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they are returning, to the total abrogation of the laws of nations, and the entire deftruction of all principle.

On these points our Memorialift expatiates at large, with fo much clearness of information, and ftrength of argument, that it is with difficulty we reftrain ourselves from making farther extracts from this interefting publication, which is probably the work of fome eminent mafter, who chooses to conceal himself behind a peculiar style, and a fictitious tale.

ART. IV. A Dissertation on the Language, Literature, and Manners of the Eaftern Nations. Originally prefixed to a Dictionary, Perfian, Arabic, and English. The Second Edition. To which is added, Part II. Containing additional Obfervations. Together with further Remarks on a new Analyfis of Ancient Mythology: in Answer to an Apology*, addreffed to the Author, by Jacob Bryant, Efq. By John Richardfon, Efq; F. S. A. of the Middle Temple, and of Wadham College, Oxford. 8vo. 7 s. Boards. Murray, &c.

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S there hath been an unusual delay in the account of this book, it is neceffary to inform our Readers, that it happened to be put into the hands of one of our affociates, who, from a peculiar concurrence of circumftances, has been prevented from fooner discharging his obligation to the Public. This Reviewer, however, will not add to the evil already incurred, by taking occafion, from the Jate appearance of the present Article, to pay a flighter attention to Mr. Richardson's Work than its importance deferves: and as that gentleman, by the publication of the fecond volume of his Dictionary, hath now completed his whole defign, we fhall unite together our review of the different parts of this great undertaking.

The first chapter of the Differtation treats on Eaftern language, and is divided into three fections. In the firft fection, the Author makes fome obfervations on the connexion of language with manners, and on the darkness in which the origin of ancient tongues is involved. In giving a fhort hiftory of the Arabic language, Mr. Richard fon obferves, that the Koreifh tribe, who were the nobleft and the most learned of all the Western Arabs, and who were also the greatest merchants, paid fuch an uncommon attention to the promoting of literary emulation, and the refinement of their language, that their dialect became the pureft, the richest, and the most polite of all the Arabian idioms +. It was ftudied therefore in preference to all the reft; and, about the beginning of the feventh century, became the general language of Arabia; the other dialects being

This Apology we have not feen; and are informed that it was not published.

+ See more of this fubje&t in our account of Mr. Richardfon's Arabic Grammar, Rev. vol. lix. p. 441.

either incorporated, or fliding gradually into difufe. Pocock, in his preface to the Carmen Tograi, mentions a circumstance which may give some idea of the pains which the Arabians have taken with their language. A King having fent to a grammarian for the books in his poffeffion relative to that tongue, he defired the meffenger to inform the monarch, that, if he wished to have them, he must send fixty camels to carry the Dictionaries alone.

Our Author, in the fecond fection, which contains ftrictures on the language of ancient Perfia, is very fevere on Dr. Hyde, and on Monf. Anquetil Du Perron. Those fragments of the supposed works of Zoroafter, which Dr. Hyde has given us, under the title of Sadder, a:e, Mr. Richardfon fays, the wretched rhymes of a modern Parfi Deftour (priest) who lived about three centuries ago: whilft the publications of Monf. Anquetil Du Perron (Oriental Interpreter to the King of France) carry palpable marks of the total or partial fabrication of modern times. In fupport of this idea, fome remarks are made on the Zend Avesta, publifhed by him, from whence it is concluded, that the Zend language is not genuine, and that M. Anquetil has produced no difcovery which can ftamp his publications with authority *. The fpecimens of old Perfian, in Hyde's Religio Veterum Perfarum, are afferted, likewise, to be fimply modern language in ancient characters.

Thefe charges are farther confirmed in the third section, in which Mr. Richardfon relates the changes introduced, by the Arabian conqueft, in the government, religion, and language of Perfia. Both the Macedonians and Arabians perfecuted the religion of the Magi, and deftroyed their books; and the confequence of these perfecutions, as well as of the general ravages of time and conqueft, was, that the original works of the Perfian lawgiver have long been loft; and nothing now remains, bearing the names of thofe once celebrated books, but the abfurd ceremonials of the modern Guebres, which preferve, apparently, no nearer resemblance to the ancient worship of Persia, than the corrupted tenets of the Mingrelians or Georgians have to the Christian religion. Even the Parfis of Guzerat acknowledge, that fo far from now poffeffing the ancient books of Zoroafter, they have not so much as one fingle copy faved by their anceftors from the general wreck in the seventh century. The tenth century was the great epoch of the revival of Perfian learning, and from that time till the fifteenth century was its moft flourifhing period. The epic poet Firdoufi difplays an imagination and smoothness of numbers hardly inferior to Homer. From the above period, a literary rivalfhip feems to have fubfifted

