out of Eden, which is a material point in Moses' narrative, and to which I shall return, under the guidance of other facts. 25. As long as it was fuppofed, on quitting the ark, NOAH and his family inhabited the fame lands that had exifted before the Deluge, all was difficulty: for, without fpeaking of the Deluge itself, which, under fuch a mistake became incomprehenfible, it was impoffible to conceive that the fmalleft blade of grefs could have been preferved, not only from the circumftance of being fo long overwhelmed by the falt waters which covered the highest mountains, but on a bottom, which, from the top of the mountains to an unknown depth in the plains, is nothing but a mafs of ftrata in the greateft confufion, full of the remains of terreftrial vegetables, and marine animals. Such a grofs contradiction between the fuppofed fenfe of GENESIS and the facts, was very capable of producing unbelievers; but it was the error of the interpreters of Scripture, who, after the true traditions had been effaced from the minds of the Jews, fubftituted their own conjectures for the plain fenfe of the expreffions ufed in GENESIS. defcription of the Deluge, Moses relates that Revelation of GOD to At the very beginning of his NOAH, which announced, that the lands then inhabited should be deftroyed. It was not then upon thefe lands that the ark refted, but on nez continents. When afterwards Moses comes to his fhort account of NOAH and his family quitting the ark on Ararat, and mentions the live tree, the green herb, and the vine, thefe circumftances in themselves were no part of his information, they referred to other objects; and he had nothing to fear from the criticism of the Ifraelites, fince thefe particulars must have been known to them through tradition, as they were to the Pagan nations. 26. Now to what period of time are we to affign thefe different characteristics of the renovation of the human race, common to the account of MOSES and to the ancient mythologies? Muft we refer them to an epoch fo immenfely remote as these mythological systems fuppofe? I have already answered this generally, by proving the fmall antiquity of our continents themselves; but I fhall now proceed to point out a ftriking connection between one of the proofs of this great truth, and the above parts of the Mofaical history of the earth, which unbelievers have pretended to be manifeftly fabulous. 27. I have proved from geology, that before the Deluge, the fummits of our prefent mountains were illands in the primitive fea; and I at the fame time obferved that being then in the lower part of the atmosphere, they enjoyed a temperature fitted for all forts of vegetation. Now in the revolution which the Deluge produced, the fea, by changing its bed, funk confiderably lower; the atmosphere therefore fubfided with it, and the former islands, become now the fummits of our mountains, attained to a cocler part of the atmosphere. If then NOAH and his family found the olive tree and the vine on Ararat, as well as other plants which fubfift there no longer, it is beeaufe they had not had time to fuffer from the change of their fituation with regard to the atmosphere: but as by agriculture thefe plants (together with those the feeds of which Noau preferved with Geological Letters. 207 him in the ark) came to be propagated in lower grounds, the tem 28. Thus, in the refemblances we trace fo clearly, between the ancient mythologies and the hiftory of Moses, refemblances too marked and too numerous not to fhow a connection between the fources of these different traditions, geology now unveils the truth. It is MoSES, and MOSES only, that has tranfmitted to pofterity the true account of these times. He deduced it from an infallible authority, even that whence nature herself proceeds, which now bears evidence to his hiftory; and the refemblances we difcover between it and thefe mythologies, which their fanciful alterations had long veiled, proceed from the traditions of the fons of NOAH, whofe authentic recitals of what they had obferved during and after the Deluge, roufed the imagination of the defcendants of Ham and Japhet, when they were separated from the pofterity of Shem, and thus deprived of the inftructions of MOSES. (To be continued.} ACKNOW The valuable remarks on Caleb Williams, which we received from a refpected friend, fhall be inferted as foon as poffible. We have been obliged at prefent to poftpone them, on account of the length and importance of the Geological Let ters. We thall avail ourselves of the earliest opportunity to infert W. H.'s obfervations on a difficult paffage of Scripture. A. B. of Mag. Col. Camb. has our thanks for his communication. The enquiry of Clericus, near Bath, concerning the tranflation of Aulus Gellius, muft ere now have received its anfwer. The Noctes Atticæ have not been tranflated before into English. Nor has Stobaus at all. With refpect to a fuppofed translation of the Metaphyfics of Ariftotle, by the author of Hermes, we are not able to give him any information. A Gentleman in Ireland is at prefent employed on a tranflation of Livy. If we thould not admit the remarks of Ariphron, it will not be from any difregard of them. Such mifcellaneous