The Times of Daniel, Chronological and Prophetical. By George Duke of Manchester. 8vo. pp. xxviii. 492. THERE are few things more perplexing than having to give an opinion upon a new theory, whether scientific, archæological, or historical. To decide against it may be most unjust, while, on the other hand, to pronounce deliberately in its favour may be hazardous. In such cases the duty of reviewers is to ascertain whether the work exhibits such signs of diligence and accuracy as to entitle it to a patient consideration, till time shall have further tested its merits.

Another difficulty in the way of deciding is, the different position of the author and his censors. He stands on ground that is known to himself, while they, perhaps, have it all to survey. He knows in what degree his researches have led to his conclusions, and whether the result was inevitable or optional. But they have to examine an array of inferences and citations which are new to them in part at least, and which they have never viewed in that connection. So that it is not surprising, if his arguments are lost upon them at first, and only prevail, after encountering doubt and opposition.

We think it fortunate therefore for ourselves that the nature of this work is not quite foreign to us. The title describes "The Times of Daniel," as "examined with reference to the point of contact between sacred and profane chronology." The possibility of reconciling the Greek and Persian accounts of history has long since engaged our attention; and the points of resemblance are just sufficient to attract a sanguine mind, yet so few as to deter a doubtful one. To these must be

added a third element of union, or of disunion, as it may prove, namely, the scriptural notices of Babylonian and Persian history. The object of this work is to prove, how far they are reconcileable; in fact, to reconcile them.

The noble author is fully aware of
GENT. MAG. VOL. XXIX.

the difficulties which beset his undertaking.

"My doubts (he observes) begin at that point of ancient history which all others have considered as established. But that the common method of reconciling scriptural and profane history should be sup. posed satisfactory, can be attributed, I think, only to its having been so long suffered, in a kind of misty indistinctness, to settle upon and corrode the mind." (Preface, pp. xv. xvi.)

He considers that violent wrestings of scripture have been acquiesced in, "because we are familiarised with the sacred text, or that, despairing of any thing more rational, we sink into indifference. According to the received view, scripture is made to contradict Herodotus, Xenophon, Berossus, Megasthenes, and even the scripture itself." (p. xxviii.) Several examples of this confusion are given in the preface, and the principle is applied to our own history; showing that if we assume the Coresch of the Hebrew text to be Cyrus, Darius the Mede to be Cyaxares, Ahasuerus Cambyses, and Artaxerxes Sinerdis, we may be brought to believe that James II. and William III. are identical, that the reign of Anne is misplaced, and that the king George, in whose reign sovereigns were coined, was the first of the name.

We are well aware with what distaste this reasoning will be received by many, and that with others it will gain no higher credit than as a series of ancient "historic doubts." Those, however, who have felt the difficulties which attach to the subject will be thankful for this attempt to clear them up; and for our part, we are fully persuaded that history is a gainer by it.

The following passage well exemplifies the unsatisfactory nature of the received accounts:—

The wote water confiders that the Mga as ʼn the Chaastat was between the Bark and Caspian beat: unt a oway, provably of the priests" Caste, was phantot at Babylon by the Amyrian; that Nabopankar (Šebu Chazzar the first) with his Cualdaan army, wuddenly revoited from Assyria, and sized upon Babrion shortly before the Jewish captivity. (p. 107) With Heren and Volney he identifies Sardanapalus with Esarhaddon, or the Natopalassar of the Canon, a different personage from the one just mentioned.

He is inclined to identify Jemsheed, socelebrated in native Oriental history, with Nebuchadnezzar the second, and the correspondence is striking, for it is related of each, that he raises

Neborli bezmir, di in day to The mine ces are mefmesset, rather th ectraditory, for inmance, the destruction of Egyptian dute in Jen's xvi 25. amees with that Herodites 24. The same character of rice and ervelty, and saila maines is perceptible in them both. (p. 140)

In conformity with this theory, it is supposed that the Cyrus of Herodotus was Nebuchadnezzar the first. The noble author considers that Herodotus, in his account of the death of Cyrus

has mixed together events occurring to different persons, and that Ctesias is preterable in this particular. (PP. 184. 252.)*

*The author of the interesting work siders that careless or unfaithful anon "Historical Parallels" (i. 81) connalists" have mixed up the histories of Cyrus and Nebuchadnezzar, and that the burning of Croesus, and that of the three Hebrew youths, is the same event.-REV.

