Africanus, who flourished under Heliogabulus, at the commencement of the third century, and who incorporated the universal history of Egypt into his own work. This work, too, is lost.

6. The Chronicon of Eusebius Pamphilus, bishop of Cesarea, about A. D. 324, which contains much matter from Manetho.

6. The Chronographia of Georges, a monk, who lived at the commencement of the eighth century of the Christian era, surnamed Syncellus, from the office he discharged; and which was

principally compiled from Julius Africanus, the work of Manetho having been lost before the days of this author.

7. To these may be added a few extracts from Manetho, by Josephus, and the early ecclesiastical writers of the christian church, which, together with the works above enumerated, made up almost the entire body of the early history of Egypt. These few and scanty materials have furnished matter for numerous chronological hypotheses, no one of which could berelied upon; and it was not until since the translation of a record, second only to inspiration in its durability, that we have been able to determine with accuracy the various epochs of Egyptian history.

We have before intimated, that the objections against the chronology of Manetho, are not of much force, and we shall state, as briefly as possible, our reasons for this opinion. It was a dogma of the Egyptian schools, that in a cycle of 36,525 years, the whole order of nature and the universe made a complete revolution, so that what had been," was again in 36,525 years, "and what was would be" in the same time. In accordance with this opinion, it seems probable, that Manetho framed the duration of his dynasties, filling up the ante-diluvian period, or the first fifteen of them, with gods, demi-gods, and heroes.* If we suppose these fifteen dynasties to have included their ante-diluvian ancestors, and reduce the years, which at first consisted of one month,† then of four, and afterwards of twelve months, to the standard of the latter; the chronology of Manetho is brought within the limits of the chronology of the bible, according to the Alexandrian, Antiochian, and Constantinopolitan versions.

Jahn, who has with much care and pains digested the dynasteis of our author, from Julius Africanus and Eusebius, || has shown, that from the reign of Menes, the first mortal king, or more probably the first mortal, and therefore identical with the Adam of the bible, to the accession of Cambyses of Persia to the throne of Egypt, was 4,832 years; and according to the chronology of Dr. Hales, who nearly coincides with the Septuagint, from the creation of man to the same period, was 4,882 years; exceeding by fifty years the time of Manetho. The Antiochian and Constantinopolitan versions make the time still longer. Again, if the eighteenth dynasty ascended the throne of Egypt after Jacob went down into that country, as we have reason to believe, then do the dates of Manetho harmonize with the LXX; for, according to Dr. Hales, from the descent of Jacob to the reign of Cambyses, was 1,343 years, while from the accession of this dynasty to Cambyses, according to Manetho, was 1,270; making the sojourn of the children of Israel begin 73 years before the cominencement of the reign of this family. The agreement between the chronology of Manetho and that of the Septuagint, when considered in connection with the fact, that the historian of Egypt, either had, or might have had, this version of the scripture before him, would almost persuade us, that the Menes of the one answered to the Adam of the other; and that the chronology of the former was copied from, or corrected by, the dates of the latter.

Another mode of reconciling the dynasties of our author with probability, has been suggested and defended; whereby the different families are to be reckoned contemporaneous and not successive. In this manner, Taylor, in his edition of Calmet, reduces the whole duration of all the dynasties to 1,400 years, while Shuckford makes them 1,710, Silberschlag 1,993 years, and others still some different number.* But this seems to us to be an entire departure from the whole system of Manetho, and in direct contradiction to the whole current of ancient authorities; so that it cannot therefore be admitted.

In the foregoing calculations, we have determined the various epochs by reference to biblical chronology, but we can determine most of them equally well without this aid.

