ing on board; no pilot but fuch as they might cafually pick up on their course; no certainty that this fea was ever navigated before, or even navigable; and no refources fuch as the moderns have, without number, in their arms, their inftruments, their experience, and the accumulated acquifitions of knowledge, whether practical or theoretical. Under all thefe difadvantages, if the object was attained, and the royage completed, it is not the length of the courfe that ought to raife the name of Columbus higher than that of Ngarchus; the confequences derived from the discoveries of both are equally important, and the commerce with the East Indies upon a level with that of America: but if the communica-、 tion fixed at Alexandria is the origin of the Portuguefe difcoveries, and the circumnavigation of Africa, Nearchus is in fact the primary author of difcovery in general, and the mafter both of Gama and Columbus. There is one extraordinary circumftance attending this expedition, which is, that we find no mention of mutiny or difeafe among the people. The former would be naturally checked by their fituation, for they had no fecond hope if they failed in the execution of their enterprife, and no chance of prefervation but by obedience to their commander; the latter was lefs likely to occur, from the circumftances peculiar to the navigation; and the maladies arifing from famine or bad provifions, appear not to have had fufficient time to exhibit their worst effects. As far as can be collected from the journal, they were never without fhell-fifh till within a few days of their arrival; and fcorbutic diforders, which are the fcourge of the mariner in the protracted voyages of the moderns, are never noticed by the antients. The proximity of land, the frequency of fleeping on fhore, and the properties of their veffels, which were not decked, feem to have operated to the exclufion of a disease, which two hundred years experience is only now teaching modern navigators to combat; and this experience nothing but the perfevering difcipline of Cook could have reduced to practice. It is not apparent that the paffage from the Indus to the Gulph of Perfia had ever been performed by the natives; for however great the commerce on that river was, and however extended, its progress naturally bent towards the coast of Malabar and the peninfula. The natives there were all Indians; while on the west, the name terminated at the Arabis, and all Indian manners with the boundary of the Oritæ at Malana. This appears to me a proof that no commerce from the Indus was carried farther by the Indians; the other natives, whether Oritæ or Icthyophagi, had no embarkations even for fishing; and the Persians were never navigators. If any veffels, therefore, vifited these coafts even in that early age, they were probably Arabian; but of this there can be no fatisfactory evidence. That fomething paffed upon the fea, and in all appearance from port to port, there feems to be ground for fuppofing; for Hydrakes could not have been worthy of employment without fome fort of experience; and there is a fhadow of evidence that the pirates to caftward of the Indus, who have been pirates in all ages, accidentally vifited vifited the coaft, either for the purpofe of intercepting the traffic, or of plundering the property of the inhabitants; and yet what temptation could they prefent, unless flaves were a commodity? If fo, their perfons might be feized, provided there were any record of a market to point out where they were difpofed of; but the whole teftimony which can be collected, amounts in no degree to a proof of a navigation like that of Nearchus from India to Perfia; and as this is the principal link in the future chain of communication with Europe, the merit of examining it feems wholly due to him as the original undertaker. I am not ignorant of a much longer voyage in this very direction imputed to Scylax by Herodotus, from Pactya (the Pekeli of Rennell) into the Gulph of Arabia: but whether this voyage was performed by the Perfians, or that other round the Cape of Good Hope by the Phoenicians from Egypt, as recorded by him, is a point highly problematical in the opinion of every one who confiders the ftructure of ancient veffels, and their whole method of navigation. I believe the record of both, as preferved by Herodotus, to be evidence that the Perfians or Egyptians knew, from communication with the interior of the refpective countries, that they were bounded by the ocean, and afforded the means of navigation; but that the voyages were actually performed requires more evidence, more particulars, and a clearer detail of facts, to enable us to form a judgment. The bare affertion that the thing had been done, might lead Alexander to think it practicable; but the Perfian voyage produced no confequences whatever; and the Egyptian VOL. XXXIX. navigation led to nothing, unless we fuppofe the Portuguese discoverers influenced by the affertion, that a paflage round the Cape was practicable. Scylax ought to be a Greek by the place of his nativity, Caryanda, or at least an inhabitant of Afia Minor; but we have no remains of his journal, and no other evidence of his voyage but the report of Herodotus, which is very deficient in circumstances to confirm its own authority; and collateral evidence there is none. In regard to the circumnavigation