declaring to Jupiter, that from the Brahmans she repaired to Ethiopia, thence to Egypt, and afterwards to Babylon.

According to Dr. Russell's hypothesis, and some others, the shepherd-kings, who were expelled from Egypt, were the fathers of the Philistines; and Palestine was Pali-stan, or Shepherdland. The writer in the Asiatic Researches (vol. iii. p. 46), who serves him as an authority, states, that the remembrance of this pastoral expedition is not extinct among the tribes of central India; that in the Hindú sacred books two migrations of remote date are recorded, that of the Yadavas, or sacred race, and that of the Pali, or shepherds. The latter were a powerful people, and once governed the whole country from the Indus to the mouth of the Ganges: they were enterprising and roving, and gradually spread themselves over a great part of Asia, Africa, and Europe. One branch he identifies with the Berbers, or eastern Ethiopians, as distinguished from the western, both by Homer and Herodotus. Many, however, derive n the Hebrew name of Palestine, from an Ethiopic root, which is supposed to make the term expressive of the migration of the Caphtorim and Casluchim: but in support of the preceding conjecture we quote the author's own words:-" How extensively they afterwards spread both in Europe and Asia, appears from the cities and places which still retain their name. Thus a Palestine, or Palesthan, was founded on the banks of the Tigris, most probably their original settlement; the town of Paliputra stood on the Hellespont; the river Strymon in Thrace was denominated Palestinus: the Palestini and town Philistia were situated on the banks of the Po in Italy; and the god of shepherds among the Latins was denominated Pales."

In corroboration of all this, a Hindù legend is quoted, which records an invasion of Egypt, or Misrasthan, coinciding in all the leading particulars with the history of the shepherd-kings. The reference of this dynasty to the Philistines is in no small degree strengthened by the tradition in Herodotus of one Philitis, a shepherd, whose memory the Egyptians held in utter execration; and, as at the time of the arrival of the family and dependents of Jacob, shepherds were an abomination to the Egyptians,† it is very reasonable to conclude, that the expulsion of these foreigners

# On both in Ethiopic and Amharic, denotes to migrate, or move from place to place, and would therefore equally apply to the nomadic habits of shepherds. In this sense it agrees with the Sanskrit root पलू pal, or पल्लु pall. The LXX. by the term aλλópuλo, considered the Philistines to be foreigners, and such we may argue them to have been from the term "uncircumcised," which seems to have been applied to them alone in the Hebrew scriptures.

+ Gen. xlvi. 34.

happened before that event. No place could be better suited to them, as a new settlement after their expulsion, than Canaan; no place can be imagined more likely to have been chosen. This hypothesis has also the advantage of solving a material difficulty, which the similarity of the Philistine idolatry to that of India would otherwise present to us; and this view of the subject, together with the Indian descent of the Ethiopic tribes, which Dr. Russell has maintained by numerous authorities, illustrates also the analogy between Hindù and Egyptian superstitions.

With respect to the Egyptian names, we shall in most cases refer the reader to Jablonski, whose works the author does not seem to have consulted. The Indian campaign of Sesostris, and other historical records, of an intercourse between Egypt and India, add their assistance to this research. The Doctor has noticed the near correspondence between the amended chronicle of Syncellus and the true epoch of the accession of the family of Mitzraim; but neither he nor any other has noticed the extraordinary evidence which is afforded to us in the name of Rameses, DDDY, which we know, from Gen. xlvii. 11, to have been a pastoral district. We are aware, that some have derived the name from Rāma, and that Jablonski has at one time thought it a compound of peu, a man, and cyсHC, a shepherd; at another, that he has deduced the city so called from pH, the sun, and eaн, a territory; but such derivations from the Coptic throw no light on the origin of the shepherd-kings, who appear to have given the name to the city and to the district. If, however, the preceding notions have any real foundation, they are wonderfully supported by the easy deduction of the term from the Sanskrit,¶Ã, rõmăsa, a sheep, which the book of Genesis almost renders certain.*

Through the many corruptions which evidently exist in the names of the shepherd-dynasty, it will be impossible to arrive at any thing beyond conjecture respecting them. The first, "Salatis, or Silitis, or Nirmaryada," may be compared with that of , Salyă, a king who was maternal uncle of Yud'hisht'hir, whose titular epithet may have been, Naramōda, the delight of men, the r being frequently inserted or omitted in the colloquial dialects. The second, "Baion, Byon, or Babya," may have been, b'hăvyă, happy, fortunate; the third," Apachnes, Pachman, or Ruchma," may have been panchmāra (which was a name given to the son of Baladéva),

or

TH, panchmă, dexterous, able. Ruchma at first sight appears to

With respect to the difficulties which the name of Shishak has inflicted on chronological inquiries, and to which the author has devoted several pages, they may be removed by the supposition, that it was a title borne, like Pharaoh, by several kings,

and that it may have been merely

HH, sasăkă, a ruler or governor. The Doctor's connexion of particulars in Ethiopian and Arabian history with the scriptural is interesting and able; and although it may be a point which cannot be decided, it is exceedingly probable that Esau and Homeir were the same person; that after having established a part of his descendants in Seir, he removed with the others to Yemen, therefore, that from him the Hamyaric dynasty proceeded. It is shown that there are not chronological objections to this idea; and that as the Hebrew and Arabic words equally mean red, the Hebrew may have been retained at Seir, and the Arabic have been adopted at Yemen. But those who, with Sir Wm. Drummond, supposing the Hagarim to have been the Agraians of the Greeks, deduce their name from the Arabic of Petra, in Arabia Petræa, have fallen into the error of confounding with, the Hagarim being written with the former, and with a radical equivalent to the latter; nor is it to the purpose, on the authority of Michaelis and Assemanni's text, to urge that the Syriac reads

, because it is grammatically impossible, and must either have arisen in a textual fault, or the ignorance of the writer, who mistook for. The meaning of the words is also very distinct from each other.