The Egyptians invented and used a cycle, called the sothaic, and sometimes the cynic, consisting of 1,461 years of 360 days, or 1,460 years of 365 days, nearly. This cycle, according to Censorinus, ended the year 138 of the christian era, and therefore commenced B. C. 1,322, Now, according to Theon, this cycle commenced under the reign of Menephes, or Amenephes, the third king of the nineteenth dynasty. But Menephes reigned 40 years, and hence we need another date to ascertain the commencement of the cycle; and this we are enabled to procure from Manetho. Thus he says, that an invasion of the Shepherds took place in the sixth year of the reign of Cencharis, called also Timaeus, 270 years before the accession of the 18th dynasty, and that this year was the 700th of the cynic cycle. Now if we add to this 700 years, the 270 which elapsed before the 18th dynasty came to the throne of Eygpt, and also the 348 years in which that family reigned over Egypt, together with the 121 years occupied by the reigns of the first two kings of the 19th dynasty, we have 1,439, the year of the cycle in which Menephes came to the throne of Egypt, making the cycle end in the 32d year of his reign.* It may perhaps be questioned, whether Censorinus, at the late period in which he lived, could know with any certainty the exact year in which the cynic cycle terminated; but there is, nevertheless, an agreement between this calculation and the chronology of the Hebrew scriptures, no less striking than that already spoken of between Manetho and the Septuagint. Thus, according to the last calculation, the accession of the 19th dynasty took place 1,474 years before the christian era, or thirteen years after the Exodus, following the chronology of Usher and Calmet; a result which we have reason to believe does not differ very much from the truth.

But it is not in determining dates, which from the very nature of the case are liable to great uncertainty, that we are to derive the advantages already alluded to, from a study of Egyptian antiquities; but it is rather the confirmation which the sacred history receives from the detail of facts contained in the history of that country, coinciding with or illustrating many direct and incidental allusions of the bible to the history and habits, the customs and manners of the Egyptians.

No one who has read his bible with the slightest attention, can have failed to notice a wonderful change in the character and feelings of the Egyptian sovereigns, between the days of Abraham and those of Joseph; and a change which nothing in the scriptures enables us to account for. When the former, who was "very rich in cattle, and silver, and gold,"† was driven by famine into the land of Egypt, he found no difficulty in conversing with Pharaoh, their king, who also had abundance of " sheep and oxen, he asses and she asses, with camels, with men servants and maid servants," and a few years subsequent, the patriarch received a present from Abimelech, another of their sovereigns, " of sheep and oxen, men servants and maid servants," with permission " to dwell where it pleased him."§ So, too, a short time after, this king of Egypt received a present of like kind from the hand of Abraham;|| but in the days of Joseph, every shepherd was an abomination to the Egyptians," and the children of the patriarch were obliged to converse with those people through the medium of an interpreter. Again, after the " death of Joseph, his brethren, and all that generation, there arose a king in Egypt which knew not Joseph," and who enslaved and oppressed the people his predecessors had treated with kindness.

In all these accounts we seem to perceive recognitions of some leading feature, some prominent characteristic of the sovereigns of Egypt, and of the people over which they ruled; intimations most fully confirmed by the testimony of Manetho, and by the reading of the hieroglyphics. Thus we learn from the fragments of Manetho, that sometime before the accession of the eighteenth dynasty, Egypt was invaded and conquered by a race of foreigners, called by that historian, Hykshos, Shepherds, Shepherd-kings, or Pastor-kings; and who destroyed and laid waste the temples, edifices and monuments of the preceeding families. This account of Manetho is most fully confirmed by the Pharonic legends, as well as by the fact, that many specimens of the early Egyptian architecture are incorporated into the temples of the eighteenth dynasty, thereby demonstating the truth of this universal history of Egypt. These foreigners, whom Manetho calls "men of ignoble birth from the eastern parts,"* probably from the plains of Assyria, and speaking the language of Abraham, or the Chaldee tongue,† held the throne of Egypt, according to Greppo, 270 years, but according to Jahn, 284 years. From the chronology of Manetho, and the Egyptian monuments, it is evident, that this family governed Egypt in the days of Abraham, and hence the ability of the patriarch to converse with Pharaoh; and hence, also, the amity that subsisted between them.

Between the shepherd-kings and some part of the Egyptians, war raged with various success, until the king of Thebes drove out the shepherds, and with his family held the throne 143 years, when they were succeeded by the family of Diospolis, the rightful sovereign of Egypt. The Theban race of kings, who were also conquerors of lower Egypt, and who prevented the rightful sovereigns from returning to the throne of their fathers, were nevertheless lenient, compared with the shepherd-kings, in the treatment of their subjects; permitting them to return from the pastoral life, into which they had been forced, and allowing them to give full scope to their hatred against their former tyrants. The occupation of shepherds, by reminding them as it did of their former servitude, was hateful, and "every shepherd became an abomination to the Egyptians." It was also under these kings, that the viceroyship of Joseph took place, and we may well suppose, that a visit from ten shepherds, in the persons of the sons of Jacob, men of warlike aspect, so soon after their deliverance from bondage, would arouse in their minds