he
might just as well have dressed up her maids in mens clothes, and with less
trouble. In short the whole of these histories in their common acceptation
is to the last degree absurd, and improbable: but if we make use of an
expedient, which I have often recommended, and for a person substitute a
people, we shall find, when it is stripped of its false colouring, that
there is much truth in the narration.

It was a common mode of expression to call a tribe or family by the name of
its founder: and a nation by the head of the line. People are often spoken
of collectively in the singular under such a patronymic. Hence we read in
Scripture, that Israel abode in tents; that Judah was put to the worst in
battle; that Dan abode in ships; and Asher remained on the sea-coast. The
same manner of speaking undoubtedly prevailed both in Egypt, and in other
countries: and Chus must have been often put for the Cuthites, or Cuseans;
Amon for the Amonians; and Asur, or the Assyrian, for the people of
Assyria. Hence, when it was said, that the Ninevite performed any great
action, it has been ascribed to a person Ninus, the supposed founder of
Nineve. And as none of the Assyrian conquests were antecedent to Pul, and
Assur Adon, writers have been guilty of an unpardonable anticipation, in
ascribing those conquests to the first king of the country. A like
anticipation, amounting to a great many centuries, is to be found in the
annals of the Babylonians. Every thing that was done in later times, has
been attributed to Belus, Semiramis, and other, imaginary princes, who are
represented as the founders of the kingdom. We may, I think, be assured,
that under the character of Ninus, and Ninyas, we are to understand the
Ninevites; as by Semiramis is meant a people called Samarim: and the great
actions of these two nations are in the histories of these personages
recorded. But writers have rendered the account inconsistent by limiting,
what was an historical series of many ages, to the life of a single person.
The Ninevites and Samarim did perform all that is attributed to Semiramis,
and Ninus. They did conquer the Medes, and Bactrians; and extended their
dominions westward as far as Phrygia, and the river Tanais, and to the
Southward as far as Arabia, and Egypt. But these events were many ages
after the foundation of the two kingdoms. They began under Pul of Nineve;
and were carried on by Assur Adon, Salmanassur, Sennacherib, and other of
his succ