hows an intimate knowledge of the views and motives of par ties in Ireland, and fully vindicates thofe who, having at firft been friends to a Reform of Parliament, found it neceffary afterwards to oppofe it. The example of America is deduced, to show that even the most popular governments have been endangered by the prevalence of Jacobinifm. But the most con clufive argument is founded on the acknowledgment of the United Irithmen themselves. For which purpofe, Dr. Drennan's Letter to Earl Fitzwilliam is cited; which declares, that any kind of reform, once made, would make every reform more eafy; when adopted, it would tend to perfect itfelf: it may walk on as Catholic emancipation, from gradual to total." From this, and other ftrong circumftances, the author infers, that the fteady refiftance to crude and incongru ous theory, has kept the political power of the ftate unmuti, lated and vigorous," and effected the prefervation of Ireland.

An Appendix is added, containing Thoughts on the Will of the People;" in which the writer fhows, that the modern democratic doctrine on that fubject, leads to the worft fpecies of arbitrary government. In, a Poftfcript, the fame principle, as laid down by Rouffeau, is admirably refuted, and its confe quences illuftrated, by the events of the French revolution.

We have given few and thort extracts from this valuable publication; as it would not have been eafy to do justice to Mr. Knox's arguments, if the chain of them were broken. The ftyle and language of thefe Elays are little inferior to the matter. Mr. K. apologizes indeed for fome "accidental inaccuracies of ftyle and colloquial barbarifms," but thefe are not numerous. Upon the whole, we think this work highly deferving of public approbation, as replete with found argument, conveyed in forcible language; and, as poffeming the firength of Dr. Duigenan without his coarfenefs, and his copioufnefs of information without his prolixity,

THE

ART. VI. The Oriental Collections, for 1797.

(Concluded from our last, p. 45.)

HE firft article of the fourth number of this work, is a very learned differtation, alluded to in a former Review," by General Vallancey, on the, Oriental Emigration of the ancient Inhabitants of Britain and Ireland, in which he endea

yours to demonftrate, from a variety of refembling circumftances, in point of language, religion, and fcience (efpecially aftronomical Science) that the inhabitants of thefe iflands are of Afiatic original. He mentions, in proof of his affertion, fome ancient Irith MSS. relative to the Metempfychofis, a doctrine which, he rightly obferves, could not have been established in a period pofterior to the commencement of the Christian æra ; Phoenician infcriptions on a golden patera, discovered in the bogs of Ireland; the evident mixture of Chaldean characters with the Irish, in MSS.; and, laftly, a law in the General's own poffeffion, for punishing the theft of the facred fire of Belus, or of war-beacons. There is no man better able to form a judgment on this fubject than this author, who has devoted to this kind of antiquarian refearch the greater portion of a prolonged life, and appears to be converfant with many of the original dialects of Afia; to this he has added, by indefatigable induftry, an intimate knowledge of the old Irish character, called Ogham, which, in its formation, he thinks, greatly refembles the Perfepolitan, The General, however, muft be fenfible, that etymological deductions, as we have often before temarked, are a very fallacious basis for an hypothefis; and he will pardon us for remarking, that on thefe he feems to depend, through the whole of his writings, with a confidence rather greater than fuch a kind of evidence warrants; though we allow a high degree of merit to the toil and perfevering zeal of his elaborate investigations. Golden pateras, golden crefcents, and other undoubted ancient remains of Afiatic fuperftition, infcribed with Phoenician characters, recovered from the bogs, - that in a long courfe of revolving ages have been difgracefully fuffered to cover the face of Ireland, exhibit teftimony to his hypothefis far more folid and fatisfactory than can possibly be derived from etymology; and when those bogs fhall have been cleared and drained by the fpirit of enterprife and industry, which feems to be gone forth even in refpect to that country, ftill more fubftantial proofs will doubtlefs arife in favour of his fyftem; if that fyftem has, as we are inclined to believe, its foundation in truth,