of Africa, there is one particular much infifted on by Larcher, Gefner, and other commentators; which is, the appearance of the fun to the north: a phænomenon dependent on every navigation within the tropics. The. referve of Herodotus, in faying that others may fuppofe this probable, though he doubts it himself, is a caution worthy of fuch an hiftorian, and more perfuafive than the boldeft affertion. I muft, however, notice a peculiarity in this paffage, which feems to have escaped the fcrutiny of his commentators; for he informs us in another place, that he went up the Nile himself as far as Elephantine, in order to afcertain foine circumftances relative to the head of that river, about which he thought himself impofed upon by a fecretary of the priests at Sais. Now, is it not extraordinary that if he reached Elephantine he fhould not have visited Syene, the very place at which he reprefents his doubts to exift? Is it not ftrange, that though he lived prior to the conftruction of the well at Syene, he fhould mention nothing of the fituation of Syene itself under the tropic? Had he been there in fummer, he muft himself have feen the phænomenon he profeffes to doubt, or at leaft the fun vertical; and if his vifit was at any other feafon, is it not remarkable that he should not have heard of this circunftance? Elephantine is an ifland, or a city on an ifland, in the Nile, oppofite to Syene; and yet Herodotus does not quite fay he was actually at Syene. From his mention that the cataracts are four days fail from the Elephantine he vifited, may we not fufpect that it was fome ifland lower down (for there are many) or that the ifland called Elephantine by Pocock is not the Elephantine of Herodotus? and that the hiftorian was not nearer Syene than within three days fail? for it is in reality lefs than one day's fail or journey by land from Syene to the cataracts. I mention thefe particulars, in order to fhew the great obfcurity which attends all the difcoveries, whether real or pretended, in ages antecedent to hiftory; and notwithstanding all that Mr. Goffelin has produced, to prove an early state of navigation and geography, previous to the knowledge of the Greeks, and founded upon better principles; notwithstanding the erudition difplayed by Gefner in his Treatife on the Navigation of the Phoenicians in the Atlantic, there is nothing appears fufliciently fatisfactory to establish the authenticity of any one prior voyage, of equal importance, upon a footing with this of Nearchus; or any certainty to be obtained where the evidence is all circumftantial, and none pofitive. From a journal like the Periplus of Hanno, a knowledge of the coaft of Africa will enable us to form a judge ent of his progrefs: but a bare affertion of the performance of any voyage, without confequences attendant or connected, without collateral or contemporary teftimony, is too flight a foundation to fupport any fuperftructure of importance. Ifhould think it time well employed to vindicate the honour of Columbus against the ufurpation of Vefpucius; but I would not bestow a moment in annulling the claim of Madock and his Cambro-Britains to the difcovery of America. The reader may conceive that this vin dication of Nearchus partakes more of the partiality of an editor than the inveftigation of the truth: but I appeal to the ancient geographical fragments ftill extant; the Periplus of Hanno, the furvey of the Euxine Sea by the real Arrian, and that of the Erythræan Sea, or Indian Ocean, by the fictitious one; and I fay that all these, as well as the journal of Nearchus, though they have their errors, difficulties, or even abfurdities, ftill contain internal evidence of veracity, and are well worthy of examination; while the expedition of the Argonauts, of Pytheas, or Scylax, is merely a fpeculation of amufement. There is, however, another way of enquiry into the discoveries attributed to the earliest times; which is, by examining the commodities fuch difcoveries would produce. Tin, the ftaple of Britain, is mentioned in the most ancient authors neither as a rare nor a very precious metal; this must have been introduced to the nations on the Mediterranean, either by a tranfport over land (fuch as is mentioned by Diodorus) or through the medium of a Phoenician navigation: the existence of the metal, therefore, in Greece and Afia is a proof that the the voyage was performed, in feme fenfe or other. The influx of gold into Judæa is equally a proof or a commerce extended into the Indian or Ethiopic Ocean, beyond the limits of the Gulph of Arabia. The materials ftill found in Egypt, that contributed to the prefervation of the mummies, are fome of them fuppofed to be oriental; and if fo, Egypt must have had, even antecedent to history, a communication with the eaft, either directly by commerce of their own, or indirectly by means of intermediate nations, perhaps Arabian. In all thefe cafes we have a right to affume the navigation from the view of its effects; but the voyage of Scylax from India to Egypt, or that of the Phonicians from Egypt round the continent of Africa, have neither produce nor confequences; and though this is only a negative proof of their nonentity, it is as ftrong as the nature of the cafe will admit: if no fécond navigator had doubled the Cape of Good Hope, the difcovery of Gama might have been deemed