themselves from his attempts, which they did, by banishing him into the fenny parts of Egypt. After his expulsion to the fens, he consulted the oracle of Latona, at Butos, how to be revenged on his associates. He was answered, that "his revenge should come, when brazen men should appear from the sea;" and not long after, he heard with astonishment, that the country was pillaged by "brazen men coming from the sea!" These were a set of Ionian and Carian pirates, who were covered with helmets, cuirasses, and other arms of brass, and whom Psammiticus hired to assist him in dethroning his associates. This they did effectually, and made him sole sovereign of Egypt, and in reward of their services he settled them near Bubastis, at the Pelusian mouth of the Nile, whence they were transplanted afterwards by Amasis to Memphis. This is derived from Herodotus: the version which Diodorus gives is more consistent with probability. It runs thus:-As Psammiticus, whose sway extended to the Mediterranean, had availed himself of the opportunities offered by the sea-ports within his province of establishing commercial intercourse with the Phenicians and Greeks, and had amassed considerable wealth by these means, his colleagues, jealous of his increasing power, and fearing that he would eventually employ it against them, resolved to prevent such an occurrence, and to dispossess him of his province. They, therefore, prepared to attack him, and by this step obliged Psammiticus to adopt measures which his ambition might not have contemplated. Apprised of their resolutions, and finding himself threatened by the formidable army of all the upper provinces, he sent to Arabia, Caria, and Ionia; and, having succeeded in raising a considerable body of mercenaries, he was soon able to oppose them; and putting himself at the head of these and his native troops, he gave them battle at Memphis, routed their combined forces, and obliging those of the princes who had escaped the slaughter to flee to Libya, became possessed of an undivided throne. The twelve kings reigned in Egypt fifteen years; and to them is attributed the building of the labyrinth near the Lake Maris. Of this wonderful structure, Herodotus says, that it had twelve courts, fifteen hundred chambers above, and as many more under ground, with an infinite variety of halls," passages, and mazes; and that the roof and walls were all incrusted with sculptured marble, and surrounded with pillars of white and polished stone. In the lower apartments he was informed, were the tombs, both of the kings who originally built the labyrinth, and of the sacred crocodiles. The upper apartments which he examined, excited his admiration, as the greatest efforts of human art and industry; surpassing in workmanship and expense the far famed pyramids, and the most admired temples of Ephesus and Samos. But from this representation it is questioned whether the labyrinth could have been constructed during the short space of fifteen years. It is probable, indeed, that several successions of kings were employed in this prodigious work, and that it was constructed by the shepherd dynasty, who were idolators, and worshipped the Nile in their pyramids, and very likely the crocodile. Pliny reckons, that the labyrinth was built 3,600 years before his time. This date is too remote, for it would then have been erected before the deluge. His assertion, however, tends to prove that he considered the work to have been of the remotest antiquity. PSAMMITICUS. From the time of the Grecian colony first settled in Egypt, by Psammiticus, and their constant intercourse with Greece, we know with certainty, says Herodotus, all that has passed in that country. The Egyptian annals, indeed from the reign of this prince, about 658 years B. C., assume a regular and settled form in the succession of kings. The clearer knowledge of Egyptian history from this date is chiefly owing to a fact which Herodotus records of Psammiticus. He states that, having settled the Ionians and Carians in Egypt, he sent among them the Egyptian youths to be instructed in the Greek language; from whence sprung the state interpreters of that tongue. The youths chosen for interpreters were without question, those of the priesthood, since to that order all letters and learning were restricted, and they had likewise a great share in the public administration. The priesthood, therefore, having the Greek tongue amongst them, which its use in public affairs would cause them to cultivate diligently, it is no wonder that some of these interpreters should afterwards employ themselves in translating the Egyptian records into the Grecian language; from whence the present knowledge of them is derived. As soon as Psammiticus was settled on the throne of Egypt, he engaged in war against the king of Assyria, on the subject of the boundaries of the two empires. This war was of long duration. Ever since Syria had been conquered by the Assyrians, Palestine, being the only country that separated the two kingdoms, was the subject of constant discord; as it was afterwards between the Ptolemies and the Seleucidae. They were ever contending for it, and it was alternately won by the stronger. Psammiticus, seeing himself in the peaceable possession of all Egypt, and having restored the ancient form of government, as an act of policy looked to his frontiers to secure them against the aggressions of the Assyrians, whose power increased daily. He therefore entered Palestine at the head of a powerful army, and advanced as far as Azotus victoriously." But his career was here stopped. Azotus was at that time one of the principal cities of Palestine, and the Egyptians having seized it some time before, had fortified it with such care, that it was strongest on the side that Psammiticus attacked it, namely, that towards Egypt. The consequence was, it cost him the labour of twenty-nine years before he could retake it from the hands of the Assyrians, into whose possession it had fallen when Sennacherib entered Egypt. This is the longest siege mentioned in the pages of ancient history. During this period, about the twenty-third year of his reign, or B. c. 635, the Scythians, who had defeated Cyaxares, prince of Media, and deprived him of all Upper Asia, the dominion