pear to have belonged to the Shepherds' cast; but if, according to Manetho, Cadmus was Armaïs, brother of the Pharaoh Sethosis, I cannot possibly see how he could have been a leader of the Shepherds, especially as it does not appear from any historian I know, that any of the Shepherds lingered behind after their final expulsion at the Exodus. On the contrary, it seems to me that at that period the Shepherds were fully driven out, and never more returned to Egypt until Cambyses. I mention Cambyses because, according to Mr. Faber's theory, the Persians must have belonged to the same family of Cush.

Be this as it may, as Mr. Faber's opinion agrees, in many respects, with that which I had formed even before I became acquainted with his valuable work on the Origin of Idolatry; and as some of the arguments on which I have grounded this opinion are the same with those he has advanced in support of his own, I think it necessary to state them, because, by so doing, you will be better able to judge of the merits of Mr. Faber's hypothesis, and understand more clearly the alterations I have made.

The strongest arguments made use of by Mr. Faber are undoubtedly those which he has derived from Scripture. We know from Moses the important services which Joseph had rendered to Egypt, and the high favour that on his account the Israelites enjoyed even after his death. During this time, in the language of Moses, "they were fruitful, and increased abundantly, and multiplied,

and waxed exceedingly mighty, and the land was filled with them." But after this period of happiness, according to the same sacred authority," there arose up a new king over Egypt, which knew not Joseph." This king both Mr. Faber and Mr. Bryant say, from the very circumstance of not knowing Joseph, must have been a stranger; for it would have been impossible for a native Egyptian sovereign not to have known the eminent services of Joseph, which increased to so great an extent the power of the Pharaohs. He is evidently the head of a new dynasty; the leader of those Shepherds who, Manetho says, had been invited by the leprous Shepherds who had succeeded them in Avaris, when they began to meditate revolutionary projects. As a stranger and a conqueror, he must have been aware that as soon as his tyrannical yoke was felt by the people, the Israelites would again join their old friends the Egyptians; and this formidable addition to the forces of the Pharaoh might produce a revolution against which it would be impossible for him to make a stand. In this situation, as it is related by Moses, he said unto his people," Behold, the people of the children of Israel are more and mightier than we. Come on,

let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that when there falleth out any war, they join also unto our enemies, and fight against us, and so get them up out of the land."

This speech evidently shews this new king to be a foreigner; for however rapid the multiplication

to

of the Israelites might have been, it is impossible that they, at any time, could have exceeded the native Egyptians; for even when they left Egypt, more than a century after, they were only 600,000 men on foot. At the time of which we are now speaking, their number must have been infinitely less, and by no means such as to allow the sovereign say that they were "more and mightier than we.” But while our sacred Scriptures detail the persecution of the Israelites, profane history records the sufferings of the conquered Egyptians. We know from Manetho and from Herodotus, that these Shepherds shut up the temples, persecuted the priests, murdered the men, reduced the women and children to the most abject slavery, and the wretched inhabitants that had escaped from the sword were compelled to hew stones in the quarries, drag them to the Nile, and float them down that river in proper vessels. It is on record, that ten years were spent, by the united labour of 100,000 men, in making the very road over which the stones were to be conveyed. Just as we are informed, from the sacred pages, that the Israelites were equally condemned to build cities for their merciless conqueror.

Perhaps, by way of a parenthesis, it might be mentioned, that amongst the buildings which the Israelites were compelled to raise, by the command of their oppressors, Herodotus mentions the Pyramids, an opinion which has also been adopted by Josephus and other celebrated writers. Amongst

the different arguments which they adduce to prove this assertion, they quote the authority of sacred as well as profane history, from which it appears that the diet of the workmen consisted of onions and garlic, a sort of food from which, as they say, every Egyptian most religiously abstained. Zoëga, however, thinks quite differently; and considers onions and garlic to have formed a part of the common food of the lower order of the people in Egypt.

M.

Be this as it may, this is not the only point in which a striking similarity appears to have existed between the condition of the Israelites and their fellow-slaves the Egyptians.

Herodotus, as we have seen, mentions, that the diet of the toiling Egyptians consisted of radishes, onions, and garlic; and Moses relates that the diet of the toiling Israelites equally consisted of cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic. According to Herodotus, the Egyptians were condemned to toil as builders; according to Moses, the Israelites were compelled to perform the same work. According to Herodotus and Manetho, the tyranny of these merciless Shepherds had been foretold by an oracle; and according to Moses, the slavery of the Israelites had been revealed to Abraham by an immediate communication from God.

To these great points of similarity we may add another, which chronology offers us. According to Manetho, the second tyranny of the Shepherds lasted 115, and according to Herodotus 106 years;

now according to Moses, the slavery of the Israelites could not have lasted longer.

This calculation is correct: Manetho mentions 511 years as the entire dominion of the Shepherds in Egypt, from their first irruption to the Exodus ; and the duration of that first irruption was 260 years. Now deducting these 260 years from the 511, we shall have the sum of 251 years. Fifteen years after their expulsion, Joseph comes into Egypt, and 21 years after Israel also comes; these two periods make up 36 years, which, being deducted from the 251 years, leave the residue of 215 years, from the descent of Israel to the Exodus. Of these 215 years we must allow at least full 100 years before the Israelites became so numerous as to excite the jealousy of their tyrants; and deducting this period from 215, we shall have either the 115 years mentioned by Manetho, or the 106 years recorded by Herodotus and Eusebius, during which the Egyptians groaned under the tyranny of their oppressors.

That this was the fact is evident from what Moses says in the book of Exodus. He was eighty years old when he demanded the liberation of his people, and Aaron three years his senior; this makes eighty-three years. At that time the persecution was at its height, and had begun some time before. But when Moses was exposed his sister Miriam must have been a young woman, for she is made to watch the bulrush ark of her infant brother. Suppose she was seventeen or eighteen; therefore