This author's remarks, on the ftrong lines of resemblance between the old Chaldaic aftronomy, the Brahminical, and the Druidical (efpecially in regard to the conftellations of the Wain, the Bear, and Argo; for Arg, he fays, in Irish, means a fhip, and exa&ly correfponds to the Sanfcreet Argha, of the fame fignification) are extremely curious, and deferving attention from ftudents in that feience. They rife to infinite importance on the further confideration, that all thefe Oriental. refearches, as far as hitherto carried on, have not only uniformly tended

fended to illuftrate the darkest æras of remote hiftory, but in a high degree corroborate the facred records. May all our writings," adds this excellent antiquary," tend to confirm the writings of the infpired penman; never did the times so much require the exertions of every good Chriftian." P. 301. The ancient Cuthi, recognised in the Hibernian Coti, or Guti, emigrating from Phoenicia, and the thores of the Indus, were, according to our author, the importers into the British Isles of thefe hallowed veftiges of eaftern fcience. The Palis, or thepherds of India, and the Ryots, or peafants of the fame country, are known by refembling appeliatives in the Irish vocabularies; and the fylvan deity, the magna Pales of the Romans, is only a branch of the fame wide-fpreadmg mythologic tree, (p. 115) A variety of other curious parallels and fynonyms are produced by General Vallancey, in fupport of his original pofition; and he concludes with a promife of thortly favouring the editor with still stronger proofs, of an aftronomical kind, in confonance with the voice of tradition and hiftory, that, the Irish Druids were of Chaldæan origin."

The remarks on a Phenician Infcription in Wales, by Mr. Henley, conflitute another of the more interesting articles which alone we intended to notice in thefe Collections, and have a direct tendency to ftrengthen the hypothefis of the preceding differtation. The monument on which this infcription is engraved, is defcribed as a rude ftone pillar, of a quadrangular form, about eight feet high, fituated on a mountain in Wales, near the fea-coaft, and furrounded by an elevated bank, inclosing an area of about fix yards. Camden, who has engraved this monument, conceived the area to have been the place of interment of fome perfon of eminence, and that the infcription is his proper name in the ancient British dialect. Mr. Henley, however, well known and defervedly respected in the line of antiquarian refearch, has offered a new and more. probable interpretation. He afferts, that the characters are clearly Phoenician; he refers us to that ancient custom among the Easterns, of fetting up pillars to commemorate remarkable events; from the height of the elevation, he argues, that at this place beacons were erected on this spot, to inform the circumjacent country of the arrival of Phoenician yefiels, for the purposes of traffic; and he explains the infeription, as fignifying, that the tone was there reared to fix, or point out, the convention-place of the mountain." P. 339

In a fubfequent article, we have the conclufion of Mr. Penn's learned Conjectures on the Egyptian Origin of the Word p; in which he has fully exemplified a remark of his own,

introduced into this differtation, that, in investigations like the prefent, of a fpeculative and conjectural kind, it is the matter brought forward in the progrefs of refearch, which gives the principal value to the profeffed object of enquiry. When we fay this, we are far from thinking, that Mr. P. has not as clearly proved the truth of his general pofition, that numerous tefms, originally Afiatic, and probably many, directly Egyptian, were imported, with the fuperftitions of Afia, into Greece by the firft colonifts; we fay, proved it, as far as the abftrufe nature of the fubje&t would admit of proof. The collateral fubjects, however, introduced in the courfe of the argument, are alfo of a kind very interefting to fcholars, particularly to those whofe ftudies are of a mythological caft; and every body knows how intimately the mythology of the ancients was connected with their fyftems of theology, philofophy, and ethics. In fact, under that veil all the treasures of ancient science were concealed, and the most sublime doctrines inculcated: hiftoric truth itself, in those remote periods, delighted to clothe herself in an allegoric drefs, and that very drefs difcovered her Afiatic origin. Egypt, which was then geographically confidered as a part of Afia, under a vaft, and now fcarcely intelligible heap of hieroglyphics, had fhadowed out both the spiritual and the physical world. These decorated equally the temples of their Gods, and the walls of their colleges, in the rocky receffes of the Thebais. The fame spirit of fabling pervaded the whole of the Phoenician fyftem of religion, and literature, infomuch, that the very name of their famous Mercury is but another term for ænigma and mystery; and no affertion can be better founded than that of Mr. Penn, perpetually recurring to ftrengthen the hypothefis of his effay, that from thefe two nations the Greeks derived, at once, the principles of their theology, and the dogmas of their philofophy,

