vafion of that country by the Eastern Ethiopians, from whom, and not from the barbarous Abyffinians and Shangalla, the Egyptians appear to have derived their early civilization. Notwithstanding the difficulties occafioned in ancient history by the fables of Berofus and Manetho, which feem to have been invented and propagated by men who preferred the honour of their respective countries to the love of truth, and notwithstanding the interefted lies told by Egyptian priests to Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus, yet the writings of these ingenious and well-informed hiftorians, of whom the former fpent his whole life, and the latter thirty years, in exploring the countries which they defcribe, afford us many useful landmarks for directing our courfe through this barren and extenfive wildernefs. Before the time of Pfammeticus, who reigned in the beginning of the eighth century before Chrift, both Herodotus and Diodorus acknowlege that the hiftory of Egypt was little known to the Greeks. Proteus, both hiftorians fay, reigned at the time of the Trojan war; and the princes who erected the pyramids lived, according to Herodotus, between thefe two periods. Concerning the age of Sefoftris, Herodotus and Diodorus received, indeed, very different accounts: but both writers agree that he reigned before the war of Troy; and Diodorus tells us, that he erected two obelisks of hard ftone, 120 cubits high, on which he caufed to be infcribed the greatness of his power, and amount of his revenues, and the names and number of the nations whom he had fubdued. Diodor. i. 56. This exactly correfponds with the words of Tacitus, in defcribing the travels of Germanicus: Mox vifit veterum Thebarum magna veftigia; & manebant frulis molibus litera Egyptiæ, legebantur et indicta gentibus tributa, &c. Annal. ii. 60. A very different account of the obelisks from that given by Mr. B.

That this Rhamfes, or Ramaftes, whofe great obelisk, Pliny fays, then flood at Thebes, was the fame with Sefoftris, appears from the exploits afcribed to him, eo cum exercitu, (viz. 700,000 men of the military age) Rhamfem Lybia, Etbiopia, Medifque, &c. potitum. Tacit. ibid. Herodotus infinuates that he came originally from the East, though the vanity of the Egyptians made them claim him for their countryman; and his name is faid by the learned Bianchini *, to fignify the Illuftrious Shepherd. Inftead of an Egyptian king, therefore, who conquered the Ethiopian fhepherds,' (as Mr. B. defcribes Sefoftris,) and laid open to Egypt the trade of India and Arabia,' we have here an Ethiopian thepherd who fubdued

6

* Iftoria Univerfale, p. 441.

the Egyptians; and who, having acquired immenfe wealth by conqueft, difdained the flow profits of commerce.

According to Herodotus and Diodorus, various Ethiopian kings reigned in Egypt before the Trojan war, and introduced into that country their arts, idolatry, obelisks, and hieroglyphics. In their fplendid courts, they difplayed all the magnificence of the Eaft, from which they had originally come but the deftruction of Pharoah's army in the Red Sea, and the growth of the Affyrian empire, rendered Egypt a prey to new and barbarous invaders. These were the African Ethiopians from the South, who made war on the arts and fuperftition of Egypt, who fhut or demolished the temples, and who having reduced the people to a cruel flavery, compelled them to build the pyramids with ftones brought from their native country, (Ethiopia above Egypt;) a circumftance mentioned by Strabo, and ftrongly confirmed by the report of a great geographer *, who fays, there are buildings exifting in that country to this day, which exactly refemble the mafonry of the pyramids : but that the obelisks, on the contrary, are Afiatic, and not African inventions, is evident from the fymbols which they contain. The hooded fnake, which is engraved with great precifion on the obelisk of Ramefes, now lying in ruins at Rome, is a reptile not found in any part of Africa, but peculiar to the fouth-eastern parts of Afia +. It is diftinguishable among the fculptures in the facred caverns of the island of Elephanta 1, and appears frequently added as a characteristic. fymbol to many of the idols of the modern Hindoos §.

