more wonderful than if there was a common basis of truth for all: and as we at least are taught to believe that all mankind sprang from one source, we are the less disposed to hesitate in crediting that if they did so spring, their earliest history, however variously disfigured since, must have so agreed. To connect the Ethiopians with this inquiry will lead us to the question already asked in a former part of this article:-Who were the Ethiopians? Dr. Laurence conceives that their Book of Enoch was originally Chaldaic, from various facts, and from the circumstance of the preference for the number seven. We may observe that this number was much more common with the Persians: to all that the Chaldeans held sacred in this, the others added innumerably and held to even through the persecution of the Magi, greatly exaggerated as we believe the relation of this to have been. We judge of this last point from Masoudi; and of the adherence, not only from his description of Al Sheez, which the Magi spared though in the midst of their own Aderbijan, but also from the Pehlivi poem of Wamik and Azra, such as it has at length descended to us. A short specimen will suffice: "The world of Fire seven wond'rous forms displays; Seven are its sources, which seven rays engender: These seven tongues reside in the sun and stars, storms, plants, gems, stones, man, and reason. And there are seven blooms: "The first ray, beaming from the blooming bow, Dazzles the gazing eye with flowery light: The second kindles in the living glow Of glittering gems and iron-stone blushing bright. The loveliest, if restrained by virtue's ban, Are blossoms of a world thus glorious shown, But, chilled thro' years at length, to ice is gradual grown. "The stars are but the bloom-dust of the flower Feelings, like stars, combine in sacred flow The past, the present, or the future know.' We have shown that the Book of Enoch partakes largely of Persian mysticism and tradition. Enoch, said the Sabians, was the first who wrote with a pen. His work, neglected elsewhere, was found among the Ethiopians; and a tradition or suspicion, long before its discovery, attributed, as we have seen, its preservation to them. Would they have clung to it as a foreign tradition? Would not they, who alone adore the Prophet Enoch, be the sect amongst whom it was most likely to originate? We know that the Ethiopic or Abyssinian church was from Alexandria: we know, or at least have ample room to believe, that the Kabbala was not Jewish, but Oriental and Alexandrian: we are told by Nicephorus that the Abyssinians spoke Chaldaic, or the language of Assyria, and called themselves Assyrians by origin; hence Jude probably found their book in that land. Their classic tongue, the Gheez, is but a medium of Hebrew and Arabic; that is to say, the certain cognate of both. How then could Dr. Laurence assign their sacred book to a Jew, and carry it up to a descendant of Salmaneser's captives, because the locality suits Media? As to Scaliger's argument of the phraseology being Hebrew, it might clearly seem so, when read in Greek, and as a question between this and Hebrew: but we think, so far as we can presume to judge, that the style is not more Hebrew than Ethiopic; and there is one word at least, which has puzzled both Laurence and Hoffman, and which certainly is neither Greek, as the latter suspects, nor Hebrew, as perhaps the Archbishop and Scaliger would both admit, were they living. We allude to the word Ikisat, over which Gabriel presides, with Paradise, and the Cherubim; (Chap. 20.) and of which Hoffman conjectures that "perhaps it stands in the Hebrew text as ND, the throne.” (!) We would say however that it bears affinity to the Hebrew , as set apart, separated; and to the Greek EKAZ and its correlatives, as denoting extension: and with the numeral sat, seven, forms the words Seven Climates (divisions, spaces), that is to say, the World. Both the words are old Persian and the first approximates equally to the Hebrew and Arabic. We may add in confirmation of our opinion, that what the Chaldeans and Arabs style the Seven Earths, was the Seven Climates of Middle Asia; and that the latter, who have borrowed and deteriorated almost every article of their faith from thence, corroborate the probability by a story of a huge angel whose duty it is to support the seven earths. Our space warns us to be brief: if then we find the Priestrace of Persia existing in the time of Tahmuraz* accompanying that conqueror into Assyria; and know, as we have shown, (No. 35, Persia,) that these were not then Fire-Worshippers altogether, but Sabæans also: if we remember the blameless life of these, and that certain of the Scythians, as they are loosely called, answer, in the description of Justin and others, to the narrative of Herodotus respecting the Macrobii; if we view the denomination of Abii, as not from Bios; (signifying "vitam, victum;"-more probably, arcus, a bow?) but a Græcism of the real name; if we know that the Ethiopians, reputed by Homer, Apollonius, Herodotus, Arrian, and Eusebius, as living in India and Africa, also occupied Arabia to the South,-the land of the Sabæans, with Saba, Sabeta, Sabteca, Seba; and the land of Asyr in Yemen, up to Sabe, in Petræa; and that Moses sojourning in Madian,—the Medes (Madyi, Magi,) made more than one inroad towards Egypt,―married amongst them a Cushite or Ethiopian woman; if we recollect that the Sphaco, or Dog, of the Medes is the Sabaco, or Dog, of the Ethiopians; if we remember that Dr. Laurence has placed the author's locality in Media; if we notice that the Sabæans of Tahmuraz' time, were by Ferdousi called Chaldees;† and if, discarding the idle phantasy that the Ethiopians received their proper name from the Greeks, either as black or long-lived, (and what, in such case, was their proper name?) if we reject, with Heeren, the form of aí, and the verb aïow, to burn; (and o;) and if, contrary to this his opinion, we do not forget that in old Persian as in Hebrew, the commencing consonant