bility of standing between the past and the future, and of transmitting to the unborn the honors and inheritance of the glorious dead,-needs no argument to convince him of the value of a just commemoration of great historical events. The arrangements for celebrating the two hundredth anniversary of the settlement of New Haven were in many respects fortunate. The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences proposed the celebration, elected one of their most learned members to the duty of preparing a historical discourse, and, by a committee appointed for the purpose, determined the day which was to be considered as marking the commencement of civilization on the soil of Quinnipiack. At a proper time, they introduced the subject to the notice of the municipal authorities of the town and city, by whom the proposal was taken up with great spirit. On the 25th of April, the morning was greeted with the ringing of bells and the discharge of cannon. At an early hour, some thousands of citizens assembled in the public square around the State House. The children from the schools, to the number of fifteen hundred or two thousand, appeared in holiday dress, and, with their centennial badges, under the direction of their teachers—a sight, that drew tears of pride and affection from thousands of eyes. A procession of citizens, followed by the schools, was formed from the State House to the spot where, just two hundred years before, the founders of New Haven kept their first sabbath around an aged oak which has long since perished, but of which tradition has preserved the locality. There, in the presence of a vast multitude, filling the street, covering the roofs of the houses, and standing in the branches of the trees, prayer was offered-in a strain of sentiment and language worthy of the occasion, and with a voice every word of which went distinctly to every ear-by a venerable man, a native of the town, a descendant in the sixth generation from Theophilus Eaton, who, after having sustained the pastoral office in the ancient church of Saybrook for more than half a century, has only since that day received an assistant. Four stanzas from the 84th Psalm, in the version used by the fathers, were then sung, with voices as of many waters, to the puritanical old tune of St. Martin's. * O take us, Lord, unto thy grace, * Dr. Beecher was born, not indeed under the tree, but in the house nearest to where the tree stood. It is said, that his father's anvil stood for many years upon the stump of the old oak. From Egypt, where it grew not well, Thou didst prepare for it a place, O Lord of Hoasts, through thy good grace, convert us unto thee; Behold us with a pleasant face, and then full safe are wee. The procession, returning to the public square, having passed the place where Eaton and Davenport had their dwellings to gether, on opposite sides of the street, entered the spacious and beautiful temple which covers the remains of the fathers, and is occupied by the same church which the fathers organized. There, religious exercises, appropriate to the occasion, were performed by ministers of the Congregational, Episcopal, and Methodist churches,* and the learned discourse before us * One of the hymns prepared for the occasion is so happy in the conception and execution, that we give it a place here. was delivered. And it is not unworthy to be put upon record, that the remainder of the day passed off in perfect quietness, without the "discomfort" and noise of a public dinner, in a population of perhaps fourteen thousand souls, to all of whom it was a holiday. The idea has been studiously inculcated, that of all the fanatical settlers of New England, those who came to Connecticut were the most fanatical; and that of all the settlements of Connecticut, the old New Haven colony was the most insane with all sorts of enthusiasm and bigotry. This calumny does not seem to be of modern origin. We believe it to be considerably older than the revolution. It is an old tradition in Massachusetts, that when the country was planted, if any of the comers were too good to be endured, they were sent to Connecticut; if any were too bad, they were sent to Rhode Island; and such only as were of what we should now call the juste milieu sort were retained in the Bay colony. The origin of such representations is probably, in part, the fact, that as Boston early became a commercial town, and was from 1691 the seat of a royal governor and his court, the primitive Puritan manners became obsolete there earlier than in Connecticut; and strangers visiting Boston, and inquiring after Blue Laws and other things of that kind, the supposed originals of English caricatures, were referred of course to Connecticut. So in Connecticut, after the charter had been obtained, and the simple theocratic government, that originated in a religious covenant, had become extinct, it was natural to refer to the times of the old New Haven colony as the times when Puritan regulation was carried to the highest pitch. The Episcopalian missionaries too, of the Society for Propagating the Gospel, early made a vigorous assault upon Connecticut; and besides the