This Moses refusing, the succession passed into another dynasty, Manetho's eighteenth; of whom the first was Amos, who was drowned in the Red Sea. At this time the Hierophantic and Enchorial kinds of writing came into use, Hakor being the first which has hitherto been found, and all the earlier inscriptions being only hieroglyphics. In Raamses the Third, whose daughter Pharaoh married, the Egyptian history again connects with the Bible, and by it we are enabled to attach and correct many intermediate points; as Jerombalo with Jerubaal, or Gideon, before Solomon; and Sheshak, Tirhaka, and others, after that time. Solomon's father-in-law was the father of the Memnon of the Greeks, and the son of Sesostris or Raamses the Great; and the reign of these two monarchs was the most brilliant period of Egyptian history, as their splendid temples, obelisks, and monuments in all parts of Egypt demonstrate. On one of these, Raamses is represented playing at chess with Memnon; proving that this game was not invented by Palamedes, but learnt from Memnon, at the siege of Troy.

As far as we at present know, it appears that the remains of Egypt cannot be studied with full advantage unless taken in connection with the records of Babylon; and we see so much. in the ample remains of Egyptian antiquity tending to illustrate and explain the scantier records of Babylon, that we think a short trespass on ground which is not properly our own will be pardoned, as it will lead us more directly to our point, and have the advantage to our readers of passing through a known region to arrive at the unknown.

It would seem also, that only genealogical lists of kings are found on the monuments of Egypt, without any dates or any astronomical records whatever; but in the remains of Babylon only a few fragments of the genealogical characters have been yet discovered, and all the entire inscriptions are beyond question either astronomical or astrological. If, then, we succeed in connecting Egypt with Babylon in their monuments, we shall give to each just what it wants; the two halves of the ring will coincide, and the circle of profane history will be complete.

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The want of dates and astronomical records on the Egyptian monuments has been often remarked: we transcribe Dr. Young's observations from the Supplement to the Encyclopædia BriBy means of the knowledge of the hieroglyphic characters which has already been obtained, we are fully competent to form a general idea of the nature of the inscriptions on the principal Egyptian monuments that are extant. Numerous as they are, there is scarcely one of them which we are not able to refer to the class of either sepulchral or votive inscriptions. Astronomical and chronological there seem to be none, since the numeral characters, which have been perfectly ascertained, have

not yet been found to occur in such a form as they must necessarily have assumed in the records of this description. Of an historical nature we can only find the triumphal, which are often sufficiently distinguishable, but they may also always be referred to the votive; since whoever related his own exploits thought it wisest to attribute the glory of them to some deity, and whoever recorded those of another was generally disposed to intermix divine honours with his panegyric." "The general tenor of all these inscriptions seems to be, as may be expected from the testimony of Herodotus, the identification of the deceased with the god Osiris, and probably, if a female, with Isis; and the subject generally is the reception of this new personage by the principal deities, to whom he now stands in a relation expressed by the respective inscriptions." And earlier in the same article he says, "There is, indeed, little chance of our discovering any astronomical records of importance among the profusion of hieroglyphical literature which is still in existence. Herodotus tells us that the Greeks derived their acquaintance with astronomy from the Babylonians, though they were supposed to have learned the elements of geometry from the Egyptians; and it is well known that Ptolemy the astronomer, who lived at Alexandria, and who must have had easy access, as well as Eratosthenes before him, to all the knowledge of the Egyptian priests, refers to no Egyptian observations, but employs the Babylonian records of eclipses which had happened a few centuries before his time; records which, as Pliny informs us, were preserved on a particular kind of bricks; the same, perhaps, that have been brought to Europe in our own times, as undeciphered specimens of the nail or arrow-headed character."-Supp. to Ency. Brit. art. Hieroglyphics.

But though the Babylonians at length excelled the Egyptians in astronomical knowledge, and though they alone preserved permanent records of their observations, the Egyptians in the early ages kept pace with the Babylonians in the accuracy of their observations; and an interchange of discoveries seems to have been kept up down to the time of the Greeks, though the Egyptians of these last times had only to receive, and nothing to impart in return. The well of Syene, and the entrances of the Pyramids, from which as through a long telescope they marked the transit of a star, prove both the importance they attached to accurate observations, and also a greatly advanced state of science, which alone could make such accuracy sought after, or available when attained. And Strabo bears witness to their being in possession of astronomical science, which the Greeks sought with avidity, and only partially obtained. He says (xvii.) that Plato and Eudoxus spent some years at Heliopolis, and with difficulty obtained from the priests only a small part of

the theorems in their possession. They learned, however, that the year exceeded 365 days; but its exact length they knew not, till they subsequently obtained translations of the sacred books of the Egyptians.

The various zodiacs found in Egypt evince also the early and sedulous attention paid to astronomy in that country; while the knowledge which we have now obtained of the precise date of their construction has rendered the speculations of the savans concerning their high antiquity perfectly absurd; and has demonstrated, as we might have inferred from the misplacing of the stars, that they were designed for ornamental rather than scientific purposes. Denderah, to which, from its zodiacs, Baily and Sir W. Drummond had assigned an antiquity earlier than the Deluge, is now proved by its inscriptions to have been repaired, enlarged, and almost rebuilt, under Tiberius; some of the additions come even as low as Marcus Aurelius; and no part of it seems to be older than the time of the Ptolemies. And the inferences concerning the state of astronomical science when these were constructed, have scarcely more foundation than would an inference concerning the religion of England and France when the ceilings of Whitehall and Versailles were painted, were the speculator to infer, because the figures of heathen deities are painted thereon, that Charles and Louis, Rubens and Le Brun, were worshippers of Jupiter and Juno.