After a curious disquisition on the book of Job, and a synopsis of the different opinions concerning its author and its original form, Dr. Russell returns to the origin of writing. Many, on

be a corruption of the Arabic, or, merciful. The name , rukmin, (nom. rukmi,) is, however, Sanskrit, and was borne by a prince slain by Baláráma. The fourth, "Apophes," may have been

, appapu, protector of the water (Nile), as Varuna was called fa, appăti, lord of waters; unless it be the same name. The fifth is "Janias, or Sethos," which was perhaps F, Jína, victorious, triumphant. Sethos is clearly an interpolation from another dynasty. The last is "Assis or Aseth," which we may retrace to a derivative from TH, as, to rule, or to one of Indra's names HT, Asăd. Some may perhaps be inclined to account Goshen W, a modification of

गोस्थान, Gosthăna, a place for cattle.

असद,

questionable grounds, imagine the first alphabet to be of divine origin: the notion perhaps arose from tradition. Thus Ferdausi represents the Devs instructing Tahmuras in the art:

نوشتن به خسرو بیاموختند

دلش را بدانش برافروختند

They taught the good king to write;

They inflamed his heart with knowledge.

The poet then proceeds to give him the ability of writing to thirty cities in their respective languages. That the art of writing was known before the delivery of the Law, and probably before the days of Moses, the author has established beyond doubt: and the hieratic character of the Egyptians, as distinguished from the hieroglyphic, shows how in that country it proceeded beyond the original symbol. Dr. Russell lays a great stress on the alphabets of Wahshih, edited by Hammer: we long since have carefully inspected them, but are not satisfied of their authenticity. But when, arguing from the Chinese, and the system of hieroglyphics, the Doctor would intimate that the language of the Old Testament was at one time in the same state as the Chinese now is,-displaying a distinct meaning to the eye by certain lines and curves, "without being accompanied to the full extent with the capacity of being uttered in corresponding sounds," we think that he is resting on a theory without foundation. We have referred the rise of the language, particularly called Hebrew, to the days of Abraham; and if Dr. Hales's astronomical calculations (of which he approves) be properly applied to the book of Job, fixing the period of his trial 184 years before the birth of Abraham, the mention of writing in that book will place the art before the patriarch's days. Still the question, as to the nature of the art, will remain :-on this we feel convinced, that no one can advance any thing beyond hypothesis, but we are at the same time persuaded, that there is not the slightest reason to compare it to the Chinese. Dr. Lamb's work, to which the Doctor again adverts, manifestly originated in the investigations of those who have devoted themselves to Egyptian antiquities; and those who will compare the 35th and following pages of Champollion's Letter to A. M. Dacier, cannot fail to perceive what gave rise to the theory. But, as the date of an alphabet cannot be fixed, (we suppose it to have been anterior to Abraham), we may account for its introduction among the Hebrews without imagining a system of Hebrew hieroglyphics. And we have as much right to suppose it anterior to the patriarch, as others to conjecture the reverse. For not only Moses, but Abraham himself resided in Egypt; consequently, if this improvement had there taken place before the period of his residence, he would undeniably, as

the sheikh of a powerful tribe, which had dealings with the caravans, have made himself acquainted with its principles, and accommodated it to his own language. But the Canaanites, long before his removal from Ur, must have had intercourse with Egypt; and whatever improvement in the art of communication had been made there, or in any country visited by the caravans, would assuredly have been almost immediately known and adopted in every part of the then mercantile world.

We have not space to meet this theory at every point. We presume, that the derivation of the meaning of the alphabetic characters from the supposed hieroglyphic emblems in the note at p. 297 is taken from Dr. Lamb; it is built on the hypothesis of those who have attempted to decipher the Egyptian monuments, and has the same objection in making different characters express the same thing. We are indeed surprised that a writer of Dr. Russell's intelligence should for a moment have been deluded by such visions. Each letter of the Hebrew alphabet is pronounced to have a separate meaning, and the sense of the root to be sometimes confined to one character (for which "sometimes" we should read, according to the development of the theory, "in most instances"); but as certain sturdy roots bid defiance even to Dr. Lamb's ingenuity, a convenient salvo is provided, that "in other cases it (the sense of the root) is derived from all the letters which enter into its composition."

Much as we have been heretofore astonished at Parkhurst's vagaries, we never expected a surprise like that which Dr. Lamb has prepared for us in his interpretation of patriarchal names; it, however, has the advantage of enabling Dr. Lamb to explain any Hebrew word just as his fancy pleases, and to disregard any opposition which the cognate languages and the principles of criticism might raise. What can be more preposterous than his interpretation of Gen. ix. 27, on which Dr. Russell dwells with pleasure? The words are no лÐ, yaphet Elohim leyepheth. The yod he chooses to interpret a man," phe, "the opening," and tau," of the tent," whence Japheth means, the man of the opening of the tent, and the verb, to open wide the tent door. Gen. ix. 27 should therefore be translated, "God will open wide the tent door to Japheth;" where we may perceive by the introduction of the word "wide," that he has found it convenient to insert the real sense of the root. It is almost needless to say that our version is correct.

66

After this specimen, we cannot be expected to follow him in his other baseless speculations; we will, however, observe, that Dr. Lamb's marvellous discovery about Elohim tends to show that the tabernacle and temple contained an infraction of the second commandment; that if he be right in making the cherubim God, he makes several passages of Scripture inexplicable, and renders