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would none otherwise be, with a smiling cheer, (though to the great grief of his servants) he vouchsafed to let the earl take him by the bare hand; and so rehearsing the covenants, word by word, as the earl spoke them, he ratified all; dismissing finally the ambassadors, with such rewards as testified his greatness.

In this caliph and his soldan, we may discern the image of the ancient Pharaoh and his viceroy; we see a prince of great estate, sitting in his palace, and not vexing himself with the great preparations made against him, which terrify his neighbour countries; we see his viceroy, in the mean season, using all royal power; making war and peace, entertaining and repelling armies of strangers: yea, making the land of Egypt tributary to a foreign prince. What greater authority was given to Joseph, when Pharaoh said unto him, Thou shalt be over mine house, and at thy word shall all my people be armed, only in the king's throne will I be above thee; behold, I have set thee over all the land of Egypt.'

I do not commend this form of government; neither can I approve the conjecture of mine author, where he thinks, that the Egyptians, ever since Jcseph's time, have felt the burden of that servitude, which he brought upon them, when he bought them, and their lands, for Pharaoh. Herein I find his judgment good; that he affirms this manner of the Egyptian kings, in taking their ease, and ruling by a viceroy, to be part of the ancient customs practised by the Pharaohs. For we find that even the Ptolemies, (excepting Ptolemæus Lagi, and his son Philadelphus, founder and establisher of that race,) were given, all of them, wholly to please their own appetites, leaving the charge of the kingdom to women, eunuchs, and other ministers of their desires. The pleasures which that country afforded, were indeed sufficient to invite the kings thereof unto a voluptuous life; and the awful regard wherein the Egyptians held their princes, gave them security, where

by they might the better trust their officers with so ample commission. But of this matter I will not stand longer to dispute. It is enough to have shewed, that the great and almost absolute power of the viceroy's governing Egypt, is set down by Moses; and that a lively example of the same is found in William of Tyre, who lived in the same age was in few years after chancellor of the kingdom of Jerusalem, and had full discourse with Hugh Earl of Cæsarea touching all these matters. Wherefore it remains, that we be not carried away with a vain opinion, to believe that all they were kings whom reports of the fabulous Egyptians have honoured with that style; but rest contented with a catalogue of such as we find by circumstance likely to have reigned in that country; after whom it follows that we should make enquiry.

SECT. II.

Of Acherres; whether he were Uchoreus that was the eighth from Osymandyas. Of Osymandyas and his tomb.

In this business I hold it vain to be too curious. For who can hope to attain to the perfect knowledge of the truth, when Diodorus varies from Herodotus, Eusebius from both of them; and late writers, that have sought to gather the truth out of these and others, find no one with whom they can agree. In this case Annius would do good service, if a man could trust him. But it is enough to be beholden to him, when others do either say nothing, or that which may justly be suspected. I will, therefore, hold myself contented with the pleasure that he hath done me, in saying somewhat of Osiris, Isis, Orus, and those antiquities removed so far out of sight. As for the kings following the departure of Israel out of Egypt, it shall suffice, that Herodotus, Diodorus, and Eusebius, have not been silent, and

that Reineccius hath taken pains to range into some good order the names that are extant in these, or else found scattered in others.

From the departure of Israel out of Egypt unto the reign of Thuoris, (who is generally taken to be the same that the Greeks call Proteus,) there is little or no disagreement about the Egyptian kings. Wherefore I set down the same which are found in Eusebius, and give to every one the same length of reign.

