their discovery of it was not so early as the time when they came to the knowledge of the other point, which is evident from the fable in which their mythologic writers dressed up the doctrine of the year's consisting of three hundred and sixty-five days.' According to that fable, five days were the exact seventy-second part of the whole year, and five is so of three hundred and sixty; therefore, when the five days were first added, the year was thought to consist only of three hundred and sixty-five days. It is hard to say when the Egyptians made this further improvement of their astronomy; but whenever they did, it is certain that Thales knew nothing of it, for Sir John Marsham rightly observes, that Herodotus takes no notice of a quarter part of a day, which should be added to the year over and above the five additional days, and adds,* that Eudoxus first learned from the Egyptian

'See the fable, note in preface to vol. 1.

* Marsham Can. Chron. p. 286.

priests, that such farther addition ought to be made to the measure of the year, and he cites Strabo's express words to confirm his observation.' Now Eudoxus lived about

three hundred years after Thales, and therefore Thales was entirely ignorant, both of this, and, according to Strabo, of many other very material points in astronomy, which Eudoxus learned in Egypt.

Thales is, indeed, said to have foretold an eclipse, i. e. I suppose he was able to foresee that there would be one, not that he could calculate exactly the time when; perhaps he might guess within two or three weeks, and perhaps he might err above twice that number, and yet be thought in his age a very great astronomer. Sir Isaac Newton says, that he wrote a book concerning the tropics and equinoxes; which

Strabo says, that Eudoxus and Plato learned from the Egyptian priests, της επιτρεχονία της ημέρας και της νυκλος μερα. ταις τριακοσίαις εξηκονία πειτε ημεραις ως την εκπληωσιν τα ενοησία χριs and he adds, αλλ ηγνοιτο τέως ο Ενιαυτός τοις Ελλησιν, ως -xaị xàλa wiew. Strabo. Genog. ib. 17. p. 836.

undoubtedly must be a very sorry one. I cannot apprehend that Thales could settle the equinoxes with so much exactness, as that any great stress could have been laid even upon his account of the Pleiades setting twenty-five days after the autumnal equinox. He might, or might not happen to err a day or two about the time of the equinox: and as much about the setting of the Pleiades.

year

Sir Isaac Newton observes, that Meton, in order to publish his lunar cycle of nineteen years, observed the summer solstice in the of Nabonassar 316, and Columella (he says) placed it in the eighth degree of Cancer. From whence he argues, that the solstice had gone back from Chiron's days to Meton's at least seven degrees, and therefore Meton was but five hundred and four years after Chiron." But here again the argument depends upon Chiron's having accurately settled the equinoxes in his time;

Chronology of the Greeks, p. 93.

therefore the answer I have before given will here be sufficient. As to Meton, from this account of his settling the equinoxes, and from Dean Prideaux's of his nineteen years cycle," it would seem probable that he was a very exact astronomer. But I must confess, there appear to me to be considerable reasons against admitting this opinion of him ; for how could Meton be so exact an astronomer, when Hipparchus, who lived almost three hundred years after Meton, was the first who found out that the equinox had a motion backwards, since even he was so far from being accurate, that he miscounted twenty-eight years in one hundred, in calculating that motion?" Meton might not be so exact an astronomer as he is represented. The cycle which goes under his name might be first projected by him; but perhaps he did not give it that perfection which it afterwards received. Columella lived in the time

"Prideaux Connect. vol. ii. p. 6.

• Newton's Chronology, p. 94.

• Id. Ibid.

of the emperor Claudius, and he might easily ascribe more to Meton than belonged to him, as living so many ages after him. Later authors perfected Meton's rude draughts of astronomy; and Columella might suppose the corrections made in his originals by later hands to be Meton's. We now call the nineteen years cycle by his name; but I suppose that nothing more of it belongs to him, than an original design of something like it, which the astronomers of after-ages added to and completed by degrees.

Before I dismiss the astronomical argument of our truly great author, I would add the very celebrated Dr. Halley's account of the astronomy of the ancients; which he communicated some years ago to the author of "Reflections upon Ancient and Modern Learning." His words are,"

The astronomy of the ancients is usually reckoned for one of those sciences, wherein the learning of the Egyptians consisted; and

See Wotton's Reflections upon Ancient and Mo. dern Learning, chap. 24, p. 320.