Darius the Mede (Daniel, v. 31,) is identified with Darius Hystaspes, because each took Babylon, and established a system of taxation, (Herod. iii. 89, Daniel, vi. 2.) a resemblance which is supported by several subordinate arguments. The Ahasuerus of the Book of Esther is supposed to be Xerxes, and if the reasons are not irrefragable, they are sufficient as links in a chain. The Coresch of Scripture (translated Cyrus) is held to be, not "the great king," as the sovereigns of Persia styled themselves, but a ruler over one of the portions of the great Iranian empire, under Artaxerxes Longimanus. According to the Persian writers, he was of royal extraction, and his mother was a Jewess. (p. 159.) The objections against this scheme are treated in the appendices to chap. viii., the former of which throws some light on the feudal system of the East.* The French historian of India, M. de Marlés, had a notion of this idea, but he has carried it too far: "Au reste, ni les Grecs ni les Juifs n'ont eu des relations qu'avec les petits princes feudataires qui gouvernaient les provinces limitrophes avec la Grèce, et leurs connaissances sur l'empire même de la Perse furent toujours trèsbornées et très-imparfaites." (Hist. de l'Inde, i. 376.) He seems to have forgotten the conquest of the Persian empire by Alexander the Great.

The uncertainty of Herodotus as an historian of Egyptian and Persian transactions, is apparent from his account of the marriage of Cambyses. He says, that Amosis provoked that monarch by passing off the daughter of Apries, whom he had deposed forty years before, as his own. (p. 185.) At such an age, this imposture could not have been practised. The testimony of Strabo to the uncertainty of ancient Persian history, (i. e. as given by the

*Sir William Jones, speaking of Cyrus the Great, observes, "Whatever our chronologers say, it is not easy to conceive that the Jews were delivered by this Cyrus. . . . Our historians, perhaps, deceived by the name Cyrus, which the Greeks gave both to Khosru and to Coresh, have fixed the return of the Jews much earlier than the truth." (Works, iii. 106.) We well remember the startling effect produced on our own mind many years ago by this passage.

Greeks,) along with that of other writers, is adduced at p. 191, in an appendix, on the authenticity of Herodotus. Perhaps it would have had still greater weight, if it had been cited in the introductory portion of the work.

What has been said is sufficient, we conceive, to stimulate the reader who is interested in these topics; while for others it would be superfluous to make any further analysis. There are some remaining points of importance on which we shall briefly touch.

The noble author considers that there are two distinct periods of seventy years in the prophecies, connected with the humiliation of Judah, viz. the captivity, commencing with Jeconiah, and the desolation, beginning at the end of Zedekiah's reign. This opinion is supported by reference to Eusebius and Theodoret, and of later writers, to Pellican and Ecolampadius. (p. 47.) He is inclined to think that Josephus tampered with the true history, concerning the taxing by Cyrenius, and that it really took place under Herod the Great. (p. 326-335.) He argues that the celebrated passage in Josephus, respecting our Lord, is genuine, but that it is placed near the account of the deception perpetrated in the temple of Isis at Rome, which is unconnected with the history itself, in order to throw discredit on the Incarnation. (p. 341.) The concluding dissertation is on the seventy weeks; the view is, that they are a period taken out of the Jewish bondage and captivity under the Gentiles, during which "the holy city and commonwealth in some measure shall be restored, and so continue till seventy weeks or years be finished." (p. 404.) The week and the half-week are regarded, not as portions of the seventy, but subsequent; the seventy ending in A.D. 67; the half-week at the cessation of the daily sacrifice, in 70; and the week in 73, when the Jewish war was closed by the recapture of Masada. The term "everlasting righteousness is well explained by "the eternal and efficacious blessing of the sacrifice of Messiah," as contrasted with "the shadowy and transient benefit of the ceremonial righteousness." (p. 408.)

