4

ported to it from Alexandria; incenfed the emperor Conftantine against that holy bishop, because he knew that his capital city could not fubfift without the corn which was brought to it from Egypt. The fame reafon induced all the emperors of Rome to take fo great a care of Egypt, which they confidered as the nursing mother of the world's metropolis.

Nevertheless, the fame river which enabled this province to fubfift the two most populous cities in the world, fometimes reduced even Egypt itself to the moft terrible famine: and it is aftonishing that Jofeph's wife forefight, which in fruitful years had made provifion for feafons of fterility, fhould not have hinted to thefe fo-much-boafted politicians, a like care against the changes and inconftancy of the Nile. Pliny, in his panegyric upon Trajan, paints with wonderful ftrength the extremity to which that country was reduced by a famine, under that prince's reign, and his generous relief of it. The reader will not be dif pleased to read here an extract of it, in which a greater regard will be had to Pliny's thoughts than to his expreffions.

The Egyptians, fays Pliny, who gloried that they needed neither rain nor fun to produce their corn, and who believed they might confidently contest the prize of plenty with the most fruitful countries of the world, were condemned to an unexpected drought, and a fatal fterility; from the greatest part of their territories being deferted and left unwatered by the Nile, whose inundation is the fource and fure ftandard of their abundance. They then * implored that affiftance from their prince, which they ufed to expect only from their river. The delay of their relief was no longer, than that which employed a courier to bring the melancholy news to Rome; and one would have imagined, that this misfortune had befallen them only to diftinguifh with greater luftre, the generosity and goodness of

* Inundatione, id eft, ubertate regio fraudata, fic opem Cæfaris invocavie, ut folet amnem fuum. Cæfar.

Cæfar. It was an ancient and general opinion, that our city could not fubfift without provifions drawn from Egypt. This vain and proud nation boafted, that, though it was conquered, it neverthelefs fed its conquerors; that, by means of its river, either abundance or fcarcity was entirely in its difpofal. But we now have returned to the Nile his own harvests, and given him back the provifions he fent us. Let the Egyptians be then convinced, by their own experience, that they are not neceffary to us, and are only our vaffals. Let them know that their fhips do not fo much bring us the provifion we ftand in need of, as the tribute which they owe us. And let them never forget, that we can do without them, but that they can never do without us. This moft fruitful province had been ruined, had it not worn the Roman chains. The Egyptians, in their fovereign, had found a deliverer, and a father. Aftonifhed at the fight of their granaries, filled without any labour of their own, they · were at a lofs to know to whom they owed this foreign and gratuitous plenty. The famine of a people, at fuch diftance from us, and which was fo fpeedily stopped, ferved only to let them feel the advantage of living under our empire. The † Nile may, in other times, have diffufed more plenty on Egypt, but never more glory upon us. May heaven, content with this proof of the people's patience, and the prince's generofity, reftore for ever back to Egypt its ancient fertility.

Pliny's reproach to the Egyptians, for their vain and foolish pride, with regard to the inundations of the Nile, points out one of their moft peculiar characteristics, and recals to my mind a fine paffage of Ezekiel, where God thus fpeaks to Pharaoh, one of their kings, "Behold

h Ezek. xxix. 3, 9.

* Percrebuerat antiquitas urbem noftram nifi opibus Egypti ali fuftentarique non pofe. Superbiebat ventofa et infolens natio, quod victorem quidem populum pafceret tamen, quodque in fuo flumine, in fuis manibus, vel abundantia noftra vel fames effet. Refudimus Nilo fuas copias." Recepit frumenta quæ miferat, depor➡ tatafque meles revexit.

Nilus Egypto quidem fæpe, fed gloriæ noftræ nunquam largior fluxit.

I am against thee, Pharaoh king of Egypt, the great Dragon that lieth in the midff of his rivers, which hath faid, My river is my own, and I have made it for myself." God perceived an infupportable pride in the heart of this prince: a fenfe of fecurity and confidence in the inundations of the Nile, independent entirely on the influences of heaven; as though the happy effects of this inundation had been owing to nothing but his own care and labour, or those of his predeceffors: "The river is mine, and I have made it.'