The memory of Sefoftris was cherished, but that of the Abyffinian conquerors was held in abhorrence, by the Egyptians. They wished, if poffìble, to have abolished it for ever, and were fo far fuccefsful, that the hiftory of thofe conquerors, and their pyramids, is involved in great obfcurity. (Herodot. & Diodor. ibid.) Yet these are the princes to whom Mr. B. afcribes the inftitutions and wifdom of Egypt; an opinion totally inconfiftent with the teftimony of ancient writers, who defcribe the African Ethiopians as barbarians, who chose their kings from their ftrength and ftature, who were branded as atheifts by other nations, and who, in particular, inftead of worfhipping the fun, reproached that luminary with fcorching them, and curfed him as their enemy. Diodor. & Strabo.

* Mr. Pierre D'Avity. Afrique, p. 485.

† Norden, Sonnerat, and D'Hankerville.

‡ Niebuhr.

Sonnerat, and Mr. Knight's learned difcourfe on the connection between the worship of Priapus and the myftic theology of the ancients, p. 90.

REV. OCT. 1790.

L

It

It is natural for Mr. B. to be partial to the countries which he has made it the great business of his life to explore and defcribe but if the preceding obfervations prove that Afia, and not Africa, was the cradle of arts and idolatry, nothing will appear more fanciful than deducing the Egyptian rites from the local circumftances of Abyffinia, and confidering the obelifks erected in honour of Eaftern gods and kings, as almanacs or diaries of the weather of Egypt, and the inundations of the Nile.

There is fomething very ingenious in Mr. B.'s account of the Crux Anfata in the tots, or portable almanacs, which he confiders as obelisks in miniature: yet before he had haftily adopted that explanation, he fhould have confidered whether the Egyptian letters, fourteen centuries before Chrift, correfponded fo exactly with those of our English alphabet.

Another word, and we have done.-Prepoffeffed in favour of his own theory, Mr. B. is extremely provoked with Herodotus, and all who have followed that writer, in believing the Delta of Egypt to be the gift of the Nile. In answer to his elaborate reasonings on this fubject, vol. iii. p. 672, we shall oppofe a well-attefted fact. In the hiftory of the Peloponnefian war, Thucydides (1. ii. § 102.) obferves, "that the islands. called Echinades were fituated oppofite to the city of Eniades, at a fmall diftance from the mouth of the river Achelous. The current of this river accumulates fand and flime, which has already joined fome of these iflands to the continent; and it is probable that, in time, they will all form part of the main land yet in the age of Paufanias, nearly fix centuries afterward, the Echinades remained as remote from the coaft as they had been during the Peloponnefian war; at least the difference was not perceptible. (Paufanias, Arcad. 1. viii. c. 25. p. 647.) Had Paufanias inferred, like Mr. B. that Thucydides information was falfe, and his prediction abfurd, he would affuredly have reafoned wrong; for Mr. Wood* tells us, that the Archelous, by the flime which it throws up, ftill continues to contract the distance between the Echinades and the continent; fo that the prediction of Thucydides must at length be fulfilled.

We fhall now conclude our criticifm on this extraordinary work, which will doubtlefs procure its author a very confpicuous rank in the republic of letters; though, from the various nature of the work itself, we cannot eafily afcertain what that rank will be. To the learned reader, the hiftorical and geo

*Original Genius of Homer, p. 9.

