t enter into any farther discussion of the great conquests
attributed to this supposed monarch Sesostris. They are as ideal as those
of Sesac, and sufficiently confute themselves. First Osiris is said to have
conquered the whole earth: then Zeus, then Perseus, then [904]Hercules, all
nearly of the same degree of antiquity, if we may believe the best
Mythologists. Myrina comes in for a share of conquest in the time of Orus.
After her Thoules subdues the whole from the Eastern Ocean, to the great
Atlantic: and as if nothing had been performed before, Sesostris
immediately succeeds, and conquers it over again. [905]Herodotus informs
us, as a token of these victories, that Sesostris erected pillars and
obelisks with emblematical inscriptions: and that he saw some of them in
Phrygia, and in other countries, which had been conquered. He without doubt
saw pillars: but how did he know for certain, by whom they were erected?
and who taught him to interpret the symbols? Pausanias takes [906]notice of
a colossal statue in the Thebaeis, and says that the history given of it was
not satisfactory. He tells us, that it stood near the Syringes, in upper
Egypt; and he viewed it with great admiration. It was the figure of a man
in a sitting posture; which some said was the representation of Memnon the
Ethiopian: others maintained, that it was the statue of Phamenophis: and
others again, that it related to Sesostris. There were here emblems, and
symbols; yet a diversity of opinions. I want therefore to know, how
Herodotus could interpret in Phrygia, what a native could not decypher in
Egypt. The same question may be asked about the people of Syria, among whom
were obelisks attributed to the same person. How came they to be so
determinate about an Egyptian work; when people of that country in the same
circumstances were so utterly at a loss? the whole undoubtedly was matter
of surmise. I shall not therefore say any thing more of Sesostris; as I
must again speak of him, when I come to the kings of Egypt.

If we compare the above histories, we may perceive that they bear a
manifest similitude to one another; though they are attributed to different
persons. They contain accounts of great achievements in the first ages: in
effecting which these antient heroes are represented as traversing immense
regions, and carrying their arms to the very limits of the known world: the
great Tartarian ocean to the east, and the Atlantic westward, being the
bou