the chief populations, both of ancient and modern Europe, and higher Asia. He seems to have been the Japetus whom all the Grecian and Roman traditions, transmitted to us by their poets and mythologists, exhibit as the ancestor of the human race.* Seven sons, and as many grandsons, from two of the others, are ascribed to him by Moses.† The Turks and the Turcomans, their original stock, deduce themselves and the Tartars and Moguls from him, by another child. The sons, Madai and Javan, represent the Medes and Greece, and their names have been applied by the ancient prophets to do so.◊

they proceeded along Asia as far as the river Tanais, and along Europe to Cadiz; and settling themselves on the lands they came to, their names were imposed on the nations there."--Jos. Ant. 1. 1. c. 6.

The Theogony of Hesiod represents Japetus as the son of Heaven, v. 134, and the father of Prometheus, who formed the first woman, and of Atlas, v. 507, 515, 543. Pindar, after mentioning the deluge, and that Deucalion and Pyrrha, descending from Mount Parnassus, built the first house and produced the stony race, adds, “From them came your progenitors with their brazen shields--the primitive sons of the race of Japetus."-Olyn. O. v. 66-82. Apollodorus represents Prometheus as having formed mankind from water and earth, c. 7. p. 21, and as the son of Japetus, the son of heaven and earth; the father also of Atlas, who susts as the skies, by Asia, the daughter of ocean, c. 2. p. 5. Hence Horace, in the well-known paraphrase, calls men "ille audax Japeti genus."-Ode 3.

↑ "The sons of JAPHETH; Gomer, and Magog, and Madai, and Javan (Jon), and Tubal, and Moshech, and Tiras. And the sons of Gomer; Ashkenaz, and Riphath, and Togarmah. And the sous of Javan, Elishah, and Tarshish, Kittim, and Dodanim," or Rodanim. -Gen. x. 2-4,

"Their tradition is, that Turk, their great progenitor, was the son of Japhet; who is hence called, by the early Mohammedan writers, Aboul Turk, the father of Turk, and the brother of Tchin, the ancestor of the Chinese. The fourth in descent from Turk was Almgeh Khan. In his reign, the nation forgot the faith of their ancestors, which was pure Theism, and became idolaters. He had two sons, Tartar and Mongol. It is from these princes that the tribes they governed took their names."-David's Grain. Turk. Lang.

Herbelot, from the oriental writers, presents this view of Japhet's posterity, as their traditions transmit it: "Jafeth had eleven male children, Gin or Tchin, from whom the Chinese came; Seklab, whence the Sclavonians: Manschuge, from whom issued the Goths, or Scythians, called Jagiouge and Magiouge; the Hebrew Gog and Magog; Gomari; Turk; Khozar, the ancestor of the Khozarians; Rous, the father of the Russians; Soussan; Ghaz and Tarage, from whom came the Turcoman." -D'Herb. Bib. p. 470. voc. Jafeth.

Daniel calls the Medes by the same term, Madai, and the Persians by Peres, v. 28; vi 8. v. 12, &c. Isaiah also names the Medes, Madai, xii. 17, and has Madai for O Media, xx. 2. Jeremiah likewise, l. 11, calls them Madai. Daniel applies the name Javan or lon for Greece, as the King of Javan, meaning the King of Greece, or Alexander. The

Of the other children of Japheth, his eldest, Gomer, is considered to be the ancestor of the Kimmerians.* Magog is identified with the Scythians by Josephus,† whose country we now call Tartary, and to whom the posterity of Magog is extended. Whenever his name is mentioned as a people in the Scriptures, it seems to be applied to these regions. Mesech and Tubal are believed to designate those who settled in Cappadocia, and in Iberia, near the Euxine. From Tiras the Thracians sprung.¶

The grandsons by Gomer are thus stationed, by the best investigation of these topics; Askenaz** in Phrygia Minor, and

Hebrew letters 1 exactly corresponding with Ion the ancestor of the Ionians, one of the two great stems of the Grecian people; the Dorians were the other. "The kingdom of Javan or Ion," is Greece in Dan. x. 2. Josephus so understood these two terms: "From Madai came the Madeans, who are called Medes by the Greeks; and from Javan, Ionia and all the Grecians are derived."-Ant. 1. i. c. 6.

