and MAGOGUE presignified the Russian power; a belief, inexplicable to those who are acquainted only with our common translation of Ezekiel, and who are therefore not aware, that the proper-name of Ros (which was incontestably an ancient name of the RUSSIAN people), is an original and essential member of this Prophecy. The prevalence of which opinion caused Michaelis, in

to signify a prince. But this inference was much too rapid; the quantity of the Hebrew language contained in the books of the Old Testament; in which many of its words are used only once or twice, many are certainly not introduced at all; does not supply a crite rion of all the capacities of that language, sufficiently complete to authorize the conclusion. We must therefore resort to the general analogy of languages. It has been supposed, that ', Nesiim, signified clouds in the plural only; as many words in the Latin are represented to be employed only in the plural number, and have, therefore, been classed by Gramma❤ rians under the head of Heteroclites in number. But, even in Latin, this arrangement is known to be erroneous and unfounded; for the rule is drawn merely from a later practice, and not from any fundamental principle of the speech. And accordingly, we find that many of the words represented as unused in the

endeavouring to appropriate the name of Ros to the Asiatic Russians exclusively, to conclude his argument with these remarkable words:"Let those, therefore, "who interpret the Prophets, cease to "dread any longer the RUSSIAN Power, "in the names of Gogue and Magogue."Desinant ergo, qui Prophetas interpre"tantur, ad GOGI et MAGOGI

nomen

singular, were nevertheless so employed by writers earlier than those who are made the standard of the language to us. Of these we may instance the words, Lemures, Manes, delicia, divitiæ, liberi ; all of which, though presented to us as words having no singular, are nevertheless to be found in the singular number.

Thus Apuleius: "Veteri Latina lingua reperis "Lemurem dictitatum." He adds, of the same: "Manem Deum nuncupant." De Deo Socrat Plautus more than once employs the word delicia, where the standard writers use only delicia: Trucul. v. 1, 29. Rud. ii. 4, 13. Divitia, is quoted in the singular form by Nonius, 7. 64. from Accius, a writer who lived about 200 years ant. Chr. “æternabilem "divitium partissent." And liber is used for a child even by Quintillian, in the singular: "liberi et parentis "affectus." Declam. ii. pro Caco. c. 8. p: 45.-Without extending these examples any further, we may be

potentiam horrescere RUSSORUM*" But, by discerning that GOGUE is here described, not as "the Prince" of Ros, Mose, and TOBL, but as an ascending" CLOUD" threat. ening to involve and overwhelm those regions, the ground of that chimerical apprehension is fundamentally taken away.

IV. We are next to consider the regions, or nations, from which the invading host was to proceed. The Prophet informs us, that they should consist of MAGOGUE, in chief, with GOMER and TOGARMAH associated ;

sure that these and other words were used in the singular, before a later practice confined them to the plural. And thus, though the plural ''), Nesiim, is used four times where the collective clouds of the heavens are spoken of; yet no critical reason can be alleged, why the singular swa, Nasi, might not have been used, in a figurative description, where one great Invader is compared to a cloud," which figure is confirmed by the parallel and responsive term 11, a cloud, in the two following verses, 9 and 16. But the more common signification was adopted for this mysterious passage, at first sight, as seeming to convey a meaning more immediately intelligible; and yet, as it now appears, it is altogether erroneous and unintelligible. "Geogr. Heb. Ext." p. 55:

† See notes to Ezek. xxxviii, 5 and 6.

let us therefore now inquire, where were the regions of MAGOGUE and GOMER?

We know, from the Hebrew Scriptures, that these are the names of two sons of Japhet; and it is to ancient Hebrew autho rity alone that we can resort, to learn where, according to the common repute of the Hebrew people, the nations which descended from those two heads of families, and which long retained the proper-names of those heads, were spread and established. Josephus is the earliest Hebrew authority, of weight and learning, to which we can address ourselves; and he distinctly informs us, "that

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Japhet, the son of Noah, had seven sons; "who, proceeding from their primitive

seats in the mountains of Taurus and "Amanus, ascended Asia to the river Ta"nais (or Don); and there entering EUROPE, "penetrated as far WESTWARD as the Straits "of Gibraltar, occupying the lands which

they successively met with in their progress; "(all of which were uninhabited); and be"queathed their names to their different fami"lies, or nations. That GOMER founded the "GOMARI, whom the Greeks, at that time,

« called GALATA, της ΝΥΝ ὑφ ̓ Ἑλληνων « ΓΑΛΑΤΑΣ καλεμενες; —and that Magogue "founded the MAGOGE, whom the Greeks "then called SCYTHE, Exuba*." It only therefore remains for us to ascertain, which were the nations that the Greeks, in the time of Josephus, called Scythæ, and which they then called Galata; and to observe, whether the geographical affinities of these pations are such as answer to those which are plainly required by the Prophecy for Magogue and Gomer.

Herodotus, the most ancient Greek writer whom we can consult, and at the same time the most inquisitive and correct; and who tells us, that he took particular pains to obtain information upon the point; acquaints

us,

"that the name Scythe, was a name given by the Greeks themselves to an ancient and

widely extended people of Europe, who had "spread themselves from the river Tanais, "or Don, WESTWARD, along the banks of "the Ister, or DANUBE."-"The Greeks

* "Antiq. Ind." lib. i. c. 6.

+ Lib. iv.