some guide, who has trodden this whole mazy and perplexed path already; in the course of which he discovered some truths, which either had not occurred to any inquirers before, or had been as soon neglected, as perceived, without being turned to any profit; and yet a proper application of these will remove the discordances, introduced by others, and prove, that no chronologer has been without his errors, that sometimes one is right, and sometimes another, and sometimes not any one.

Such then being the present state of chronology both Jewish and profane; such being the ill effects and unfavorable conclusions, derived from its discordances as well, as the good effects, which may be expected from reconciling and removing them; some persons may nevertheless be inclined to doubt whether it be possible, after so many learned folios on this subject, to discover any thing new; and others to question, how it could be possible for so many learned writers to have overlooked any obvious truths, and disagreed so much with each other, unless there were some inveterate errors in the very principles of the science itself, which no human attention and accuracy could remove. To the former it is sufficient to observe, that it is no uncommon thing for men, even learned men, blindly to follow each other; so that any error, once made, and often recognized for truth, becomes sanctified by authority, and will seldom fail to find some friends ready to distort many quotations from ancient authors in its defence. The abstruse disquisitions, which Scaliger, Petavius, and others introduced into chronology, by adding astronomical proofs to historical, have been another cause of concealing their errors from the public, and obstructing improvements in the science; for such learned inquiries have made some suppose, there could be no errors intermixed, and prevented others from examining, whether there were or not. Many have been silenced by great names; and the greater part of readers have supposed, that chronology was buried under difficulties by mountains, piled upon mountains. In regard to the second

question, although Bolingbroke and most others perhaps seem inclined to think, that there are such defects in the very principles of the science, as render it impossible to be brought to perfection, on account of our not having sufficiently clear and accurate information concerning dates and events, transmitted to us by the ancients; yet these researches will rather tend to show, that the fault is in ourselves, and not in the ancients; that modern chronologers have not put together the dates, which have been transmitted, in a consistent manner; that they have mistaken the sense of several passages in Greek and Roman authors as well, as in the Jewish scriptures, and reasoned inconclusively from others; that they have built their several systems too often upon mere conjecture, and defended favorite suppositions with more ingenuity, than fidelity; that they have sometimes displayed an over officious zeal for supposed senses in scripture in opposition to the plain meaning of profane authors; and at other times have adhered to the systematic errors of the ancient, Jewish, and Christian chronologers, Josephus, Africanus, Eusebius, and Syncellus. Although these writers neither agree with profane authors, with one another, with scripture, nor even with themselves; upon the whole, that the cen.sures, passed by chronologers upon ancient, profane historians, together with those of sceptics against the Jewish scriptures, will be found in both cases always founded in some error of their own, either in point of reasoning, or of fact, or of the sense, to which they have tied down the words of an ancient quotation, which is just as well capable of some other and more consistent meaning. Had it not been for these impediments, the assistance, which, as Bolingbroke observed, scripture chronology has already received from profane, might have been carried much farther, than it has. Squire in his defence of the Greek chronology against Sir Isaac Newton has justly concluded, that, although there might be errors in it, yet they did not amount to any such, as Sir Isaac pretended, before the commencement of the Olympiads. The ancients have left us sufficient materials to adjust all the prin

cipal events without any error of more, than a single year; and perhaps not even of that after the commencement of the three celebrated æras, that of the Olympiads, the foundation of Rome, and the Chaldean æra, called the era of Nabonassar, and commonly but improperly known by the name of Ptolemy's canon; which three æras commence within thir ty years of each other, and include the most interesting peri od of the Jewish history; yet it will at the same time be come a vindication of the Jewish likewise; for, when an accurate standard of the former shall be thus established, the latter will be found to agree with it.

A BRIEF CHARACTER OF THE LOW COUN TRIES UNDER THE STATES;

Being three weeks' observations of the virtues and vices of the inhabitants.

In presenting to the public the following little tract we feel, that we are af fording pleasure to the literary virtuoso.