One of the valuable fubjects interwoven with the primary one, is a difcuffion on the early, however limited acquaintance, of the ancients with the true or Pythagorean fyftem of the world, which pofitively affirmed the fun, or folar fire (conflantly meant by the word up) to be in the centre. See the quotation from Ariftotle de Cocio, lib. 2, cap. 13, at p. 344. Hence, he justly concludes, with Mr. Bryant, that the PYRRHIC DANCE was derived; at leaft, this fuppofition is far more natural than that it fhould have originated with Pyrrhus, the fon of Achilles, "vel a quadam Pyrrha ;" (p. 351) as he who, for a moment, attends either to the ancient veneration for fire, or the mode of performing that dance, which was with burning torches in the hands, must be fully convinced. The form

of

of the ancient Temples, facred to VESTA, who was the central fire perfonified (her name being derived from Earia) which were all built circular, and in the middle of which a perpetual fire was cherished, while fome had an aperture at the top to admit the folar light, is happily adduced in corroboration of the preceding affertions. He winds up the argument. in the following manner :

"If any doubt now remains with the reader, that the πυρ, ΟΙ PYR, of the old Italians, fignified properly the SUN-(the Tiga, PIRA, of the Egyptians and the egga, PERRA, of Lycophron)-he will, perhaps, furrender it to the authority of Copernicus, from whofe hand. the modern world has received the knowledge of the true folar fyftem; and yet who, at the fame time, faithfully acknowledges, that he was no more than a vehicle for tranfmitting to pofterity an ancient doctrine, which he received from the old Italian fchool, and particularly from Nicetas, or Hicetas, a distinguished philofopher in it." INDE igitur occafionem na&tus, CŒPI ET EGO de terre mobilitate COGITARE."

"Neither Ariftarchus, Plutarch, Copernicus, Galileo, nor Newton, have any fhare of invention in the broad ground of that hypothefis, whofe origin belongs to a period antecedent to the earliest dawn of heathen tradition; thofe philofophers refer us to the channel through which they feverally received it; and I trust that no aftronomer will confider me as wanting in esteem for the fublime object of his researches if I affirm, that we have not fufficient evidence to authorise us to pronounce, that, without this traditionary hint tranfmitted through the Pythagoreans, any of thofe illuftrious philofophers would have of fered this folution of the celeftial problem.

"When we now take into our ferious confideration-that we ac tually do poffefs this great truth;-that though its evidence has been progreffively illuftrated by the genius and labours of fucceeding aftronomers, it has nevertheless exifted as a partial object of human knowledge from time immemorial, and its pretenfions, expreffed by "the earth's rotation round the central PYR," have remained upon public record for nearly 2500 years;-we fhall have little difficulty in concluding, that the Italic fyftem, disguised and mutilated by the ignorance of reporters, was no other than that which its modern champions have afferted it to be :-And further, that the internal evidence of aftronomical fcience, concurring with the teftimonies of history and language, fhews, almoft to demonftration, that what the latter Greeks expreffed by the word naos, helius, the more ancient expreffed by that of up, pyr, which word preferved its primitive fignification longer in Italy than in Greece, through the fluctuating nature of language: (for we must ever keep in mind that canon of etymology, "multa verba aliud nunc oftendunt, aliud ante fignificabant.") Laftly, that this word was originally derived from the Egyptian więz, or the SUN." P. 351.

Mr. Penn, in a note at the conclufion, replies in part to our objection relative to the different fignification affigned by Ser