evil, have, under existing circumstances, proved of limited and temporary use, as the best expedients for counteracting greater evils; we may also see, that those remedial evils, if we may so term them, have a constant tendency to swell into excess, so as to become in turn, as soon as they touch the point of ascendancy, greater in magnitude and more disastrous in operation. It is thus with every false principle of social union, national prejudice, superstition, feudalism, priestcraft; although human society, in its corrupt state, has been chiefly kept from total dissolution by the alternate and reciprocal operation of these miserable expedients. But la verité vaut mieux absolument-Truth exhibits ' a more excellent way.'

As the origin of all civil society is to be traced to the formation of cities, so, the formation of cities may in most cases be ascribed to the parent of civilization, commerce. As the commerce of antiquity was carried on principally by land, the personal safety of the merchant and the interests of trade required the adoption of the system of caravans, with fixed lines of route and places of rendezvous. These places of repose and defence, Professor Heeren suggests, would become entrepôts of commerce, and not unfrequently the sites of temples and sanctuaries, under the protection of which the merchant prosecuted his trade, and to which the pilgrim resorted. Superstition has seldom exerted so useful an influence, as when, the patroness of commerce, she has interposed to screen the trader from the robber, the merchant from the warrior, though sometimes also the offender and the impostor from the magistrate. This mode of communication between distant regions, which always creates a considerable intermediate trade, had the effect of creating emporia of commerce along the whole line of route, which, being frequented by the numbers attracted by the love of gain, gradually grew up into flourishing cities, and following the usual progress of refinement, increased in wealth and civilization,-in luxury and commerce. Thus, all the great cities of antiquity are found in the caravan routes leading from the remote regions of the Seres and Indi to the shores of the Mediterranean. The routes were not primarily determined by the cities, but the cities sprang up in the geographical route; and when the stream of commerce was diverted from its original channel by war, or by the discovery of a better route, the towns which it had created, declined, and often sank into utter decay. Some trade, indeed, was, from the earliest times of which we have any historic record, carried on by sea; but it was almost entirely a coasting navigation, subordinate to the land traffic, and, from its tediousness and uncertainty, employed only from necessity, or confined, at most, to narrow seas. The commerce of the ancients forms one of the most interesting subjects of historical inquiry; for all that was admirable in their polity and institutions may be

shewn to have grown out of it. War and conquest, the favourite topics of the bard, which comprise the romance of history, have in all ages been the great barbarizers of the species. The epochs of the Macedonian and Roman empires, Professor Heeren remarks, are far from being the most important or the most instructive, in respect to even the polity of the ancients.

The variety which distinguished the Ancient forms of government, was necessarily overwhelmed by an universal dominion; and Commerce herself was apt to be fettered with the same bondage in which every other civil relation was confined. We must ascend to a more distant age, if we would contemplate the constitutions of the Ancients in all their diversity, and their commerce in its most tranquil and flourishing condition. The period immediately preceding the establishment, and during the continuance of the Persian monarchy, appears to offer to the historian the most satisfactory survey and the richest field of inquiry. By examining this epoch, we shall be enabled to estimate correctly the commerce of Alexandria of a later date, and the questions arising out of the political systems of the Romans and Macedonians. In like manner, by ascending to the age referred to, we behold, as it were, every thing in its proper place, before the success of one nation had deprived the rest of their independence. Every commercial state then occupied the rank and position in the general system, for which it appeared to be designed by its peculiar advantages. The shores of the Mediterranean were inhabited in every direction by industrious and seafaring nations. Carthage had occupied the greater part of the coast of Africa, and, by opening her ports for the importation of foreign produce, had already begun to monopolize the commerce of the interior. Cyrene was the immediate neighbour of Carthage, and had become her rival, by her possessions along the eastern portion of the same coast. Over against these cities, the Grecian colonies of Sicily and Italy had grown, by the cultivation of their fruitful territories, to a degree of opulence and prosperity which, in the end, proved fatal to them. Their narrow limits could with difficulty produce as much oil and wine as was absorbed by the neighbouring country of Gaul, and the boundless continent of Africa; which were either altogether barren of these productions, or afforded them sparingly and with difficulty. Italy was then principally in the hands of the Etrusci, a nation who, in spite of the jealous rivalry of Carthage, maintained themselves in the Mediterranean: while the Romans, pent up as yet within the limits of Latium, were content to carry on a peaceful traffic, and conclude a treaty of commerce with their future enemies, the Carthaginians. The internal commerce of Gaul was in the hands of Massilia, the most peaceful and prosperous of all the Grecian states.; while, on the coast of Spain, Gades and other independent Phoenician colonies, were mistresses of fleets which even braved the waves of the Atlantic.