* See our account of the Zend Avesta, in the 45th volume of our Review, p. 561.

amongst

amongst the Mohammedan princes who had difmembered the Khalifat; every Sultan confidering it as an object of the first confequence, to number amongft his friends, the most celebrated poets or philofophers of their age. No expence was fpared to allure them to their courts; and no refpect was wanting to fix a continuance of their attachment. Some ftriking inftances of the attachment of the Eaftern princes to men of genius are related by our Author, who concludes the fection with an account of the causes which, for the laft three centuries, have al moft extinguished the literary fire of the Perfians and Arabians, and with pointing out the usefulness of the Perfian and Arabic languages.

The fecond chapter, which is upon ancient oriental history and tradition, and comprifes fix fections, contains a variety of curious and ingenious matter, mixed with fome very questionable affertions and obfervations. Having employed the first fection in defcanting upon the uncertainty of hiftory in general, Mr. Richardfon proceeds to give a fhort view of the early pe riods of the Perfian hiftory, which he acknowledges to be diffigured by the marvellous, though he thinks that it ought not to be entirely rejected. The difagreement between the Grecian and the Afiatic hiftory of Perfia is reprefented by him in the following terms:

The Kaianian dynafty being fuppofed then to commence nearly about 600 years before the birth of our Lord, this brings us to the reign of that King of the Medo-Perfians, called by the Greeks Cpaxares; which, according to Sir Ifaac Newton's conjecture, is fup posed to have begun in the year of Nabonafar 137 (about 610 before Chrift). From this period till the Macedonian conqueft, we have therefore the hiftory of the Perfians, as given us by the Greeks; and the history of the Perfians, as written by them felves. Between those claffes of writers, we might naturally expect fome difference of facts; but we fhould as naturally look for a few great lines, which might mark fome fimilarity of ftory: yet, from every research which I have had an opportunity to make, there feems to be nearly as much refemblance between the annals of England and Japan, as between the European and Afiatic relations of the fame empire. The names and numbers of their Kings have no analogy; and in regard to the moft fplendid facts of the Greek hiftorians, the Perfians are entirely filent. We have no mention of the Great Cyrus, nor of any King of Perfia, who, in the events of his reign, can apparently be forced into a fimilitude. We have no Cræfus, King of Lydia; not a fyllable of Cambyfes, or of his frantic expedition against the Ethiopians. Smerdis Magus, and the fucceffion of Darius, the fon of Hyftafpes, by the neighing of his horfe, are to the Perfians circumftances equally anknown as the numerous affaffinations recorded by the Greeks. Not a veftige is, at the fame time, to be discovered of the famous battles of Marathon, Thermopyla, Salamis, Platea, or Mycale; nor of that prodigious force which Xerxes led out of the Perfian empire to overwhelm the ftates of Greece. Minutely attentive as the Perfian historians are to their numerous wars with the Kings of Turan or Scythia; and recording,