Such are the principal points of this comprehensive and interesting volume.

que aume retres from the bentay as of Kewin a Decin tin she caught The ti prI. 71st she remed Like of Gracestar sent every day tə Notre aming ber fell one-servants in Camden rijnse had an a of her cancer. Üne morning the Drake of Glouonster was asked. · W tether Le could send as usual to know how his burne was.' *Nɔ,' he said, for she is dead.' 'How do you know, Sir?' assed That is no matter,' rehis attendant.

plied the young duke, 'but I am sure she is dead.' Mrs. Wanley, one of his women, observed, 'That the young duke had told her yesterday that he knew Pack would die next day.' The child was right; his nurse actually died about the time that the discussion took place. This coincidence occasioned no little consternation in the household, for they said it was physically impossible that the child, or any one else, could have been assured of the fact by natural means. The young duke was taken to visit his aunt, Queen Mary, the next day. Perhaps her Majesty had heard this marvellous tale, for she led the way to it by asking him, if he was sorry to hear that his nurse was dead?' The child replied, No, Madam;' and this most un

satisfactory reply was all that the queen

could elicit from her little nephew on the subject," &c.

nologically) as relates to the floral kingdom, or, in the editor's words, it is intended, to be "A History of the Poetry of Flowers." The list of poets from whose writings quotations are given extends from Chaucer to Burns, including every name of eminence, and many that are known only to those who have made our native poetry their study and delight. We could, perhaps, enlarge the list by a few additional names, though we do not know whether with any advantage to the work; but the first division, from 1380 to 1570, is far too brief in our opinion. We should have made extracts from

"Bishop Burnet fancied that the ladies of the Princess Anne's establishment did

not look at him while preaching his 'thundering long sermons,' as Queen Mary called them. Nay, Bishop Burnet suspected that the ladies preferred looking at any other person. He therefore, after much remonstrance on this impropriety, prevailed on the Princess Anne to order all the pews in St. James's Chapel to be raised so high that the fair delinquents could see nothing but himself, when he was in the pulpit. The princess could not help laughing at the complaint; but she complied when Burnet represented that the interests of the Church were in danger. All traces of these high barracaded pews have long disappeared from the royal chapel; but the whim of Bishop Burnet was imitated in many churches, which had not been pewed until that era, and are at this hour to be seen in remote country parishes. As for the damsels for whose edification they were first devised, they were transported with the utmost indignation, which was only surpassed by the cavaliers of the court and household of the princess."

A satirical ballad on this subject is given by Miss Strickland from the Lansdowne Papers, 825. (Oxford, MS. collection of Tory and Jacobite verses.)

The Poet's Pleasannce. By Eden
Warwick. 4to.

A VERY pleasing publication, both in its form and matter, and doing credit at once to the poetical editor and pictorial illustrator. The purpose of the work is to give such extracts from the whole series of the British poets (chro

should have been drawn upon in the second division. In the third division we should have carefully had Chamberlayne, Sherburne, and Cotton, and reduced the proportion allowed to the modern poets from the time of Pope, as more familiar to the public. However, we must say that in general the editor has shewn both diligence and taste in his selections, some of which are new to us, and some we were delighted to have recalled to our memory, like long-forgotten airs. On the Harebell we find the following useful remarks:-"A doubt hangs over the poetical history of the modern as well as of the ancient flower, owing to the appellation Harebell being indiscriminately applied both to Scilla (Wild Hyacinth) and also to Cumpanula Rotundifolia (Blue Bell). Though southern bards have occasionally misapplied the word 'Harebell' it will facilitate our understanding which flower is meant if we bear in mind as a general rule that that name is applied differently in various parts of the island. Thus the Harebell of Scotland is the Campanula, and the Blue Bell, so celebrated in Scottish song, is the Scilla or Wild Hyacinth, while in England the same names are used conversely, the Campanula being the Blue Bell, and the Wild Hyacinth the Harebell."

As regards what the editor says, under the article Woodbine, of Shakspere's use of the word, we are, after much consideration of the subject, in