darkness, from whence iffued light-the divifion of waters, which at firft covered the whole furface of the earth-the fucceffive formation of fish and birds, of terrestrial animals, and finally of man, are recorded in the mythologies and traditions of all antient nations. The antient Etrufcans and the Perfians held, and the modern Perfees still profess, one fupreme God, to whom is attributed the creation of all visible things in fix diftinct periods (i). All the most essential circumftances related of the creation in Genefis are to be found difperfed in fome one or other of the antient cofmogonies of various nations. Nothing can furely more clearly prove a common fource of belief, variously altered or corrupted, but not entirely loft. A ftate and age anterior and more happy, from whence man is fallen; the fuperiority of the firft men to us, both in vigour and longevity, are ideas preserved in all nations. The precife number of ten generations, reckoned by the Jewish legislator between the creation and the deluge, is repeated in the annals of the moft diftant countries. The Chinese compute ten generations from Fohi to Yu, who appears at the head of their first dynasty. The Perfians enumerate the fame number from Soliman Haki to Caicobad, the author of their fecond race. Sanconiatho, a Phrygian, reckons ten generations of gods or demigods between Uranus and the present race of mortals. Berofus, a Chaldean, counts the fame number before a general deluge. The Egyptians give the like number to the Atlantides before that epoch. The Tartars and Arabs, nations famed for their fimplicity and for their attachment to their genealogies and antique tra ditions, ditions, preferve not only the memory of these ten generations, but in concert, though separated by immenfe distances, give to moft of the antediluvian patriarchs, as well as to their immediate fucceffors, the very names confecrated to them by Genefis. The conformity of this laft with the traditions of these two diftant nations, and the frequent and ftrongly marked coincidence which we must have already obferved between the facts announced in it and those which are reported to us by all these antique chronicles, cannot but roufe our curiofity to the particular confideration of a book certainly the most antient that time has preserved. In making the review of antient authors we cannot refufe to Mofes, who precedes them all, a particular attention. Abstractedly from every idea of inspiration, no unprejudiced perfon, who has not a partial system to fupport, can dispense himself from allowing him a certain deference purely as an hiftorian relating the tradition of his age (k). His writings have been tranfmitted to us in an integrity without example. The ingenuous fimplicity of his style gives him an air of candour and of truth. It is not to pofterity alone, nor to a few confidential or learned perfons, these writings are configned: they are publicly read during the author's life to a whole people; and in them he frequently appeals to monuments well known to and under the eyes of that people. The age in which he lived coincides with times in which, as we fhall foon obferve, our Europe was as yet very thinly inhabited by a few barbarous and wandering tribes, and in which, even on the shores of Afia fomewhat removed from the centre, very small states were either yet unfettled, or were in early infancy. That age then approaches to times when mankind was as yet few in number. He carefully enumerates the generations which had preceded him up to the event which must have caufed that paucity. This limited and restricted population, which all history shews as extending itself very slowly in several fucceeding ages on the greatest part of the globe, must evidently have been occasioned either by the revolution he describes, or by fome fuch event, the date of which could not in his time be very far removed. All the general facts of which he speaks are confirmed by, or connected with, the conftant and uncommunicated traditions of every people on earth; and particularly agree with fuch as, like his accounts, are confined to a small number of simple facts. What attestation more authentic than that which is given by the general refult of all antient traditions? The more we examine Genefis, the more we are forced to allow that it feems to be the focus from which proceed, or in which concentrate, all antient truths fcattered over the face of the earth. If fome antient people talk to us of certain beings who preceded man, of gods, of demigods, of fons of the fun or of the moon, of genii and fairies (imaginary existences which reafon obliges us to reject), we find in the recital of Moses the origin, explication, and correction of those fables. Angels of a superior nature created before this earth—a generation of antediluvians, whose lon gevity and vigour of body far furpaffed thofe of the prefent race of men-the diftin&tion of thefe into good and bad by the allegorical denomination of children of God and children of men-indicate the fources from whence a love for the marvellous drew thefe extravagant ideas. If almost all annals retrace to us ten generations preceding a general deftruction by the deluge, in his hiftory we observe their exact filiation and the number of their years; and we remark two fingular people, as yet exifting in their primitive ftate, agreeing with him in the names of many of their chiefs. If the unanimous voice of all nations announces to us an univerfal deluge, it is in his writings that we find its regular hiftory; the particulars of which are to be found scattered in the mutilated accounts of other hiftorians. He names the fmall number of perfons who escaped from it; and most nations claim them to be their firft progenitors. He enumerates the chiefs of the principal races who divided the earth amongst them; and the formal avowal, and the very names, of the most antient people who have existed, or who yet exist in a national body, confirm his veracity on every point which has escaped the ravages of time. In effect, in common with the Jews, who yet exist in so extraordinary a manner, difperfed but not mixed, all nations have retained more or less the memory of that deluge which terminated those ten generations of which we have spoken; but the Tartars and Arabs have preferved to those who escaped from it, and to several of their pofterity, the identical names which Mofes gives them. These two nations certainly deferve a particular diftinction. From their bofom they have fent out conquerors to invade the reft of the earth; but they are the only people who, as nations, have kept unvaried poffeffion of their antient habitations, and have there ever maintained their independence: thefe, like the Jews, have preferved their races unmixed, retained their antient manners and traditions, and like them they are fingularly attached to the preservation of their genealogies. When these traditions, and more particularly thofe of the Tartars, feparated by an immense distance from, and never having had any communication with Judea, are found to agree with each other and with the Jewish records, it must be owned they give a very fingular fanction to thefe laft. The principal Tartars, or more properly Tatars, declare themselves descended from Turk, or Turgoma, fon of Japhet fon of Noah, who was faved from the deluge in the ark, on mount Ararat, the mountain of Baris, or of the Ark. They more ufually call themselves Turks, or Turcomans, than Tatars, which. belongs to a collateral line: they acknowledge in their country, or its neighbourhood, particular races defcended from Gog and Magog, names well known to the whole east under the varied pronunciations of Gin and Magin, Tchin and Matchin: from thefe the Chinese defcend, and as yet bear their names. It should feem that the name of Goth, fo famed in the weft, is also another variation of the fame original appellation. All the Celtic nations are derived from Gomer: and the Welch, one of their branches, who as yet speak their language, call that language Gomraag, and themselves Gomerai. the antient inhabitants of Europe claimed Japhet as their first father, All as |