Of the biography of the author we have not found a line. He has left a monument in his works. The only inscription, they bare, is his name, "OW"EN FELLTHAM." He was a child of genius, and, when we have traced his lineage so high, it is unnecessary to search through the worm eaten es cutcheons of the herald's office for another line of ancestry. He lived in the time of Charles I, Cromwell, and Charles II; and hated the round heads as zealously, as Johnson.

His" RESOLVES run through eight impressions in his lifetime; and it is not extravagant praise to say, they merited so general attention. Felltham seems to have been the scholar of Shakespeare and Bacon; and, if he does not follow them with equal steps, he never loses sight of his masters, Though he lived to the time of Dryden, he never loses the striking stamp of a more bold and rude age.

The following work was written in his youth for amusentent rather, than from spleen. He ranked it with his puerilia, and considered it tes light for a prudential man to publish. We rejoice however, that the knavery of a bookseller induced his friend to give us a correct edition. It is invaluable, as a picture of the nation, it describes, and as a specimen

the style of the age, in which it was written. We have suppressed some of the rude jokes, which in our age would receive a harder name, than levities. Delicacy might have expunged more, but in taking away the characteristics of his time, we deprive the sketch of its chief value, and in allowing it but the refinement, we may reduce it to the insipidity of modern ravels

Non seria semper.

THEY áre a general sea land; the great bog of Eu rope. There is not such another marsh in the world, that's flat. They are an universal quagmire epitomized, a green theese in pickle. There is in them an equilibrium of mud and water. A strong earthquake would shake them into a chaos, from which the successive force of the sun rather, than creation, hath a little emended them,

One says, it affords the people one commodity beyond all other regions. If they die in perdition, they are so low, that they have a shorter cut to hell, than the rest of their neighbors. And for this cause perhaps all strange religions throng thither, as naturally inclining toward the centre. Besides, their riches show them to be of Pluto's region; and you all know what part that was, which the poets of old did assign him, Here is Styx, Acheron, Cocytus, and the rest of those muddy streams, that have made matter for the fablers. Almost every one is a Charon here; and, if you have but a naulum to give, you cannot want or boat or pilot. To confirm all, let but some of our Separatists be asked, and they shall swear, that the Elysian fields are there.

It is an excellent country for a despairing lover; for every corner affords him willow to make a garland of. But, if jus-, tice doom him to hang on any other tree, he may in spite of the sentence live long and confident. If he had rather quench his spirits, than suffocate them; rather choose to Feed lobsters, than crows; it is but leaping from his window, and he lights in a river or a sea. If none of these cure him, keep but a winter in a house without a stove, and that will cool him.

The soil is all fat, though wanting the color to show it; for indeed it is the buttock of the world, full of veins and

blood; but no bones in it. Had St. Stephen been condemned to suffer here, he might have been alive at this day; for, unless it be in their paved cities, gold is a great deal more plentiful, than stones.

It is a singular place to fat monkies in. There are spiders as big, as shrimps; and, I think, as many; their gardens, being moist, abound with these. No creatures; for sure they were bred, not made. Were they but as venomous, as rank, to gather herbs were to hazard martyrdom, They are so large, that you would almost believe, the Hesperides were here, and these the dragons, that did guard them.

You may travel the country, though you have no guide; for you cannot balk your road without the danger of drowning. There is not there any use of an harbinger. Wheresoever men go, the way is made before them. Had they cities large, as their walls, Rome would be esteemed a bauble. Twenty miles in length is nothing for a waggon to be hurried on one of them; where, if your foreman be sober, you may travel in safety; otherwise you must have stronger faith, than Peter had, else you sink immediately. A starting horse endangers you to two deaths at once; breaking of your neck and drowning.

If your way be not thus, it hangs in the water; and at the approach of your waggon shall shake, as if it were ague strucken. Duke of Alva's taxing of the tenth penny frighted it into a palsey, which all the mountebanks, they have bred since, could never tell how to cure.

'Tis a green sod in water, where if the German eagle dare to bathe himself, he is glad again to perch, that he may dry his wings.

Their ordinary packhorses are all of wood, carry their bridles in their tails, and their burdens in their bellies. A strong tyde and a stiff gale are the spurs, that make them speedy. When they travel, they touch no ground; when they stand still, they ride, and are never in danger, but when they drink up too much of their way.