of which they held twenty-eight years, pushed their conquests in Syria as far as the frontiers of Egypt, intending to invade that country, by way of retaliating the invasion of Scythia by Sesostris. Psammiticus, however, marching out to meet them, prevailed upon them by presents and entreaties to desist from their enterprise, and thus averted the threatened blow. Till the reign of Psammiticus, the Egyptians had imagined that they were the most ancient people upon the earth, and that the honour of the origin of language was due to them. *Diodorous says, that Psammiticus having assigned the right wing to the Greek troops in this war, and the left to the Egyptians, the latter were so indignant at the dishonour put upon them, that they quitted the camp, and with other regiments which had remained in Egypt, abandoned his service, and, to the number of 240,000 men, retired into Ethiopia. According to Herodotus, they entered into the service of the Ethiopian prince, and their migration, introducing the arts and manners of a refined nation, had a very sensible effect in civilizing the Ethiopians. The exact position of the country they occupied is unknown. Herodotus places it on the Nile; Strabo near Meroe; but Pliny, on the authority of Aristocreon, reckons "seventeen days from Meroe to Esar, a city of the Egyptians who fled from Psammiticus." Psammiticus was desirous of proving this claim, and Herodotus relates a whimsical experiment, which he adopted to find out the primeval language. He shut up two new-born infants in a solitary cottage, for two years, under the care of a shepherd, who was not to suffer any one to speak in their hearing, and who was to cause them to be suckled by goats. One day, the shepherd, entering the cottage, both the children ran to him, holding out their hands, and crying, "Bekhos bekhos!" This they repeated afterwards; and bekhos being found, on inquiry to signify "bread" in the Phrygian dia lect, the Egyptians yielded the palm of antiquity to the Phry gians. But this experiment was by no means conclusive; for the children evidently imitated "bek," stripped of the Greek termination, hos, the bleating of the goats: and Herodotus himself acknowledges, elsewhere, that the Phrygians were a Macedonian colony, originally called Bryges, and afterwards Phryges; their barbarous dialect therefore, could be no standard. One obvious and useful result, however, from the inconclusive experiment, says Dr. Hales, was, to show, that the faculty of speech was considered as innate, or "the gift of nature," by the Egyptians, then reckoned the wisest and the most argumentative people of antiquity. Far wiser, then, were they than some of our modern philosophers, who represent the faculty of speech as "a talent acquired like all others;" as an "invention" discovered posterior to several others, and after the formation of societies. great moralist, Dr. Johnson, has well remarked:-Language must have come by INSPIRATION: a thousand, nay, a million of children could not invent a language: while the organs are pliable, there is not understanding enough to form a language; and by the time there is understanding enough, the organs are grown stiff. We know that, after a certain age, we cannot learn a language. The truth is, language is the gift of a beneficent and all-wise Creator, and is given to man to make known his wants, his desires, his sorrows, and all the multifarious circumstances of human life, as well with his relation to God as to his fellow-man. It is given, also, that man may glorify his Maker, Redeemer and Sanctifier, and they who abuse this precious gift will meet with a due reward; for it is written, that for "every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgment," Matt. xii. 36. That Psammiticus died about B. c. 619. He was succeeded by NEKUS, who is the Pharoah-nechoh of Scripture, (2 Kings xxiii,) in the twentieth year of the reign of Josiah, king of Judah. This king is noted for remarkable undertakings. One of the principal of these was, to cut a canal from the Nile to the Red Sea, a distance of about 1,000 stadia, or about 118 English miles. But in this Nekus was obliged to desist, after a great number of men had perished in the progress of the undertaking; being apprehensive of disastrous consequences from the superior elevation of the Red Sea. Another great undertaking of this prince was, the circumnavigation of Africa. This was the most renowned and brilliant circumstance of his reign. After the failure of the canal, Nekus employed some skilful Phenician mariners to sail on a voyage of discovery, from the mouth of the Red Sea, southward, round the peninsular of Africa, in which they doubled the Cape of Good Hope, and returned by the Straits of Gibraltar, through the Mediterranean Sea, completing their voyage in three years. Herodotus has recorded this fact, and he subjoins that these persons affirmed what to him seemed incredible, namely, that as they sailed round Africa, they had the sun on their right hand. But this statement serves, more than anything else, to authenticate their story. It demonstrates, indeed, that they crossed the southern tropic of Capricorn, and confirms the truth of their narrative. Major Rennel has given an ingenious description of their probable route and their several stations, caused by the interruption of the trade winds, monsoons, and currents, on the eastern and western sides of Africa. There has, however, been a threefold objection alleged against this historical fact first, a total failure of all the consequences; secondly, a total want of all collateral evidence; and thirdly, a total silence of all other historians, but Herodotus and his followers. To these objections, Dr. Hales makes the following satisfactory replies: "1. The failure of consequences naturally resulted from the depressed state of Egypt, during the Babylonian and Persian dominations; which took place in, and after Pharaoh-nechoh's reign. 2. We have strong collateral evidence, in the voyage of Sataspes, which was required by Xerxes to be made, in the contrary direction to this, namely, along the western coast of Africa, and to return by the eastern into the Red Sea. But this voyage failed, and probably prevented any farther attempts from Egypt. Nor was Herodo |