ters not only record what they saw or learned in their own age, but transmit a great deal of knowledge derived from earlier sources no longer accessible to us; and their more direct and ample statements are confirmed or qualified by the incidental notices scattered up and down the remains of classical literature— of the character and doings of a people which had left the traces of its existence on every promontory and island of the western seas. In the middle of the fifth century before Christ, that indefatigable traveller, Herodotus, sailed from Egypt to Tyre, to visit some temples of Melcarth, or Hercules, there, and compare the traditions of their priests respecting the god, with those he had collected from other sources. * His visit was evidently a hurried one. Of what he then saw in Tyre, he has described nothing but two pillars-one of fine gold, the other of smaragdus brilliantly luminous by night (probably green glass with a lamp burning in the interior), which he found set up in one of the temples. In pursuit of his specific object he soon hastened away to Thasus, where another temple of Hercules had excited his curiosity. We cannot but regret that it did not come within his plan to remain longer in Tyre, where his keen eye and graphic pen could not have failed to preserve for us some invaluable pictures of the industrial life of antiquity. Had he favoured us with only a few such glimpses as he has opened into the interior of society at Babylon-setting before our eyes the dress and habitudes of its citizens; its marriage-law and sanitary regulations; the blended pride and shame which restrained ladies of rank from mingling with the crowd of vulgar votaries, as they went, shut up in their close carriages and followed by a long retinue of servants, to render their obligatory dues at the temple of the impure Mylitta,— our obligations to him would have been unspeakable.† Next to the Greek historians and geographers, the Hebrew Scriptures yield us the most abundant information respecting the Phonicians, not only in the historical books, where the relations of Tyre with the kingdoms of Israel and Judah come under notice, but still more in the prophets, especially Isaiah and Ezekiel. The latter prophet has left us a more full and particular account of the Tyrian commerce than any other writer of antiquity.‡ And though this mention of Phoenicia in the Old Testament is only occasional, it has the recommendation of coming direct from contemporaries, and possesses in consequence a peculiar weight and interest. The Phoenicians must, however, have had origin *Herod. ii. 44. † Herod. i. 199. Οὐκ ἀξιεύμεναι ἀναμίσγεσθαι τῇσι ἄλλῃσι, οἷα πλούτῳ ὑπερφρονέουσαι, ἐπὶ ζευγέων ἐν καμάρῃσι ἐλάσασαι. Ezekiel xxvii. ally histories of their own. Like other ancient nations of the eastern world, they had, no doubt, their state-archives, confided to the keeping of the priesthood, in which all events of importance were recorded. Out of materials derived from these sources two Greek writers, Dius, and Menander of Ephesus or Pergamus,* had framed complete histories of Tyre. Unfortunately their works have perished, with the exception of some fragments, exceedingly valuable as far as they go, which have been preserved by Josephus. There is yet another source of information respecting Phoenicia, claiming to be native, which is still extant, and of very singular character. About the commencement of the second century of our era, when the decay of old faiths and the thickening strife of Christianity with heathenism turned men's thoughts to the foundations of religious belief, and gave a new interest to the doctrines of the ancient priesthoods-a native of Phoenicia, Philo of Byblus, translated, as he affirmed, out of Punic into Greek, and from records kept in the temples, a work which bore the name of Sanchoniatho, an ancient sage or philosopher, who was described as having lived only a little later than Moses. Porphyry and Eusebius, who have each quoted largely from Philo Byblius, though with a different purpose, speak of the original work as a history of Phoenicia. If it were so, one cannot but wish that any other portion of it had been rescued from oblivion, than the cosmogonical dreams which it was anciently the custom to prefix to all national histories. In spite of circumstances calculated at first view to raise suspicion, there are some internal marks of substantial authenticity in this curious old fragment. The doctrines which it contains appear to have been issued, in perfect accordance with the corporate spirit of the ancient priesthoods, under the name and sanction of the religious body who had charge of the public records. Sanchoniatho was probably not the name of an individual, but the title, like our Doctor' or 'Reverend' (it has been interpreted 'Friend of Truth'), of an entire class. In the priestly legends it was usually contrived to confer a peculiar honour and antiquity on the city and temple which immediately furnished them: and we find accordingly a divine origin, and a priority of foundation to all other Phoenician cities, assigned in these relics of Sanchoniatho to Byblus. Again, it