Before I conclude this fecond part of the manners of the Egyptians, I think it incumbent on me, to befpeak the attention of my readers to different paffages fcattered in the hiftory of Abraham, Jacob, Jofeph, and Mofes, which confirm and illuftrate part of what we meet with in profane authors upon this fubject. They will there obferve the perfect polity which reigned in Egypt, both in the court and the rest of the kingdom; the vigilance of the prince, who was informed of all transactions, had a regular council, a chofen number of minifters, armies ever well maintained and difciplined, and of every order of foldiery, horse, foot, armed chariots; intendants in all the provinces, overfeers or guardians of the public granaries; wife and exact difpenfers of the corn lodged in them; a court compofed of great officers of the crown, a captain of his guards, a cup-bearer, a mafter of his pantry; in a word, all things that compofe a prince's household, and conftitute a magnificent court. i But above all thefe, the readers will admire the fear in which the threatnings of God were held, the inspector of all actions, and the judge of kings themselves; and the horror the Egyptians had for adultery, which was acknowledge to be a crime of fo heinous a nature, that it alone was capable of bringing destruction on a nation.` Gen. xii, 20, 26.

PART

PART THE THIRD.

The Hiftory of the Kings of Egypt.

No part of ancient hiftory is more obfcure or un

k

certain, than that of the firft kings of Egypt. This proud nation, fondly conceited of its antiquity and nobility, thought it glorious to lose itself in an abyfs of infinite ages, as though it seemed to carry its pretenfions backward to eternity. According to its own hiftorians, firft, gods, and afterwards demi-gods or heroes, governed it fucceffively, through a series of more than twenty thousand years. But the abfurdity of this vain and fabulous claim, is eafily difcovered."

To gods and demi-gods, men fucceeded as rulers or kings in Egypt, of whom Manethon has left us thirty dynafties or principalities. This Manethon was an Egyptian high-priest, and keeper of the facred archives of Egypt, and had been instructed in the Grecian learning: he wrote a history of Egypt, which he pretended to have extracted from the writings of Mercurius and other ancient memoirs, preferved in the Archives of the Egyptian temples. He drew up this hiftory under the reign, and at the command of Ptolemy Philadelphus. If his thirty dynasties are allowed to be fucceffive, they make up a series of time, of more than five thoufand three hundred years,to the reign of Alexander the Great; but this is a manifeft forgery. Befides, we find in Eratofthenes*, who was invited to Alexandria by Ptolemy Evergetes, a catalogue of thirty-eight kings of Thebes, all different from thofe of Manethon. The clearing up of thefe difficulties has put the learned to a great deal of trouble and labour. The most effectual way to reconcile fuch contradictions, is to fuppofe, with almost all the modern writers upon this fubject, that the kings of these different dynasties, did not reign fucceffively after one another, but many of them at the fame time, and in different countries of Egypt. There were in Egypt four Diod. 1. i. p. 41. An hiftorian of Cyrene.

principal

principal dynafties, that of Thebes, of Thin, of Memphis, and of Tanis. I fhall not here give my readers a lift of the kings, who have reigned in Egypt, most of whom are only tranfmitted to us by their names. I fhall only take notice of what feems to me most proper to give youth the neceffary light into this part of history, for whofe fake principally I engaged in this undertaking; and I fhall confine myfelf chiefly to the memoirs left us by Herodotus and Diodorus Siculus concerning the Egyptian kings, without even fcrupulously preferving the exactnefs of fucceffion, in the beginnings at leaft, which are very obscure; or pretending to reconcile the fe two hiftorians. Their defign, efpecially that of Herodotus, was not to lay before us an exact series of the kings of Egypt, but only to point out thofe princes, whofe hif tory appeared to them moft important and inftructive. I fhall follow the fame plan, and hope to be forgiven, for not having involved either myself or my readers, in a la byrinth of almoft inextricable difficulties, from which the moft capable can scarce difengage themselves, when they pretend to follow the feries of hiftory, and reduce it to fixed and certain dates. The curious may confult , the learned pieces, in which this fubject is treated in all its extent.

*

I am to premife, that Herodotus, upon the credit of the Egyptian priefts, whom he had confulted, gives us a great number of oracles, and fingular incidents, all which, though he relates them as fo many facts, the judicious reader will eafily difcover to be what they I mean fictions.

are,

The ancient history of Egypt comprehends 2158 years, and is naturally divided into three periods.

The first begins with the establishment of the Egyptian monarchy, by Menes or Mifraim, the fon of1 Cham, in the year of the world 1816; and ends with the deftruction of that monarchy by Cambyfes, king of Perfia, in the year of the world 3479. This firft period contains 1663 years.

1 Or Ham.

*Sir John Marfham's Chronic. Canon. Father Pezron, the Differ tation of Tournemine, and Abbe Sevin, &c,

*