as the prefent emperors of Germany are by their co-eftates. In the time of Confucius the northern parts of that country were ftill divided into feveral fovereignties, and the south part of it, as it should seem, partly as yet under water, and very thinly inhabited (f). He was himself the fubject of one of thefe petty kings, fubordinate to the king of northern China. In his chronicle he gives a dry lift of antient kings, but looks upon history preceding an epocha which does not reach to the days of Mofes, as uncertain and fabulous (gg). No reliance is therefore to be placed on the chronology of that history; and it is easily to be perceived, that all antient traditions are therein much confused and embarrassed. Fohi is often there taken for the firft man, and as often seems rather to represent Noah. That part of the history which seems less tainted with fables begins only with the dynafty, always diftinguished by the title of The First Dynafty, which commences with the emperor Yu 2217 years before Chrift. This indeed may very probably be the era of the first establishment of a colony in China under fome of the defcendants of Noah. Those authors who have been the moft prone to exalt the antient splendour of that nation yet agree, that in the time of this last-named emperor the Chinese occupied only four provinces on the north-weft of the empire. It was in his reign, fay they, that several provinces to the fouth were discovered, into which colonies were fent. It was under his fucceffors of this firft dynafty, called Hia, which lafted 458 years, that the Chinese became more numerous, extended themselves to the eaft, draining and defending fucceffively by dikes from the wa ters ters, which till then overflowed and covered them, the feveral provinces of Kian-nan and of Tche-Kiang. Nothing can better prove the very recent origin of that monarchy, thus gradually fpreading itself over fix only of its most northern provinces in the fufficiently long period of between four and five centuries. It would be faftidious to dwell on the annals and chronology of other nations, in which would be found reafons no lefs cogent to reftrict them within very moderate bounds. I am inclined to think one general circumstance contributed much to extend the accounts of them all. Every nation is defcended from the chief of the family which was faved from the deluge. Equally ambitious of high antiquity, each has very naturally taken the birth of this common father for the remote date of their origin; and by this means the 600 years of Noah before the flood are every where added to the times elapsed after it. I conjecture even, that this is the origin of the length of years reckoned by the Septuagint before Abraham. One may perceive how easily such double entries flip into a long account, from Mr. Bailly's having, as already obferved, given us a flagrant example of it. From all these confiderations it will furely appear probable, that, far from extending the antiquity of those chronicles furnished us by that gentleman, much on the contrary may be discounted from the number of ages he has thought proper to allow them. The state of all nations then known on the earth, at periods more recent and furnishing fomewhat more authentic documents, will, I believe, confirm this fuppofition. In this high antiquity the hiftorical page, full of doubts and contradictions with respect to events supposed to have taken place in Afia and Egypt, abfolutely filent as to those which may have paffed in other parts of the world, fhews us very explicitly, even admitting the exactitude of antient chronology, that the finest climates of our Europe, as well as the oppofite fertile coafts of Afia and Africa, as yet in the state of wild nature, were either uninhabited, or contained only a few scattered families of roving barbarians, 2100 years before Chrift. The neighbouring coafts of Greece and Phrygia are the only parts of those immense tracts whose first colonization it ventures to indicate as having taken place at feveral diftant epochs fubfequent to that period. Of the population of the northern and interior parts of Europe in those times no account is given. From hence we may fairly infer that it either began much later, or from local circumftances was much more flow. From all these premises nothing appears more evident than that men spread themselves flowly and gradually to the weft from the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris, and from Egypt, already flourishing in civil society, to people Europe and western Africa. Accounts much pofterior in point of time difcover those parts of Europe and Asia minor, which are not very diftant from these original feats of mankind, yet very thinly peopled by a few wandering tribes, the era of whofe fettlement is unknown, and who are from thence called fons of the earth, as if they had been the fpontaneous produce of the foil. For the preceding filence of history it seems not very difficult to account.. The The first emigrants who travelled up to the fources of the Euphrates and Tigris found themselves ftopped in their progress northward by the Euxine fea, then probably, as we fhall hereafter fhew, uniting its waters with those of the Caspian. Such of them as did not choose to fettle amongst the lateral branches of the great chain of mount Caucafus were obliged to turn either to the eaft or to the weft. Those who followed this laft direction naturally skirted the borders of the Euxine fea. Having at last gained the Bofphorus of Thrace, through which that fea had not yet forced a paffage for the discharge of great part of its waters, they foon perceived themselves environed by the mountains of Hamus. The different families into which mankind was already divided, though obliged to move flowly with their herds and flocks, their prefent means of fubfiftence, ftrongly impreffed with the idea that they were to choose the future refidence of their pofterity, each feparately preffed forward to fecure fome region far from contention, which might be its undifputed inheritPart of these fons of Japhet (bb) who peopled Europe fpread themselves into the valleys of Thrace and Macedonia; but others, more enterprifing, ventured to climb over those mountains into Bulgaria. The Euxine fea, much more extensive than at present, yet covered all the lower plains which now border the Danube, and thus forced the travellers to keep along the northern skirts of Hamus. Whole generations paffed away amidst the fatigues of this long and toilfome march; and their descendants, eager to find more room and milder climates than these mountains afforded them, ance. pushed pushed forward; and after many years, in small parties, as occasions who |