Acherres was the first of these, who succeeded unto Chenchres, that perished in the Red Sea. This king seems, to Reineccius, to be the same whom Diodorus calls Uchoreus, the founder of Memphis; But whereas mention is found in Diodorus of a great king, named Osymandyas, from whom Uchoreus is said to be the eighth; it will either hardly follow, that Timaus, (as Reineccius conjectures,) was the great Osymandyas, or else that this Acherres was Uchoreus, for the distance between them was more than eight generations. Mercator judgeth Osymandyas to have been the husband of Ancheres, Orus the second's daughter, thinking that Manethon, (cited by Josephus,) doth omit his name, and insert his wife's, into the catalogue of kings, because he was king in his wife's right. As for Uchoreus, it troubles not Mercator to find him the eighth from this man; for he takes Ogdous, not to signify in this place of Diodorus, (as that Greek word else doth,) the eighth, but to be an Egyptian name, belonging also to Uchoreus, who might have had two names, as many of the rest had. I will not vex my brains in the unprofitable search of this and the like inex, tricable doubts. All that Diodorus hath found of this Osymandyas, was wrought upon his monument; the most thereof in figures, which I think the Egyptians did fabulously expound. For whereas there was pourtrayed a great army, with the siege of a town, the captivity of the people, and the triumph of the conqueror; all this the Egyptians said to denote the

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conquest of Bactria made by that king; which how likely it was, let others judge. I hold this goodly piece of work, which Diodorus so particularly describes, to have been erected for a common place of burial to the ancient kings and queens of Egypt, and to their viceroys; whilst yet they were not so ambitious as every one to have his own particular monument, striving therein to exceed all others. This appears by the many statues therein placed; by the wars, the judgment-seat, the receiving of tribute, the offering sacrifice to God; the account of revenues, and plenty of all cattle and food; all which were there curiously wrought, shewing the several offices of a governor. On the tomb of Osymandyas was this inscription: I am Osymandyas king of kings: if any desire to know what I am, or where I lie, let him exceed some of my works.' Let them that hope to exceed his works labour to know what he was. But since by those words, or where I lie,' it should seem that he lay not there interred; we may lawfully suspect that it was Joseph, whose body was preserved among the Hebrews to be buried in the land of Canaan; and this empty monument might king Orus, who out-lived him, erect in honour of his high deserts among the royal sepulchres. To which purpose, the plenty of cattle, and all manner of viands, had good reference. The name Osymandyas doth not hinder this conjecture; seeing Joseph had one new name given to him by Pharaoh for expounding the dream, and might, upon further occasions, have another to his increase of honour. As for that style, king of kings,' it was perhaps no more than Beglerbeg, as the Turkish Bashaws are called, that is, 'great above the great.'

Now, although it be so that the reckoning falls out right between the times of Joseph and Acherres, (for Acherres was the eighth in order that reigned after the great Orus, whose viceroy Joseph was,) yet will I hereby seek, neither to fortify mine own conjecture

as touching Joseph, nor to infer any likelihood of Acherres's being Uchoreus; for it might well be that Memphis was built by some such king, as was Gehoar, lieutenant under the caliph Elcain', who having to his master's use conquered Egypt and many other countries, did build, not far from old Memphis, the great city of Cairo, (corruptly so pronounced,) naming it El Cahira, that is, an enforcing, or an imperious mistress, though he himself were a Dalmatian slave.

SECT. III.

Of Cherres, Armeus, Ramesses, and Amenophis. Of Myris, and the lake that bears his name.

WHEN Acherres had reigned eight years, Cherres succeeded, and held the kingdom fifteen years; then reigned Armeus five years, and after him Ramesses sixty-eight. Of Armeus and Ramesses is that history understood by Eusebius, which is common among the Greeks, under the names of Danaus and Ægyp.tus. For it is said, that Danaus, being expelled out of Egypt by his brother, fled into Greece, where he obtained the kingdom of Argos; that he had fifty daughters, whom, upon seeming reconciliation, he gave in marriage to his brother's fifty sons, but commanded, every one of them to kill her husband the first night; that only Hypermnestra, one of his daughters, did save her husband Lynceus, and suffered him to escape; finally, that, for this fact, all the bloody sisters, when they died, were enjoined this foolish punishment in hell,-to fill a leaking ves sel with water.

The reign of Danaus in Argos was indeed in this age; but that Armeus was Danaus, and Ramesses Ægyptus, is more than Reineccius believes; he ra ther takes Armeus to have been Myris, or Moeris, who caused the great lake to be made which bears

1 John Leo Hist. Afric. 1. 1. et 1. 8.

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