seems implied by the language in one passage that the doctrines were derived from the interpretation of symbolical figures, depicted on the walls of the temple, and explained by the hierophant. This, we * See Smith's Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Contra Apion. See the account of Kronos and Dagon, and of the son of Thabion - πράтоυ τῶν ἀπ' αἰῶνος γεγονότων Φοινίκων ἱεροφάντου - in Cory's Ancient Fragments, pp. 14, 15, first edition. know, was a customary mode of instruction in the temples of India, Egypt, and Babylon. The references to Jewish and Greek theology, indicative of a comparatively modern date, are easily accounted for by the readiness of the old priesthoods, like the Chinese of more recent times, when made acquainted with the ideas of other nations, so to modify their traditional system as to claim for it superior antiquity, and a priority in all knowledge. There can be little doubt, we suppose, that the Hermetic lore of Egypt has been continually modified in this way by the indirect action of Greek science and philosophy.* Lastly, as evidence of their extensive colonisation, and in some degree illustrative of their manners and customs, the monuments of the Phoenicians bearing inscriptions, which have been found at intervals along the coast of the Mediterranean, especially in Malta, and which have been illustrated with great learning by the late eminent Semitic Orientalist, Gesenius, have opened a new source of knowledge within the present century.† In Phonicia itself, so far as we know, not any native inscription or monument has yet been found. What yet is concealed under the soil, and might be brought to light by applying that process of subterranean research which modern archæology has used with so much success in other parts of the earth, future years will perhaps discover. Nothing seems inaccessible to the perseverance and sagacity of our present savans; nor can there be a stronger proof of the scientific spirit of our age, than the conversion of the mouldering relics of the tomb into the elements of an exact and classified knowledge, marked by distinct indications of date and origin-the evocation of the dead, to instruct the living, and throw back the lurid light of their opened sepulchres on what seemed the impenetrable darkness of ages long past away.§ * Goguet (Origine des Loix, &c.) has given, in an appendix to his first volume, a summary of the arguments in favour of these Fragments, though on grounds different from those taken in the text. Mr. Kenrick, who in an earlier work (Egypt of Herodotus, note on the Cabiri, p. 266) had treated Sanchoniatho" as the assumed name of Philo of Byblus," in the present volume on Phoenicia, admits as probable the existence of a Punic original, containing ancient doctrines, which Philo translated, though not possessing the antiquity (at least in its actual form) affirmed by Eusebius and others. The negative view of this question is strongly maintained by the writer of the article Sanchoniatho in Smith's Dictionary of Biography, who cites Movers as on the same side. Swinton, a century ago, made use of Phoenician coins for historical purposes; but he had access to few monuments; and palæography was then comparatively in its infancy. Since writing this, we have learned that a sarcophagus of a king of the Sidonians, with a Phoenician inscription containing allusion to temples of Baal and Ashtaroth, was found at Sidon in January 1855. An account of this discovery was given to the Royal Society of Literature, November 14, 1855. § There is some rhetoric, but also some truth, in the following observations of a living writer: "Tous les siècles, tous les peuples sont cachés dans la terre. Le sol m'a toujours Such, then, are the materials which exist at present for recovering the history and elucidating the civilisation of one of the most remarkable peoples of antiquity. In the volume before us they have been worked up by Mr. Kenrick with the mature scholarship and ripened judgment of a long life devoted uninterruptedly to historical and philological pursuits. He has given us, in fact, a most thorough and complete critical résumé of all that can as yet be known about the Phoenicians; and he has placed within reach of the English reader, from the advanced point of view of modern learning, another very valuable contribution to the exact knowledge of ancient history, which he had already enriched by his two volumes on Egypt under the Pharaohs, and by his admirable and philosophical essay on Primeval History. In the distribution of his matter Mr. Kenrick has followed very much the same order in the present work as in the earlier one on Egypt. He has treated, first, of the geography, climate, and productions of Phoenicia; then discussed the origin of the nation, and the dispersion of its colonies; next considered its language, commerce, navigation, arts, manufactures, form of government, and religion; and in the concluding chapters recited its history from the earliest records till the final subjection of the country at the beginning of the sixteenth century to Ottoman rule. In this wide range of inquiry Mr. Kenrick