problematical. Were it poffible to afcribe these two voyages to the age of Herodotus, his teftimony is fuch, that it ought to preponderate against every argument of mere fpeculation: but he probably records only the vanity of two nations, one the moft proud of its empire, and the other of its science; both capable of attributing to themselves an action done, if it were poflible to be done; and of this the poffibility was perhaps known from internal information. My own opinion is decidedly against the reality of both thefe voyages; but whatever be my own judgment, it fhall be fubject to the decifion of thofe who profeffedly confider the question in its full ex tent; it is here only incidental: but I muft ftill repeat, that it is the affertion of facts without circumftances, while the voyage of Nearchus is detailed in all its parts, and is the earliest authentic journal extant. If, then, I am right, this is the firft voyage of general importance to mankind; If I am mistaken, it is still the first of which any certain record is preserved. Difquifitions on the Phrafe THE ENLIGHTENED PUBLIC. From d'Ifraeli's Mifcellanies. HE every enlightened nation three kinds of people: an inconsiderable number inftructed by reason, and glowing with humanity; a countless multitude, barbarous and ignorant, intolerant and inhofpitable; and a vacillating people with fome reafon and humanity, but with great prejudices, at once the half echoes of philofophy, and the adherents of popular opinion. Can the public be denominated enlightened? Take an extenfive view among the various orders of fociety, and obferve how folly still wantons in the vigour of youth, and prejudice still talks in the stubbornness of age! To trace the human mind as it exifts in people, would be the only method to detect this fallacious expreffion. The unenlightened numbers, who are totally uninfluenced by the few, live in a foul world of their own creation. The moral arithmetician, as he looks for the fum total of the unenlightened public, muft refemble the algebraift, who riots in incalculable quantities, and who fimiles at the simple favage, whofe arithmetic extends not further than the number three. In a metropolis we contemplate the human mind in all its inflections. If we were to judge of men by the condition of their minds (which perhaps is the most impartial manner of judging) we fhould not confult the year of their birth to date their ages; and an intellectual regifier might be drawn up, on a totally different plan from our parochial ones. A perfon may, according to the vulgar era, be in the maturity of life, when, by our philofophical, epocha, he is born in the tenth century. That degree of mind which regulated the bigotry of a monk in the middle ages, may be difcovered in a modern rector. An adventurous fpirit in a red coat, who is almost as defirous (to ufe the wit of South) to receive a kifs from the mouth of a cannon as from that of his miftrefs, belongs to the age of chivalry; and if he fhould compofe verfes, and be magnificently prodigal, he is a gay and noble Troubadour. A farcaftic philofopher, who inftructs his fellow-citizens, and retires from their fociety, is a contemporary with Diogenes; and he who, reforming the world, graces inftruction with amenity, may be placed in the days of Plato. Our vulgar politicians must be arranged among the Roundheads and Olivers; and Tom Paine himself is so very ancient as to be a contemporary of Shimei. The refult of our calculations would be, that the enlightened public form an inconfiderable number. It muft, however, be confeffed, that what knowledge has been accumulated by modern philofophy, cannot eafily perifh; the art of printing has imparted ftability to our intellectual ftructures, in what depends on the mechanical prefer vation. Human science can no more be annihilated by an Omar. A fingular fpectacle has, therefore, been exhibited; and it is fometimes urged by thofe who contemplate, with pleafing aftonishment, the actual progrefs of the human mind, as a proof of the immutability of truth, that, in the prefent day, every enlightened individual, whether he refides at Paris, at Madrid, or at London, now thinks alike; no variation of climate, no remoteness of place, not even national prejudices, more variable and more remote than either, deftroy that unanimity of opinion which they feel on certain topics effential to human welfare. This appears to be a fpecious argument in favour of the enlightened public. But we fhould recollect, that this unanimity of opinion, which fo frequently exeites furprife, is owing to their deriving their ideas from the fame fources: at Paris, at Madrid, and at London, the fame authors are read, and, therefore, the fame opinions are formed. Thus we account for this unani mity of opinion; and we may now reafonably enquire whether unanimity of opinion always indicates permanent truth? It is certain that very extravagant opinions were once univerfally received: it becomes not an individual to affirm that fome of our modern opinions are marvelloufly extravagant; we must leave them for the decifion of pofterity. We may, however, fay to the greatest genius, Look at what your equals have done, and obferve how frequently they have erred. Reflect, that whenever an Aristotle, a Defcartes, and a Newton appeared, they formed a new epocha in the annals of human knowledge; |