the followers of Newton, to be highly improbable that several concurrent successions of reigns should occupy what would amount to the proportion of thirty-three years to a reign, the principal reason of this improbability is, because it is highly improbable that several concurrent successions of reigns should proceed unbrokenly in a direct line. The one improbability measures the other, or rather is the same with it. It is precisely because the lineal descent is apt to be interrupted, that the law which regulates lineal descent will not in this case apply; and if actual experiment, within the range of authentic history, proves that, even where a sovereignty is quietly transmitted downwards in the same family, the succession is not apt to follow the law of lineal descent, it necessarily, and in the very same degree, proves that the succession is not apt to follow the course of lineal descents. When, therefore, the recorded chronology of early Greece is charged with falsehood, because, contrary to all experience, it supposes several coincident regal successions to have obeyed, for centuries together, the lineal law, in what manner is its truth demonstrated by asserting that it, in fact, supposes those successions to have been lineal? This involves the very point in which its alleged falsehood consists; and to urge this as an answer to the charge, is something like assuming the thing to be proved as part of the proof. It is not making one difficulty explain another, only because it approaches to the still more questionable device of making a difficulty explain itself.

Single examples, we again admit, may be found, in which a crown has for a long period regularly been handed from father to son. The catalogue of the kings of Judah presents us with eighteen kings in a direct line; a remarkable circumstance, but, like other remarkable circumstances, capable of being substantiated by testimony. In this instance, indeed, it is farther worthy of observation, that early marriages and violent deaths reduced the average length of reigns considerably below thirty years. Otherwise, the case may be considered as nearly parallel with that of the Spartan kings of the race of Eurysthenes, of whom sixteen, as we are told, reigned in a direct line. Each case is uncommon, though neither reaches the point of positive improbability. But here is the distinction; the succession of the kings of Judah is unique; nothing like a long regular course can be traced in any of the concurrent royalties mentioned in Scripture; and that of Judah, of which the whole history is minutely given, is sown thick with interruptions, chiefly indeed from deposals and usurpations. On the other hand, let us observe what we are called to believe in the Grecian history. First, there were two consociate races of Spartan kings; and as from Eurysthenes inclusive, the lineal descent continued for sixteen reigns, so, at the very same time, from his brother Procles inclu

sive, the lineal descent continued for fifteen reigns. What casts additional suspicion on this very suspicious account, is that this double continuity of lineal descent is exclusively confined to the times which preceded the expulsion of the Pisistratidæ, that is, to the dark ages of Greece. Immediately after that æra, we find, in the race of Eurysthenes, Cleomenes succeeded by his half-brother Leonidas; Plistarchus, the son of Leonidas, succeeded by his cousin Plistoanax; and, in three generations more, Agesipolis by his brother Cleombrotus. Beginning at the same point, we find, in the race of Procles, Demaratus displaced by his cousin Leotychides; and, after two more reigns, Agis succeeded by his half-brother Agesilaus. These changes are in the natural course of things; but previously to these, the chronologers palm upon us fifteen or sixteen successive kings of each line, one and all of them in the direct descent; a relation, which surely cannot be received without much hesitation and wonder.

It would be well, however, if we could stop here, or if the chronologers either would or could be content with placing an exclusive reliance on the royal genealogies of Sparta. But Freret, in behalf both of himself and of the ancients, strongly disclaims such a principle; and the truth is, that, unsupported by the other concurrent royal genealogies, the basis of the system of synchronisms would be greatly weakened. There are exhibited, therefore, catalogues of the kings of Messene down to the extinction of that kingdom; of Corinth and Arcadia, down to the periods in which royalty was abolished in those states respectively; and of Macedon, down to the epoch of the Persian invasion. These lives occupied different lengths of time; but the shortest lasted for centuries; and as they are all said to have been direct, the chronology of every one of them is computed by the proportion of three reigns to a century. Now it has already been observed, that the circumstance of a long succession of sovereigns, proceeding according to the course of lineal descent, as in itself it is remarkable, so is rendered considerably improbable, when asserted of two coincident royal races like those of Sparta. What shall we say, then, when to these two lines a third is added, standing precisely, we are assured, in the same predicament? What, when still farther, a fourth,-a fifth,a sixth? Six concurrent lines, all from the same stock, all within the limits of Greece, five of them within the narrow nook of the Peloponnesus, and this during a period comparatively darkened by barbarism, and ensanguined by such warfare and bloodshed as barbarism ordinarily produces,-yet all proceeding for ages together in mutual unison, but by gradations so inconsistent with the common rule of succession, that it probably would be a task of some little labour to discover six other such exceptions to it, at whatever dis

tance

tance from each other, throughout the whole extent of ascertained history. For ourselves, we must own that we find this so great a demand on our credulity as we can ill afford to satisfy. Even the plainest terms of language seem to be confounded together, when we hear of a rule which in every instance fails, and of an exception which is in every instance exemplified.

It must always be remembered, that we are here speaking of the world as it actually is. If men lived two or three hundred years or more, it would be a highly improbable occurrence that any of them should ever die without leaving some issue; and, in that event, the long undeviating progress of a family in a right line would not be at all surprizing. That the matter is not so in the present state of things, that the presumption is the other way, any man may satisfy himself, who will attend to such histories of the course of private families as he has the means of knowing. Yet this is, in some respects, the weaker case. For royal life was exposed to peculiar hazards in times when barbarism and war prevailed, when wars were murderous and wearing beyond all modern experience, when kings were always expected to be the leaders of their own forces, and when the leader was such, not figuratively but literally.