has had the field more entirely to himself than in his earlier work on Egypt. Since Swinton furnished his chapters on the Semitic nations to the Ancient Universal History-now a century ago—we are not aware that any English scholar, if we except some occasional disquisition in the third volume of Sir W. Drummond's Origines, has directed any original study to the subject of Phoenician history and antiquities. It has been otherwise abroad. In the early part of the seventeenth century, Samuel Bochart, one of those giants of learning who formed then the strength and glory of the French Protestant Church, brought to bear on it an enormous amount of classical and oriental erudition, derived from every source of information which the existing state of literature supplied. "The most diligent reader of ancient authors, with a view to the illustration of Phoenician history, will find himself," says Mr. Kenrick, "anticipated or surpassed by Bochart." (preface, vi.) Etienne Morin's account of the origin of his great paru le plus complet, le plus vrai des livres. Je l'ai appelé ailleurs un volume de six mille ans,' dont chaque siècle a écrit une page avec de la cendre et de la poussière. Il n'y a qu'à souffler sur cette poussière, et elle se ranimera au contact de la vie, comme les morts à la voix d'Êlisée. ... Et puis quel a donc été le rédacteur de ce livre antique, écrit avec des ossemens et avec des ruines? L'écrivain, c'est la mort qui ne mort jamais, et qui de sa main de fer a dépouillé impitoyablement tout ce qu'il y avait de faux chez l'homme, pour ne laisser plus subsister que le vrai.”—La Normandie Souterraine, par l'Abbé Cochet. M work, the Geographia Sacra, well illustrates the man and his age.* Bochart was the pastor of a Huguenot church at Caen in Normandy, at that time, when the French provinces were still halfindependent principalities, a distinguished seat of letters, where many learned men resided, and where the Protestants were numerous and powerful. Among his audience were doubtless some of the most highly educated men of the time. With the scrupulous reverence for Scripture which distinguished the early Protestants, Bochart, in the exercise of his ministerial duties-"ut nihil e cathedrâ proferret quod verissimum et compertissimum non esset"-commenced a minute and elaborate exposition of the book of Genesis, which proceeded slowly but continuously till he arrived at the genealogical perplexities of the tenth chapter. Here the descending stream of his erudition was arrested by an obstacle of doubt and difficulty, which formed a nucleus of accumulation, and gathered round it that huge mass of multifarious knowledge which subsists to this day in the Phaleg and Canaan. How the scriptural instruction of the congregation fared while this collateral inquiry was being prosecuted, we are not informed; but the fact shows with what conscientious diligence all Scripture difficulties were then encountered, and what immense erudition was applied to their solution. A younger contemporary of Bochart's, who had acquired from him a taste for oriental learning, the celebrated Huet, afterwards bishop of Avranches, was probably induced by the example of his profounder master, to direct his attention to kindred studies; and these produced as their result his two treatises, De Navigationibus Salomonis, and the Histoire du Commerce des Anciens.+ Since that time, be *"De clarissimo Bocharto et omnibus ejus scriptis," prefixed to the folio edition of the "Geographia Sacra," Leyden, 1707, p. 4. It is in the second part of this work, entitled “Canaan,” that the account of the Phœnician language and colonies is chiefly contained. †The mutual relations of these remarkable men, perhaps the most eminent representatives of the two great religious parties between which France was at that time more equally divided than at present, are singular and affecting. Huet was the son of an ex-Calvinist. Notwithstanding their difference of faith, he had attached himself early in life to Bochart, who was the most learned man in that part of France. Huet accompanied Bochart on his visit to Christina, queen of Sweden, and has left a very amusing poetical account of their journey in his Iter Suecicum. A coldness afterwards ensued between them, in consequence of Bochart's charging Huet with a wilful mutilation of the text in his edition of the Commentaries of Origen. They were never friends again; and this alienation was increased by the growing bitterness of religious differences. Bochart's death appears to have been caused immediately by the intensity of an argument between them. In a session of the Academy of Caen, during a vehement dispute respecting the authenticity of some Spanish medals, Bochart was overtaken by a sudden seizure which soon terminated his life. Huet was admitted by his own friends to be exceedingly passionate in disputation. The event seems to have dwelt on his mind; for in a letter written to his nephew, Piedouë de Chersigné in 1712, more than forty years afterwards, he alludes to it: "La mort de M. Bochart ne luy fut causée par notre dispute, sinon en partie. Il estoit déjà attaqué d'un mal |