tical similitude of sounds has
served to prop up a system. As the materials they have are few, so are
the very best and such as pass for authentic extremely precarious, as
learned persons themselves confess.

Julius Africanus, Eusebius, and George the Monk opened the principal
sources of all this science; but they corrupted the waters. Their
point of view was to make profane history and chronology agree with
sacred. For this purpose, the ancient monuments that these writers
conveyed to posterity were digested by them according to the system
they were to maintain; and none of these monuments were delivered down
in their original form and genuine purity. The dynasties of Manetho,
for instance, are broken to pieces by Eusebius, and such fragments of
them as suited his design are stuck into his work. We have, we know,
no more of them. The "Codex Alexandrinus" we owe to George the Monk.
We have no other authority for it; and one can not see without
amazement such a man as Sir John Marsham undervaluing this authority
in one page, and building his system upon it in the next. He seems
even by the lightness of his expressions, if I remember well, for it
is long since I looked into his canon, not to be much concerned what
foundation his system had, so he showed his skill in forming one, and
in reducing the immense antiquity of the Egyptians within the limits
of the Hebraic calculation.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 6: A name under which Aristotle was sometimes known, from
his birthplace Stag.]

[Footnote 7: One of the "Letters on the Study of History."]

ALEXANDER POPE

Born to London in 1688, died in 1744; his father a linen
draper, converted to the Catholic faith; not regularly
educated, owing to his frail and sickly body; began to write
in boyhood, and before he was seventeen had met the leading
literary men of London; his "Essay on Criticism," published
in 1711, translation of Homer in 1720 and 1725, "Essay on
Man," in 1732-34.

I

AN ANCIENT ENGLISH COUNTRY SEAT[8]

'Tis not possible to express the least part of the joy your return
gives me; time only and experience will convince you how very sincere
it is. I excessively long to meet you, to say so much, so very much to
you, that I believe I shall say nothing. I have given orders to be
sent for the first minute of your arrival--which I beg you will let
them know at Mr. Jervas's. I am four-score miles from London, a short