takes a previous vowel sound; if we look, however loosely, at the position of the Haniochi near the Euxine;-we may then rest satisfied to believe the Ethiopian an Asiatic; his country Media at least, if not further East; his appellation Athaca (of Ptolemy), Attegui, of the Caspian; his creed, Sabæan; his honouring Abel, and blameless sacrifices, husbandry; his feasting and association with the gods, according to Homer, borne out by the race of the Golden Age and their occupations, in Hesiod; and his name;-not aïo-o aud Greek, but native and E-thio-ouphis, THE MIGHTY SACRED ONES of the earliest Caucasian range. *See F. Q. R. No. 43, Art. Statuary, pp. 75-6, and 79. Is this the same root as the Gaelic CULDEES? ART. VIII-Histoire sommaire de l'Egypte sous le Gouvernement de Mohammed-Aly, ou récit des principaux événements qui ont eu lieu de l'an 1825 à l'an 1838, par M. Félix Mengin, précédée d'une Introduction sur l'Arabie, par M. Jomard; accompagnée de la Relation du Voyage de Mohammed-Aly au Fazoql. Paris. 1839. SINCE the publication of our last political lucubrations in July, 1839, the positions which European policy was then assuming in the East have been successively established, and the questions that divided the Western world set comparatively at rest;-for a time. In the various complications of the general political system the immense number of considerations and interests which it embraces forbids necessarily the hope of any fixed repose; but since the object of all diplomatic exertion is avowedly the establishment of respective national interests, and the extension of respective national influence, in other countries; we may be permitted to observe that it is not so much the end as the means employed, that conduces to the permanency of the one, and the weight and the respectability of the other. It is not always, and in isolated cases especially, that success can be deemed a sure criterion of merit, or wisdom; any more than failure a necessary proof of ineptitude. Yet both are, to a certain degree, the almost inevitable indications of a certain talent or a certain incapacity; for it is rarely that accident can fairly be charged with all the results of a given course. And from these results alone can we fairly estimate how far the means were proportioned to the end proposed in the first instance; and how far the presence or absence of judgment, decision, activity, and all other requisites, was developed in the emergencies that attended the progress of the action. The British world of pseudo-politicians has just been thrown into ecstacies of rapture, no less than surprise, at the complete success that has attended the recent attempt upon Affghanistan: and so intense is the delight and so loud the gratulations consequent thereon, that the merits of the question itself seem never to have roused one moment's thought. We ourselves can easily pardon and sympathize with a success not only so glorious, but from the quarter whence it comes altogether so unexpected. Let us not be misunderstood: we do not mean to say that the triumphs of British armies and courage in the East was beyond anticipation, so far as the gallant troops and their leaders were concerned. Enough of experience in the his tory of India had shown that such a result was at all times calculable; and still more in a country where the terror of British power had so strongly spread that the British agent, Col. Wade, had long since, as we formerly stated, distinctly declared that a single British Commissioner could pass freely and 'unmolested through the country. This feeling on the part of the natives must not be altogether attributed to alarm: it is on record that the disposition of the people and their now deposed ruler was decidedly, and long since, in favour of an English alliance. With what other prospect, indeed, could the advantages of this be compared, when our own Power was at the gates of Affghanistan for protection and succour; and all its danger was from Powers at a distance, or else from a feeble, vacillating, and ill-combined rivalry of states or rather factions, nearer its own home. That the policy of Great Britain in Hindostan had been of late years such as to introduce distrust instead of confidence, and induce enmity in the place of friendship and reliance, few will, we think, be hardy enough to deny the rejection of Dost Mohammed's offers, of amity with British India on the basis of a trifling pecuniary aid to enable him to maintain his ground against foreign attempts; and the incertitude, and ignorance, and doubt as to events formally communicated by British residents abroad to the Governor-General, (see No. 46, p. 436,) which made inactitude pass for fear, and gave to the ever-changeful policy of the East a motive for distrust and an inducement to hostility, have been stated by us on a previous occasion and confirmed by the Parliamentary papers, the very official reports of the parties concerned. That after such weakness and blindness, both at home and in the East, to say nothing of the great Eastern question as it is termed, any thing like success should ever have attended any measure emanating from such men, is assuredly a source of the most unqualified surprise, and a theme for the sincerest gratulation. They built a wall expressly to run their heads against, and it has fallen upon the adversary; they dug carefully a wide pit for their own feet, and bound their own eyes for fear they might escape it; but before they could have time to immerge into it to their own hearts' content, lo, the enemy is found at its bottom! How much soever we may felicitate ourselves upon this auspicious event, it is nevertheless requisite to distinguish between the glory of the result and the triumph of those who claim the credit of it. No one, we say again, ever could doubt the skill and courage of the gallant army employed, or could question that if success was possible it was sure of achievement. But every one, it is now evident, did very strongly despair of anything like |