cording, with the fame impartiality, whatever might tarnish as well as aggrandize the reputation of their country; we can,' with little pretence to reafon, fuppofe, that they should have been filent on events of fuch magnitude; had any record remained of their existence, or the faintest tradition commemorated their confequences, Xerxes, according to Herodotus, croffed the Hellefpont, attended by no fewer than 5,283,220 fouls, and efcaped back alone in a fishing-, boat; the whole almost of this mighty hoft perishing by the fword, by famine, or by difeafe. The deftruction of fuch a number would have convulfed the whole of Afia, had it been united under one empire: could it poffibly have been unfelt in Perfia? Can any man who has made the leaft obfervation, at the fame time, on hiftory, fuppofe, for a moment, that fuch myriads could by any means have been maintained in one collected body; even in the prefent times, when the art of war, in that particular department, has arrived at a degree of perfection unknown in thofe ruder ages. The greateft armies, of which we have any rational information, are thofe of Jengiz Khan and Tamerlane, the most defpotic and the most powerful conquerors on record yet these princes, in all their mighty atchievements, were feldom followed by 400,000 men. We are told, indeed, that the army of Tamerlane, on his return from the conqueft of India; when he meditated the deftruction of Bajazet, and of the Sultans of Egypt and Baghdad, amounted to near 800,000 men, previous to the battles of Damafcus and Ancyra. Yet thofe troops were difperfed in different divifions; they were befieging many diftant places at the fame period of time; and were not, after all, a fixth part of the reputed army of Xerxes: though Tamerlane poffeffed then an empire and an authority incomparably fuperior to that of the Perfian monarchs in the highest zenith of their power; and was then marching against potentates of infinitely higher political confequence than the Gre cians at the fuppofed period of this tremendous invafion. But the ftates of Greece appear, in fact, with regard to the Perfians, to have been too far removed from that degree of importance which could hold them up as objects of fuch high ambition, or of fuch mighty refentment. Till the reign of Philip of Macedon, they are hardly mentioned by the Perfian writers, but as tributaries to the Perfian empire. Thofe famous invafions may poffibly therefore have been fimply the movements of the governors of Afia Minor; to enforce a tribute, which the Perfians might often claim, and the Greeks might never pay. Marathon, Salamis, and other celebrated battles may indeed have been real events; but "numerous as the fands on the "fhore," is an idea which, in all times, has been annexed to defeated armies: and the Grecian writers, to dignify their country, may have turned the hyperbole into hiftoric fact; and fwelled the thousands of the Perfian Satrap into the millions of the Perfian King. It is not impoffible, according to our Author, that fome of these famed events may have been the mere descents of pirates or private adventurers; either with a view to plunder, or to retaliate fome fimilar expedition of the Greeks. Piracy being deemed honourable in ancient times, there may have been many fubjects of the Perfian empire in that profeffion. "Greece, as well as other countrics, may have been often the theatre of their

rapine and devaftation: whilft their fuccefs or difcomfiture muft have been events of too little moment to reach the ears or engage the attention of the Shahinfhah, or King of Kings, at the remote cities of Perfepolis and Balkh." Such are Mr. Richardson's fentiments; and, in the farther courfe of his enquiry, he is able to trace only one fingle fact of consequence in which the Eaftern and Grecian hiftorians agree, and that is, the Macedonian conqueft. Even with regard to this event, the detail of the Perfian correfponds with that of the Grecian writers in nothing but the cataftrophe.

In the third fection, our Author purfues his plan, of difcrediting the accounts the Greeks have given of the affairs of Perfia, by arguments which, though ingenious, are so evidently precarious and conjectural, that we fhall not trouble our Readers with any notice of them. What he advances, in the next fection, concerning Queen Semiramis, the Argonautic expedition, Sefoftris, and the contradictions in the Grecian hiftorians and the modern chronologers upon these fubjects, is more to the purpose. Certain it is, that the ftory of the Argonauts abounds with too many inconfiftencies to be worthy of much credit; and the reafons affigned by Sir John Marsham and Sir. Ifaac Newton, for fuppofing the Shishak, King of Egypt, mentioned in Scripture, to be the fame person with the famous Sefoftris of the ancients, though not deftitute of plaufibility, and approved of by feveral learned men, will fcarcely ftand the test of fober investigation.

Mr. Richardfon, in the fifth fection, undertakes to fhew, that the chronology of the Sacred Writings has been perplexed by endeavouring to reconcile it with that of the Greeks. Under this head, he treats the opinion fo generally entertained by divines, that the famous Cyrus was foretold by the prophet Ifaiah, as abfolutely ground lefs, and fupports his own fentiment by fome chronological arguments, which, to say the best of them, are very precarious, and in which, indeed, we have ourselves no doubt of his being mistaken. As an attachment to the chronology of Greece feems, in our Author's estimation, to have led to many unneceffary liberties with Scripture, he confiders how far the hiftorians of Afia correfpond with the facred writings. But the correfpondence pointed out by him appears not a little imperfect, and is not, we apprehend, more worthy of notice than the fyftems of the writers whom Mr. Richardfon has exploded. The stress he has laid on those modern compilations, the Jewish Chronicles, induces us to believe that his ftrength doth not lie in chronological enquiries and difcuffions. The apparent conclufions to be drawn from the whole of his preceding obfervations are, he fays, That the Greeks and Romans in their ancient hiftories, especially of diftant

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