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The knowledge of hieroglyphics, by which we are now enabled to settle the whole line of Egyptian succession, and to fix the age of every inscription, has been attained by the progressive investigations of many individuals, none of whom should be without their due acknowledgments. Dr. Young was unquestionably the discoverer of the key by which hieroglyphics have been unlocked he pointed out the path in which all the rest have gone on, most of them without knowing, and nearly all without acknowledging, to whom we are indebted for opening to our view this long-lost region of learning. Akerblad and De Sacy threw some little light on Dr. Young's path, before Champollion took up the investigation; but this latter gentleman pursued the inquiry with such ardour and success, that he himself came to be considered as the discoverer ;-a mistake which Champollion seems to have favoured, by not acknowledging what he derived from Dr. Young, or, as far as we know, even mentioning his name. Champollion has, however, done much to advance our knowledge of hieroglyphics by what has been already published, and will probably inform us further by his recent collections, now preparing for publication; in which also he will probably have corrected some errors, which were perhaps almost unavoidable in so new and so complicated an inquiry. Many of these errors have already been corrected by Messrs. Wilkinson and

Burton, and by Major Felix; and so much new matter has been brought to light by their laborious and accurate researches, that they have added almost as much to Champollion's system as Champollion did to that of Dr. Young.

But the information collected by Champollion and the travellers has been set in order, and rendered available, by Mr. CULLIMORE, to whom our readers are indebted for so many valuable communications; and who, without travelling himself, has rendered somewhat similar service to history and to chronology as Major Rennel has rendered to geography. He has now, from various existing monuments, nearly completed the entire series of Kings of Egypt, from Menai, the founder of the monarchy, down to the Roman Emperors, with their viceroys, or secondaries, whether collateral or subordinate kings; and he has connected this series with the history of the Jews in such a manner as to be regulated and tested by Scripture every where. The data for rendering this important service to ancient history have been attained by means equally simple and conclusive. Mr. Bankes had discovered a tablet at Abydos, in 1818, containing three rows of ovals, the lower row being evidently repetitions of the name and prefix of the same king; but some of the ovals of this lower row were defaced, and a still greater number of those of the middle and upper lines. Mr. Cullimore, in a paper read before the Royal Society of Literature, Feb. 1831, has shewn that this tablet was erected by Raamses II., who was Sesostris; and that the middle line of ovals is a list of his predecessors up to Osortesen I.; the upper line being the secondaries, or viceroys, of each supreme king-collateral, in short, with the middle line, and not preceding it. Carrying this principle to other monuments, of both earlier and later date, and connecting one name in any list with this ascertained list of Abydos, he has been able not only to fill up the lost ovals of this tablet, but to lengthen the list, both upwards and downwards, over the whole period of the Egyptian monarchy; correcting or verifying completely the lists of Manetho and Eratosthenes, by monuments actually existing at the present day; and finding on these monuments the names of the several Pharaohs mentioned in Scripture, and the Ethiopian, Persian, and Assyrian conquerors, who were either the false "confidence" of backsliding Israel, or the scourges of Egypt to destroy that false confidence. An abstract only of Mr. Cullimore's paper appears to have been published, stating, "From the evidence of history, and of other Egyptian monuments, compared with the votive elements of the record of Abydos, it appears that the two parallel lines of succession, which that tablet present, do not, as hitherto conjectured, form a single consecutive series, but are synchronous. The hieroglyphic tablet of Thothmos III., the seventh predecessor of Raamses,

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discovered at Carnac by Messrs. Wilkinson and Burton in 1825, which has also been viewed, so far as it has been examined, as exhibiting a single succession, is likewise constructed on similar principles; and seems, indeed, to have been in all respects the prototype of that of Abydos." "The double succession of both records being established, and that of Carnac ascending into ages considerably higher than the record of Abydos, when complete; while the identity of the Pharaonic lines of both as a continued succession is made evident by means of several minor collateral lists; the connection and identity of the subordinate and more mutilated lines are inferred from analogy, supported by many coincident proofs.Rep. of Roy. Soc. Lit. 1831.

The succession, thus obtained, Mr. Cullimore has connected with chronology, by means of the Hermaic Calendar: "and upon the principles of this remarkable system has shewn that the epoch of the Egyptian monarchy necessarily corresponds to the 598th year of the 24th solar canicular period, and consequently to the year B. c. 2188, an epoch confirmed by the testimony of all original and impartial authorities. And this system must have been constructed in the sixteenth century before the Christian æra ; which was the age of Hermes Trismegistus, its author, and the golden age of Egyptian science."

The Babylonian series of kings was given by Mr. Cullimore in our last number; and, following the principles of the astronomical canon of Berosus, he thereby fixed to a certainty the date of each reign, from Nimrod to the Macedonian conquest, at which time Berosus lived, through whom Alexander became acquainted with the astronomical records of Babylon, which he transmitted to Aristotle, and by which the Greek astronomers were enabled to correct many of their errors, and to obtain a nearer approximation to the true length of the year. The Egyptian series of kings is now made capable of ocular demonstration, by the deciphering of their names on the monuments; and we hope to place the astronomical records of Babylon on the same footing of ocular demonstration, by explaining the bricks and various inscribed monuments found in Mesopotamia.

But a previous question should be first settled; that is, to what extent were the characters of Babylon employed for the purposes of an alphabet? We say, assuredly to no greater extent than the hieroglyphics of Egypt, and probably not to so great an extent; being neither used so frequently for this purpose, nor having any alphabetic character derived from them; which, to a great degree, was the relation between the hieroglyphic and enchorial character of the Egyptians. We doubt whether the Babylonian characters were ever employed as an alphabet-no instance of it has hitherto come to our knowledge. Several in