The States of Greece, more particularly Athens and Corinth, with their Ionian dependencies, had secured to themselves the commerce of the Ægean and the Black Sea; and even Egypt, exclusive as it was

evil, have, under existing circumstances, proved of limited and temporary use, as the best expedients for counteracting greater evils; we may also see, that those remedial evils, if we may so term them, have a constant tendency to swell into excess, so as to become in turn, as soon as they touch the point of ascendancy, greater in magnitude and more disastrous in operation. It is thus with every false principle of social union,-national prejudice, superstition, feudalism, priestcraft; although human society, in its corrupt state, has been chiefly kept from total dissolution by the alternate and reciprocal operation of these miserable expedients. But la verité vaut mieux absolument-Truth exhibits

' a more excellent way.'

As the origin of all civil society is to be traced to the formation of cities, so, the formation of cities may in most cases be ascribed to the parent of civilization, commerce. As the commerce of antiquity was carried on principally by land, the personal safety of the merchant and the interests of trade required the adoption of the system of caravans, with fixed lines of route and places of rendezvous. These places of repose and defence, Professor Heeren suggests, would become entrepôts of commerce, and not unfrequently the sites of temples and sanctuaries, under the protection of which the merchant prosecuted his trade, and to which the pilgrim resorted. Superstition has seldom exerted so useful an influence, as when, the patroness of commerce, she has interposed to screen the trader from the robber, the merchant from the warrior, though sometimes also the offender and the impostor from the magistrate. This mode of communication between distant regions, which always creates a considerable intermediate trade, had the effect of creating emporia of commerce along the whole line of route, which, being frequented by the numbers attracted by the love of gain, gradually grew up into flourishing cities, and following the usual progress of refinement, increased in wealth and civilization,-in luxury and commerce. Thus, all the great cities of antiquity are found in the caravan routes leading from the remote regions of the Seres and Indi to the shores of the Mediterranean. The routes were not primarily determined by the cities, but the cities sprang up in the geographical route; and when the stream of commerce was diverted from its original channel by war, or by the discovery of a better route, the towns which it had created, declined, and often sank into utter decay. Some trade, indeed, was, from the earliest times of which we have any historic record, carried on by sea; but it was almost entirely a coasting navigation, subordinate to the land traffic, and, from its tediousness and uncertainty, employed only from necessity, or confined, at most, to narrow seas. The commerce of the ancients forms one of the most interesting subjects of historical inquiry; for all that was admirable in their polity and institutions may be

shewn to have grown out of it. War and conquest, the favourite topics of the bard, which comprise the romance of history, have in all ages been the great barbarizers of the species. The epochs of the Macedonian and Roman empires, Professor Heeren remarks, are far from being the most important or the most instructive, in respect to even the polity of the ancients.