graphical

graphical travels of Mr. Bruce will naturally recal the work of Herodotus, part of which is written concerning the fame countries, and which is divided into nearly the fame number of books but a writer who difdains, as much as Mr. B., the graces of elegant compofition, (which, perhaps, he would not have found it a very eafy matter to attain,) forms an unworthy parallel with the ancient hiftorian, whofe harmonious and captivating diction deferved and perpetuated, for his nine books, the names of the nine Mufes. Inftead of confufion, exaggeration, inconfiftency, and fometimes contradiction, had Mr. B. fet an example of perfpicuity, accuracy, and energy of defcription, his literary and military talents, his difcoveries and his battles, his philofophy and his horfemanfhip, his piety and his raillery, and above all, his relating to his countrymen a long feries of tranfactions in a distant land, in which he himfelf bore fo confiderable a part, would bring to mind the celebrated Athenian, who travelled through nearly the fame extent of barbarous and unknown country, fighting and difcourfing alternately; who entered, like Mr. B. into the fervice of an unfortunate prince; and who, in his return home, was expofed to the fame dangers, and delivered by fimilar addrefs:-the compofition of Xenophon, fo interefting and fo perfuafive, infures credit to his report, perhaps, when it is falfe; and the narration of Mr. B. fo harfh, fo exaggerated, and fo repulfive, makes us doubt the reality of his adventures, even perhaps when they are true. Befide thefe lines of difcrimination between the ancient and the modern traveller, the latter often appears in the character of a physician, which, as far as we know, the former never once affumed; and this circumftance, there is reason to fufpect, may fuggeft to the malignity of criticism, that Mr. B. is not the Xenophon, but the Ctefias* of his age. Yet Ctefias, lying phyfician as he was called, had his partizans and his admirers. We too admire the boldness, the perfeverance, the dexterity, and the fagacity, of the historian of Abyffinia; we lament that, with all his variety of accomplishments, he poffeffed not the talent of writing a more agreeable book: but the man, we fancy, is greatly fuperior to the work; his faults are faults of careleffnefs, not of incapacity; nor does he appear deficient in learning, but wanting in diiigence. Speaking his fentiments fo freely, and, in general, fo contemptuoufly, of men and books, he might expect that his

* A physician of Cnidus, who travelled to the court of Artaxerxes Maemon, and wrote a fabulous account of the Affyrians and Perfians, &c. See his Extracts in Photius Cod. 62. and his character in Voffius de Hift. Græc.

own opinions should be canvaffed, and his own errors detected. We have taken on ourselves this difagreeable task-the more difagreeable, because from the undiftinguishing contempt in which the author holds literary journalists, we have little reafon to hope that our difficulties will be removed, and our doubts fatisfied. Mr. Bruce, who does not know Reviewers, treats them with difdain: but we, who know our felves, difdain his imputations. Gil...s.

ART. II. Dramatic Sketches of the Ancient Northern Mythology. By F. Sayers, M. D. 4to. pp. 112. 35. 6d. Johnfon. 1790.

AMONG the various forms to which the poet has recourse, in

order to impress his favourite ideas with vivacity, and embody, to the vulgar eye, the airy nothings that float in his own imagination, none feems adapted to produce fo ftrong an effect as the dramatic; whether affifted by the other fine arts, at the theatre; or intended, as in the Sketches before us, for the folitude of the clofet. Its difficulties are, however, proportioned to its excellencies; and the experience of all ages has demonftrated how rarely he, who attempts to tread this ftage, can bring his story into action, without ftepping himself from behind the fcene; and how feldom he accomplishes his purpose, without occafionally finking into epic, or digreffing into didactic poetry. Shakespeare is inviolably cautious in this respect, and has therefore excelled all authors, ancient or modern. The former, indeed, feem never to have imagined the poffibility of fupporting the dramatic form through a whole piece but regularly entrust, to the prologue, all the requifite preliminary matter; and, to a meffenger, the detail of the catastrophe. To the ancients, however, Dr. Sayers has looked up for models; and inclined, as we may be, to question the propriety of his choice, it were unfair to try the merits of his performance on any but the rules of ancient criticifm.

Thefe poems are the production of no common intellect; and, though not free from faults, they will probably excite, in fome degree, the attention of the public. As they also contain feveral attempts at innovation, we fhall be more diffufe in our critique, than their bulk may seem to require. The errors of genius merit the fevereft investigation.

The author is not without diftinguifhed competitors in this line of ancient criticism. The Sampfon of Milton, the Medea of Glover, the Elfrida and Caractacus of Mafon, all retain a confiderable fhare of public approbation. The mafque of

* See his Introduction, ppt 67 and 75.

Telemachus,