natural influence of their sectarian and political prejudices, it was for their interest, and Theirs was the godlike part- Thinking of our great dead, So doth the eaglet, nursed for the interest of their sect and of the society that employed them, to give a dark picture of Connecticut fanaticism, and sometimes to set off their subjective ideas of the actual state of things, by references to the still more dreadful times before the charter. These ancient and still current misrepresentations. Professor Kingsley's Discourse is well calculated to correct. While the well-known character of the author secures for it a respectful attention in all quarters, its own clear, cool statements carry conviction with them. Never was there a community which could trace its beginning to names more worthy of perpetual veneration than Theophilus Eaton and John Davenport. Never has any community owed to its founders a greater debt of grat itude, than this community owes to the two men who gave it being, and stamped upon it, ineffaceably, not their names, but the impress of their wisdom and their virtues. The beautiful city, with its streets and squares, with its churches, schools and university, is itself their monument. Whether New England renders them due honors or not, we say, accommodating to our use one of the quaint lines which Davenport probably caused to be inscribed over the grave of Eaton, These names forget New Haven never must. Tears ART. XI-ANCIENT CHRONOLOGY.-THE BIBLE.-MANETHO.- Tears. 2. Mane histor Comm TOU W Herme have In the June number of this Journal, for 1837, we attempted to rescue the fragments of the Universal History of Egypt, by MANETHO, from the suspicion and contempt which had been thrown upon them;-to restore the true reading of his text, which is disfigured and mutilated as it now stands, in all his copyists; and to show, that when so restored, it harmonizes to an astonishing degree with the chronology of the Bible. In the course of the article, (Vol. 9, p. 198, n.) we took occasion to say, in a note, that the whole of the first fifteen of the Egyptian dynasties, as set down by Manetho, are entirely fabulous. We now propose to show, that Manetho himself considered that portion of his history fabulous, that he has in effect so described it, and that when corrected and restored, his chronology harmo nizes, to a still greater extent, with the scriptural chronology, To, N. Vol. 2. le to h guished fect obi Maneth Syn Tou han we even intimated in that article. We have added, also, o the ancient chronologies to be compared with Manetho and the Bible, the ancient Assyrian chronology, as preserved in the Ptolemaic Canon. We have done this, on account of the close agreement of its dates with those under consideration; and because the course we have pointed out, seems to bid fair to open a door for A HARMONY OF ALL THE ANCIENT CHRONOLOGIES. If this can be done, (of which there now seems no reasonable doubt,) it will furnish an external argument in favor of the truth of the history of the Bible, which has no parallel in any other work. Our reasons for supposing, that Manetho intended to divide his history into the fabulous and historical portions, are five-fold. 1. We infer this from the dynasties themselves. The Old Chronicle, which is generally believed to be a synopsis of Manetho,* gives to the reign of SOL, 30,000 years; to SATURN and other gods, 3,984 years; to the DEMI-GODS, 217 years; and then fifteen generations of men, after the commencement of the Cynic cycle,-(the Egyptian, astronomical, and historical cycle of 1460 astronomical, or 1461 common years,) 443 years. The bare statement of the facts, in reference to this early period,-of 34,201 years-is sufficient to prove it entirely fabulous. And as to the 443 years of the Cynic cycle, it can at most be reckoned of no higher authority than traditionary. Now the whole extent of time, from the beginning of the reign of Sol, to the destruction of the Empire by Ochus of Persia, was only 36,525 years. Deducting the fabulous portion of the Egyptian history, to wit 34,644, from 36,525 years, and we shall have only 1,881 years, for the extent of the historical period. 2. We draw the same inference from the account which Manetho gives of the materials from which he compiled his history. In a letter addressed to Ptolemy Philadelphus, at whose command the work was composed, he says:-"I shall lay before you what I have gathered from the sacred books, written by Hermes Trismegistus, our forefather. But this letter seems to have reference only to the first portion of his work. That *Scaliger, Euseb. Chron. p. 6; Prideaux, Con. Par. 1, b. 7, vol. 2, p. 131 (3 vols. 8vo. N. Y. 1823,) seem to have no doubt of this fact. But Shuckford, Con. b. 10, Vol. 2, p. 131, (2 Vols. 8vo. Phil. 1824,) supposes the first part of the Old Chronicle to have been drawn from other sources. But that Manetho himself, distinguished his history into fabulous as well as historic, to which Shuckford in effect objects, is clear from what is said by Castor, who professes to copy from Manetho. Cory, An. Frag. p. 91, (Lond. 8vo. 1832.) † Syncellus, p. 40, Par. Ed. Scal. Euseb. p. 6. 83 |