* Michaelis Spicel. i. p. 19-24, and Suppl. Lex. 333-7. Rosenmuller thinks he has made this "valde verisimile."-Scholia. i. p. 78. Our Kymry, as the oldest inhabitants of Britain, may be referred to the same stock. See, on both peoples, the Hist. Angl. Sax. vol. i. Rosenmuller remarks that their name Kymr, corresponds with the Hebrew Gomr, p. 79.

↑ "He founded the Magogai, so called from him; the Greeks term them Scythians."-Jos. Antiq. 1. i. c. 6.

"Magog. Tartaria ulterior."--Rosenm. 79, and Michaelis, p. 28. As in Ezekiel xxxviii. "ubo inter septentriones gentes recensetur."— Rosen. 80.

"Mesech and Tubal are, without doubt, those peoples whom the Greek writers called Moschi and Tibareni. They are always joined together as neighbouring peoples by profane authors, as well as by the sacred. The Moschi obtained Cappadocia and the mountains from the Phasis to the Cappadocian Sea, whence those mountains were called Moschici."-Rosen.

Strabo thus mentions Moschica: "Moschike is in three parts. One the Colchians have; another the Iberi; and the third, the Armenians."— L. xl.

Josephus thus comments on Mesech: "The Moscheni, founded by him, are now called Cappadoces. They have a city still called Mazaca." On Tubal, he adds, "He was the ancestor of Thobeli, who in our days are called Iberi."-Antiq. 1. i. c. 6.

"From Thiras were those whose name the Greeks changed into Thracians."-Jos, Ant. ib. The later Greeks had the same idea. Onpas, ε & Opakas.-Euseb. in Chron. So, Eustathius and Epiphanius. Rosenmuller remarks that the names have the same letters, but the Greeks turned the s into the x, because in the alphabet brought into Greece by the Phenicians, the occupied the place of the Hebrew samech.-Ros. Sch. 81.

** Bochart, 1. iii. c. 9. There was formerly in these regions an Ascanian bay, an Ascanian lake; a city and region Ascania; Ascanian islands;

Bythinia; and Togarmah in Armenia ;* Ripath is referred by Josephus to Paphlagonia, but may belong to some of the northern populations of Europe.†

Javan's sons appear to have larger relations with Europe. Elisha is identified with Hellas in Greece ; Tarshish with Tartessus in Spain; Kittim is considered to designate Italy; the other son's name having been written with a variation in the commencing letter, can be less certainly fixed. I may conclude these derivations by adding, that to and the Euxine itself is by some of the poets called Axinos.-Bochart. The modern Jews prefer the idea that it designates Germany, but show no ancient authority for this ascription of it.

*Michaelis urges this sentiment.-Spec. p. 76. Moses Chorensis, in his Armenian history, favours it; and his editors, the Whistons, state that the Armenians themselves, in their traditions, consider their nation as the descendants of Togarmah.-Rosenm. 82.

"Riphath founded the Riphatheans, called the Paphlagonians."-L. i. c. 6. The name would lead us most naturally to connect the posterity of Riphath with the Riphean mountains; but the difficulty on this would be, that although these mountains are mentioned in Strabo, at p. 452-8, and by Dionys. v. 315, and others, yet it is not certain where they were situated. Posidonius mentions them as the Alps; others as part of Caucasus. Dionysius places them at the Borysthenes. Ptolemy, as those from which the Tanais sprang, and Pliny, as rather beyond the Scythians, and among the Arimaspi or Hyperborean (1. vi. c. 14); and in another pas sage he connects them with Caucasus, and brings them towards the Pontus.-L. vi. c. 5. That they were some of the mountains in those northern regions where Asia and Europe join, seems to be all that we can safely infer about them; and of the tribes in those parts, Riphath may have been the ancestor.

"Elisa, sine dubio est Græcorum Hellas, ut Michaelis in Spec. p. 79, ostendit."-Rosen. 83. It has a correspondence with this that Ezekiel speaks of "blue and purple from the isles of Elisha" to Tyre, xxvii. 7; and that Pausanias mentions that "the shores of Laconia furnish shells most adapted, after those in the Phenician Sea, for the purple die."--Paus. in Lacon.

"Sine dubio est Hispania called Tarshish, from the port and island Tartessus, formerly so famous, in the mouth of the Bactis, as Bochart, Phal. 1. iii. c. 7, and Mich. Spic. p. 82, show." The coast is called Tarscion by Polybius.--L. iii. Rosen. p. 83.