obfervations must generally give place to the preffure of recent matter. The fame anfwer will apply to the communication of Clericus of Leicester fhire. J. W.'s Letter has been received, and was forwarded as he defired. DOMESTIC LITERATURE. Mr. Bofcawen, whofe Tranflation of the Odes of Horace was reviewed in our first volume (pp. 329 and 423.) is about to publish a complete verfion of that author, with the Latin text, and notes felected from various commentators. The first part of Mr. Repton's expected publication on Landscape will foon appear. The new edition of Miller's Gardener's Dictionary, on which Profeffor Martyn has been laboriously employed for more than feven years, will appear in the courfe of this fpring, Mr. Chamberlayne's fifth number of Heads, from the drawings of Holbein in the King's collection, will be published in the courfe of next month. The report which we mentioned in our laft preface, p. xiv. that Dr. Warton and Mr. Wakefield were to finish the edi tion of Pope's Works in conjunction, we have now the fulleft authority to contradict. 3 ART. I. Ferifhta's Hiftory of Dekkan from the first Ma hummedan Conquefts: a Continuation from other native Writers of the Events in that Part of India, to the Reduction of the laft Monarchs by the Emperor, Aulumgeer Aurungzebe; and, The Hiftory of Bengal, from the Acceffion of Aliverdee Khan to the Year 1780. Comprifed in fix Parts. By Jonathan, Scott, Captain in the Eaft India Company's Service, Perfian Secretary to the late Governor General, Warren Haftings, Efq. and Member of the Afiatic Society in Bengal. 2 vol. 4to. 21. 2s. Stockdale. 1794. THE annals of Afia record no event more important or interesting than the irruption of the Mohammedan generals in the early periods of the Hegira. Those bigotted and fanguinary marauders found a country vaft in extent abounding in wealth, diftinguished by arts, and crouded with manufactures. They beheld a people eminent for wisdom, for humanity, for piety; deeply attached to the maxims and cuf toms of their ancestors; governed by a long race of native princes, virtuous, equitable, valiant; and who retained, in their mode of adminiftering the government, a very confider able portion of the ancient patriarchal principles, and primitive code. This country, alfo, and these principles had flourished undisturbed by any of those mighty revolutions, which had fo mighty repeatedly BRIT. CRIT. YOL. V. MARCH. 1795. repeatedly convulfed the other great empires of Afia; and public economy, operating together with private induftry, had caufed fuch a general overflow of riches, of every fpecies, but efpecially of precious metals and gems, that the walls of their palaces and the roofs of their temples were covered with them. This is a fact which Abulfeda Al Maken, and all the Arabian hiftorians record, and of which our readers may find fome striking proofs in Herbelot under the article of Mahmud, the first emperor of Gazna. The plunder of the fe unbounded. treasures, the devastation of this beautiful country, availed not to fatiate the luft of Arabian avarice. The Hindoos were idolaters; that is to fay, they represented by expreffive symbols the fublime attributes of God, and paid them an inferior kind of veneration, for which the furious Mahommedan bigot made no candid allowances; and he, therefore, not only fubverted their temples, but aimed to exterminate their race. Thus edifices, the moft majeftic for elevation, and the moft beautiful for workinanthip, the labour of ages, and the cost of provinces, were fwallowed up in one general and undistinguifhing ruin. But this is not the whole fum of their atrocity. To eftablish their own enormous defpotifm on the ruins of the fallen fabric of the gentle government of India, and to tear for ever from the mind of the reluctant Hindoo every trace of remembrance of it, their invaders deftroyed, wherefoever they could meet with them, the venerable remains of literary antiquity, and committed to the flames thofe records of benevolence and juftice, which fhould have been engraved for the benefit of pofterity, on tables of adamant. Happily for the Hindoos of the prefent day thefe early depredations reached not the remote feat of fcience, Benares; whofe learned fons vigilantly guarded the chief treasures of their ancient lore. Although the Mahommedans had feized the country, and fubjected the people, they found it impoffible to eradicate the feeds of fuperftition, deeply fown and long cherifhed. The veneration which every caft, or clafs of people, however in other refpects divided, entertained for the laws of their great legillator, was rooted and invincible. Neceffity, therefore, joined to policy, at length compelled the tyrant to abate the rigour of his feverity, and regulate himself by maxims of government more congenial to the manners and prejudices of the people. The great, the penetrating Akber, was the first who burft afunder the fetters of that bloody code, with which their inexcufable bigotry had induced his predeceffors to manacle the wretched progeny of Brahma. That monarch, with as much affiduity, fought out the hallowed depofitories of the ancient jurisprudence and sciences of India, as they had la boured |