have we so much about the Ptolemies? May not the king of the north mean the Gothic nations, and the king of the south the Roman empire, the fourth beast of the prophetic vision, the iron legs of the great image? Let us try the principle. "The king of the south shall be strong, and one of his princes." The Romans conquered Macedon. "And he shall be strong above him." The Roman empire was greater than the empire of Alexander. "His dominion shall be a great dominion." The Roman empire was truly a great dominion. "At the end of years." Does not this allude to a distant time, probably to the time of the end? Shall we not do well to postpone the examination of this and the two next verses for the present?

a

"So the king of the south shall come into his kingdom, and return into his own

a The Hebrew particle may be rendered by so, but its general sense is and. This is mentioned lest the reader should attach a force to the so and then of our translation. The Septuagint, in this and other places, is content with nal.

land."

As "his

As "his" is printed in italics, we know that we are at liberty to omit it, and its omission will make the application still closer. The Romans overran the world; they possessed the kingdom, but Rome" continued to be the capital of the empire. Antony, indeed, may be said to have established himself in Egypt, but he soon fell, and Augustus reigned alone in Italy.

"But his sons shall be stirred up and shall assemble a multitude of great forces, and one shall certainly come and overflow and pass through: then shall he return and be stirred up even to his fortress. And the king of the south shall be moved with choler, and shall come forth and fight with him, even with the king of the north, and he shall set forth a great multitude; but the multitude shall be given into his hand. And when he hath taken away the multitude, his heart shall be lifted up; and he shall cast down many ten thousands; but

a Both Julius Cæsar and Augustus are suspected of intending to change the capital.

he shall not be strengthened by it. For the king of the north shall return, and shall set forth a multitude greater than the former, and shall certainly come after certain years with a great army and with much riches. And in those times there shall many stand up against the king of the south: also the robbers of thy people shall exalt themselves to establish the vision ; but they shall fall. So the king of the north shall come, and cast up a mount, and take the most fenced cities; and the arms of the south shall not withstand, neither his chosen people, neither shall there be any strength to withstand. But he that cometh against him shall do according to his own will, and none shall stand before him; and he shall stand in the land of ornament, which by his hand shall be consumed.' In one instance only, the common text has been changed for the marginal reading; the land of ornament has

• To give an exact and critical version of the original is beyond my ability; to examine the different accounts of the wars between the Romans and the Goths would require much

been put for the glorious land, for why should we not follow the Hebrew text?

The expression is plain, and easy of application. Italy is still the land of virtù, and seems to have been so from a very early period. The Etruscan vases are of undoubted antiquity, so are the contents of the mounds of the antient Tarquinii, and Pæstum may yet serve to mark what Magna Græcia was.

time and labour. Gibbon is almost always learned, but he is sometimes not accurate, and he is frequently obscure. I have ventured, however, to trust to the importance and magnitude of the subjects notwithstanding these disadvantages. Few will deny that the wars between the Romans and the Goths were of great importance to the whole world, and that they may, therefore, claim that notice from prophecy, which the wars and squabbles between the Ptolemies and Seleucida do not deserve. The magnitude of the subjects is such, that petty inaccuracies and mistakes will not destroy the general resemblance.

'Ev Tḥ y To Eaßel is the Greek version. Numa, the great regulator of Roman idolatry, was a Sabine, and the East of the Septuagint is an adoption, rather than a translation of the Hebrew word. The worship of Vesta and of the eternal fire find a place in every Roman history, so that Italy may be called the land of Tsabi or Tsebi from its idolatry of fire or Zabianism.

That the Goths did at last stand in Italy and consume it, is a fact of general notoriety; and their defeats by Trajan, Claudius, Aurelian, and Stilicho, are sufficient proof that the struggle was long and deadly, and accompanied with great changes of for

tune.

In the outline, therefore, the resemblance is strong; the subject itself is copious and of great importance, so copious and so important, indeed, that it may seem to require a fuller notice. We no longer need to enter into details and trifles, as in the supposed notice of Berenice; we have a mere though a strong outline, as in the notice of Alexander and his successors 2.

a The reader may observe, with justice, that I have passed over several things which require discussion: my excuse is that he would have found the discussion very tedious, and that my main object is to try the principle; to see if by considering the fourth beast as the king of the south we may find our way to the true application. We will discuss one point, however, to show how much labour will be necessary before this very important prophecy can be interpreted critically." Also the robbers of thy people shall exalt themselves to establish the vision; but they shall fall.” "The robbers of thy people." According to the margin, "the children of robbers of thy people." According to Bishop