Bochart, iii. 5, and Mich. p. 103, agree that "it is undoubtedly the name of the middle part of Italy, about Rome. A city in Latium was called Ketra. About Cuma was a river called Ketos."- Dion. Hal, Eusebius says that the Latins sprang from the Kitioi, and the Romans also, Suidas mentions, "Latini, now Romans, for Telephus, the son of Hercu les, who was called Latius, changed the name of those, who before that were denominated Ketii, into Latini."--Suidas, Voc. Latinol. v. ii. p. 13. ¶ Some MSS. have Rhodanim, which name induces Bochart to refer him to the inhabitants of Galliae Rhodanensis on the Rhong, L... e. 6. But the best MSS. call it Dodanim; and on this word, Michaelis thinks we should recollect the Dodona of Epirus, where the most ancient oracle of Greece was so famous.--Spic. p. 120.

Japhet and his offspring are ascribed generally, by the Mosaic record, all the insular or maritime populations and colonies of the Gentile nations.* These outlines comprise the principal points that you need attend to in your general studies. You can enlarge upon them at your leisure, if you like to exercise yourself in farther investigations; only keep your mind from having any favourite idea or speculations that may seduce it beyond the paths of sound and steady judg

ment..

LETTER XXV.

Outlines of the State of the Earliest Civilized Nations-The Ethiopians, Egyptians, Phenicians, and Babylonians-Their Attainments and Defects-The Superior Improvement of Greece

MY DEAR SON,

THE most civilized nations which have appeared in the world, are so many links of a connected chain, which has been extending and enlarging from the deluge to our own time. The family of Ham stand prominent at the commencement as its founders; and as he was sufficiently mature in age, when the old world ceased, to have imbibed its social and mental acquisitions, and had the benefit of his father's larger acquaintance with them, and also had the companionship of his elder brothers, we may assume, that the settlement of his children represented, generally, the state and progress of the civilization and attainments of the antediluvian world. The renewed world, therefore, began with a population, enjoying as high a degree of civilization as the cultivation of mind and manners in the destroyed races had enabled the preserved survivers to acquire and transmit; and as this extended to the invention of such musical instruments as the harp and connected pipes of melodious sound, and to the discovery and use of brass and iron, and to various arts of working in them, and to the

"By these were the isles of the Gentiles divided in their lands; every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations."--Gen. x. 5.

building of cities, mankind could not have recommenced their human life in that brutal and barbarous state which some of the ancients imagined.t

The four civilized nations which were founded by the children of Ham were the Ethiopians, the Egyptians, the Phenicians, and the Babylonians; and these states preceded all others which authentic history notices, in their intellectual attainments and activities.

The Ethiopians have been already alluded to in our remarks on Cush. It is the opinion of some of our contemporaries, from the monumental remains and hieroglyphical inscriptions found in Nubia, so much resembling those of Egypt, that the ancient Egyptians had a Nubian or Ethiopian origin. But as some of the ancient kings of Egypt at times subdued and reigned over the Ethiopian Meroe, and formed columns, temples, and inscriptions there, this fact will account for such edifices being now observable. At the same time we may remember, that as Cush and Mizraim were brothers, the arts which the one knew, the other could not be ignorant of. Their respective families would partake of these improvements, and when one branch settled in Nubian Ethiopia, and the other moved down the Nile to what became, under its settlement, Upper Egypt, each would make its sacred edifices and public monuments for itself; and these, from their kindred origin, would, in their primitive forms, naturally resemble each other.

But it is probable that the Ethiopian line of Ham had connexions or ramifications in the Indian Peninsula. As we have already remarked, they were deemed a colony from India. It is not improbable that the temples and idol fig

* See Genesis, iv. 17, 21, 22.

↑ Some represent the earth as generally in this state, others the particular countries they mention. Thus in Crete, "their dwellings were in the woody parts of mountains, in the caves of valleys, or in places where nature gave them a shelter; for the building of houses was not yet found out."-Diod. Sic. 334. So in Greece," men were living on growing buds, herbs, and roots, but Pelasgus taught them that acorns and beech mast were more healthful; he likewise led them to build huts to keep off the rain and cold, and to make coats of the skins of swine."-Pausan. Arc. 456.

See before, note on p. 361. Strabo mentions the Ethiopian Teareon's warlike expeditions into Europe, and as having extended to the Strait of Gibraltar.-L. xv. p. 1007.

Note: on p. 364. In Strabo's time they had fallen mostly into a nomadical and poor condition.-L. xv. p. 1135.

Note on p. 364. Apollonius Tyanæus, when he passed from VOL. II.-Ii