But the facts in question, it is said, however wonderful, are attested by the conspiring voice of antiquity. Here again the point in dispute seems to be begged. That there is no fact so singular, provided only that it does not involve a contradiction, of which the truth may not be established by a certain weight of testimony, Newton was fully aware: much better aware than, we are sorry to say, Freret latterly shewed himself. In the present case, however, the testimony is extremely imperfect. It is that of authors speaking to events which confessedly took place many centuries before their own time, and in an age of barbarism; and the authors, in a great measure, copy the stories from each other. To such evidence Newton very allowably opposed the radical improbability of the things related; and the credit, in this respect, of the testimony, being thus directly put in issue, certainly cannot be quoted in its own favour. If it be merely meant that the authors alluded to, having computed the chronology of certain regal successions according to the law of lineal descent, are at least consistent in asserting that those successions were indeed lineal, the plea may surely be allowed; but it is, to make the most of it, not very forcible, since the charge against those authors is that of inconsistency, not with themselves, but with experience.

In addition to the grand argument already noticed, some auxiliary explanations have been offered of the pretended length of reigns in early Greece, and especially in the two Spartan lines. On behalf of the latter, it is in the first place alleged, that the kings

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of Sparta were not allowed to marry young, probably not till the age of thirty-seven; a circumstance which would of course tend to increase the chance of long minorities. With respect to this allegation, as it is disallowed, and we think justly, by M. Clavier, we shall only remark, that the fact, even if admitted, would by no means be conclusive in favour of the hypothesis which it is adduced to support. For, if the lateness of the royal marriages would tend, as it would undoubtedly tend, to increase the chance of long minorities, yet it would in nearly the same degree tend to increase the chance of the sovereign's dying before he had any issue at all, that is, the chance of the introduction of the collateral line; and it is plain that this latter effect, as far as it extended, must counteract the former.

Next, it is contended that some long minorities actually occur in the history of the Spartan kings; on which it may be enough to observe, that the general rule furnished by experience for the average length of reigns, fully provides for the occasional occurrence of long minorities. When it is calculated, that, in the lineal descent, three generations ordinarily fill a century, it is meant to be perfectly understood, at the same time, that particular cases very greatly err on both sides of this medium. On the whole, however, long minorities and premature deaths mutually compensate for each other; and, on this rule, the proportion is struck. In reckoning the duration of a series of reigns, the occasional intrusion of the collateral descent so far alters our proportion, that the medium allowance to every term in the series is reduced to 223 years. But it is manifestly impossible to balance this reduction by talking of long minorities; for the possibility of these was sufficiently taken into the account in the first instance.

Lastly, it is urged that, from the beginning of the first Messenian war downwards, the assumed proportion of three reigns to a century was actually verified in both the Spartan lines. Were the fact proved, so extraordinary a circumstance would not authorise our extending the same scale of computation farther back than the first Messenian war; but the truth is, that the date of this war is precisely one of the posts contested between the Newtonian and the common chronology. The single direct authority for the date vulgarly assigned, is, we believe, a passage in Pausanias, the verbal correctness of which as delivered down to us, Mr. Mitford disputes; and, even if the passage be incorrupt, there was abundant room for a mistake on the part of the author.

It is hardly necessary to mention that the pleas of late marriages and long minorities have been set up in defence of all the royal lines on which we have commented, though certainly in every other case more vaguely and loosely than in that of Sparta. How far

such

such explanations are calculated to relieve us from the difficulties of the subject, has, in reference to that case, already been shewn; and we fear that the explanations no more gain strength or probability by recurring in so many additional instances, than the fraction of an unit gains magnitude by being repeatedly multiplied into itself.

It is doing no more than justice, however, to the system of Freret and M. Clavier, to state that it does not depend solely on royal or public successions, recorded in the archives of states, but in part, also, on private genealogies which were preserved, as these authors suppose, in the bosom of particular families. Of these they have, with great industry, made out several; as, among others, those of Miltiades of Athens, and of Battus who has the credit of having founded the kingdom of Cyrene; and they find that these, generally speaking, synchronise very tolerably, with the royal successions already mentioned. Now there is room to believe that a private genealogy, as the object of it usually is to trace the filiation of some living person, will simply recount the steps of his lineage from father to son, without noticing those branches of the common stem who may have died off without issue. On this account, in computing it chronologically, we may safely allow three successive names to a century; and if, therefore, thus computed, it is found to harmonise with any particular succession of kings, the presumption may be raised that such succession of kings must have proceeded regularly in the direct line. We have not had the leisure to investigate the private genealogies relied on by Messrs. Freret and Clavier; nor know how far it can be ascertained, (if indeed it be not folly to talk of ascertaining any thing on the matter,) whether the object of such genealogies was simply to trace the lineage of individuals, or whether it was not rather to trace the representation of families, in which latter case every man who had ever headed the family would be recorded, though he should have died childless and left his place to collaterals. At all events, however, it strongly appears to us that the authority of these genealogies, though it may effectually prevail to load the question with new perplexities, is by no means adequate to remove those by which it was previously embarrassed.

Before we quit this subject, we would address one general observation to the genealogical synchronists; whom we cannot help reminding that, in the application of their master-principle, they have not a little sacrificed that simplicity on the ground of which it stood chiefly recommended. When we deduce from certain experience an average for the ordinary rate of human descent, or of royal succession, and when we employ this result to settle the chronology of the catalogues of either kind transmitted down to us

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