Egypt and Babylon, from Scripture and Profane Sources. (Hodder and
Stoughton.)—Professor Rawlinson has put together in a convenient shape the main facts of the history of these two nations. The volume is nearly equally divided between the two, and the relation between the Biblical writers and the discoveries of modern times is carefully set forth, a special apologetic purpose being kept before the writer's mind. The volume, of course, contains much valuable and interesting matter. We may specify a carious parallel quoted between the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife, and the tale of "The Two Brothers," written by the Scribe Anna for Seti II. The treatment of the Joseph period generally and its relation to the Hyks6s, or Shepherd Kings, is particularly note- worthy. In the chapters on " The Notices of Egypt in Daniel," Dr. Rawlinson still holds, we observe, to the idea that these are entirely prophetical. The difficulties in this theory are enormous, so unlike to the general tone of prophecy are these detailed predictions. The concluding remarks about the future of Egypt seem somewhat rash. We should not be inclined to stake the truth of Scripture on the continued degradation of Egypt. Surely the denunciations of the Prophets referred to the Monarchy of the Pharaohs, not to the country which we call Egypt.—In that excellent series of "By- Paths of Bible Knowledge," we have three volumes, Egypt and Syria : their Physical Features in Relation to Bible History, by Sir J. William Dawson; Galilee in the Times of Christ, by the Rev. Selah Merrill ; and The Dwellers on the Nile, by E. A. Wallis Bridge, M.A. Mr. Merrill's is a particularly interesting volume, because his subject is comparatively untouched. It is quite surprising how much he has to say on behalf of the Galilean. He has a good word even for Herodias, of whose conduct in following her husband into exile, he somewhat quaintly says that it is " an act which, if people were not prejudiced against her, would be spoken of as noble." People, the Evangelists included, have been "prejudiced" against her. These volumes, we should say, are published by the Religions Tract Society. —We cannot profess to examine the arguments brought forward by Mr. Charles Falkes Watson in Darius the Median Identified ; or, the True Chronology of the Ancient Monarchies Recovered (London Literary Society).—The Hebrew, Egyptian, Assyrian, Babylonian, Lydian, and Medo-Persian Monarchies are successively discussed. The chief novelty in Mr. Watson's account of the Medo-Persian Empire is that he distinguishes between Kai Khosru, the Great Cyrus, and " Cyrus the Mede," C6re'sh. His order, then, is Cyrus I., Cambyses, Cyrus II., son of Cambyses (Herodotus also makes Cyrus to have been the son of a Cambyses, but supposes the father to have been an obscure Persian noble), Darius, son of Hystaspes. " Darius the Mede" is made out to be Cyaxares IL, Ahasuerus is identified with Darius the Persian, and the Artaxerxes of Nehemiah with Xerxes, the difficulty of the " thirty-second year " of a monarch whose reign is generally put down at twenty-two- years being accounted for by a joint reign of eleven years with his father, Darius.
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