The variety which distinguished the Ancient forms of government, was necessarily overwhelmed by an universal dominion; and Commerce herself was apt to be fettered with the same bondage in which every other civil relation was confined. We must ascend to a more distant age, if we would contemplate the constitutions of the Ancients in all their diversity, and their commerce in its most tranquil and flourishing condition. The period immediately preceding the establishment, and during the continuance of the Persian monarchy, appears to offer to the historian the most satisfactory survey and the richest field of inquiry. By examining this epoch, we shall be enabled to estimate correctly the commerce of Alexandria of a later date, and the questions arising out of the political systems of the Romans and Macedonians. In like manner, by ascending to the age referred to, we behold, as it were, every thing in its proper place, before the success of one nation had deprived the rest of their independence. Every commercial state then occupied the rank and position in the general system, for which it appeared to be designed by its peculiar advantages. The shores of the Mediterranean were inhabited in every direction by industrious and seafaring nations. Carthage had occupied the greater part of the coast of Africa, and, by opening her ports for the importation of foreign produce, had already begun to monopolize the commerce of the interior. Cyrene was the immediate neighbour of Carthage, and had become her rival, by her possessions along the eastern portion of the same coast. Over against these cities, the Grecian colonies of Sicily and Italy had grown, by the cultivation of their fruitful territories, to a degree of opulence and prosperity which, in the end, proved fatal to them. Their narrow limits could with difficulty produce as much oil and wine as was absorbed by the neighbouring country of Gaul, and the boundless continent of Africa; which were either altogether barren of these productions, or afforded them sparingly and with difficulty. Italy was then principally in the hands of the Etrusci, a nation who, in spite of the jealous rivalry of Carthage, maintained themselves in the Mediterranean: while the Romans, pent up as yet within the limits of Latium, were content to carry on a peaceful traffic, and conclude a treaty of commerce with their future enemies, the Carthaginians. The internal commerce of Gaul was in the hands of Massilia, the most peaceful and prosperous of all the Grecian states; while, on the coast of Spain, Gades and other independent Phoenician colonies, were mistresses of fleets which even braved the waves of the Atlantic.

The States of Greece, more particularly Athens and Corinth, with their Ionian dependencies, had secured to themselves the commerce of the Ægean and the Black Sea; and even Egypt, exclusive as it was

(under the dominion of the Pharaohs) in all its institutions, had opened at Naucratis a free port for Grecian commerce. The later kings of this ancient dynasty went still further, and, with the hope of making themselves masters of Phoenicia and Syria, removed their residence from Memphis to Sais, and equipped fleets at the same time on the Arabian Gulf and the Mediterranean. The nations of Central Asia were brought into closer contact by the levies of the Assyrians and Babylonians; and even the compulsory migration of some conquered nations, (the first expedient which despotism in its infancy devised to maintain its conquests,) was not without some beneficial result, by making different nations better acquainted with each other,with their productions and their demands. The haughty Babylon, formed by her very position for the seat of empire and of commerce to the rest of Asia, had already become the resort of the arts and civilization; while Tyre and the other Phoenician states maintained their rights as the principal channels of communication for the trade of Asia and Europe a trade which, though momentarily disturbed by the Persian conquest, presently resumed its former current. Under the dominion of the last, the whole of Central Asia assumed the internal arrangement of a settled empire. The traveller pursued without difficulty his way along the high roads from Sardes to Persepolis and Bactra and the very remains of their palaces, decorated with the representations of public feasts, on occasion of which the different nations are portrayed as presenting their offerings before the throne of the monarch, are even now a striking proof of the industry and arts of the people, and the wise government of their kings. If to this outline we add the commerce of Southern Africa and Ethiopia, carried on by means of caravans communicating with Carthage and Tyre, across the deserts of that continent, we are presented (in the period we are contemplating) with a picture of life and activity,-of the commerce and combinations of mankind, extending over the fairest portions of the globe, and affording the historian a surprise and pleasure proportioned to the multiplicity of the objects it embraces.

Of this splendid picture, we shall attempt to delineate at least the principal features. To this end, we must cause the warlike races which usually occupy the most prominent place on the stage of history, to withdraw awhile, and make room for more pacific and unpresuming nations. Let the march of devastating armies give place to that of peaceful caravans; and instead of ruined cities, let us contemplate the more pleasing spectacle of newly founded and flourishing colonies." Vol. I. pp. xxxvi-xxxix.

This extract will at once convey a general idea of the Author's design, and serve as a fair specimen of the pleasing style in which the work is written. The present portion relates to the nations of ancient Africa. Forty years have elapsed since the learned Author first laid before the public, his "Reflections upon the African Nations "; since which, the progress of discovery, the information collected by Burckhardt and other travellers, and the successful researches of Champollion, have poured a flood of