THE Eclectic Review, VOL. VI. PART I. FROM JANUARY, TO JUNE, 1810, INCLUSIVE. καλας Φιλοσοφίαν δε ου την Στάικος λεγω, ουδε την Πλατωνικήν, η την Επικουρείου LONDON: Printed for LONGMAN, HURST, REES, AND ORME, PATERNOSTER-ROW. THE ECLECTIC REVIEW, For JANUARY, 1810. Art. I. A New Analysis of Chronology, in which an Attempt is made to explain the History and Antiquities of the primitive Nations of the World, and the Prophecies relating to them, on Principles tending to remove the Imperfection and Discordance of preceding Systems. By the Rev. William Hales, D. D. Rector of Killesandra, in Ireland; and formerly Fellow of Trinity College, and Professor of Oriental Languages in the University of Dublin. 3 vols. 4to. Vol. I. pp. 493. Price 21. 2s. Rivingtons. 1809. THE design of this work is to supply a very material desideratum to the student of history, the utility of which must, of necessity, have occurred to the minds of men ever since their curiosity was stimulated to collect and embody the traditions of their ancestors. The oldest original historians evince a solicitude to mark the dates of principal events; and, from the age of Pericles downwards, we remark the prevalence, in this respect, of an extreme, though partial accuracy. But they lay under the disadvantage of possessing no authenticated era prior to that of the Olympiads; and they were unhappy in their attempts, few and confined as those attempts were, to synchronize the trains of events in different nations. It has been one of the incidental blessings of Divine Revelation, that Christian chronologists have been enabled to supply the first of these requisites; and, if the remaining difficulty be at any time surmounted, the means must be derived from the sacred pages. From the meritorious researches of Theophilus and Eusebius, to those of Scaliger and Usher, of Petavius, Marsham, and Newton, this superiority has been made most manifest; and Technical Chronology has assumed the form of a regular science. But the perplexities of Practical, or Historical Chronology, have still been severely felt: and the more so, as their nature and sources have been more accurately understood. The extravagant pretensions, and wide discrepancies, of early traditions; the position of personal names for national; and of national for those of individuals; the irregular modes of VOL. VI. B |