[ io6 ] 



This was precifely the ftrange employment which the king 

 had privately devifed for himfelf. The anfwer of the oracle 

 aftounded and convinced Croefus, and feems to have had as 

 powerful an effed upon Sir Thomas Browne, who in his " En- 

 " quiry concerning Vulgar Errors," calls this the plaineft of all 

 oracles, and deems it the cleareft proof of their fupernatural 

 agency. Neither probability nor coincidence could have produced 

 this marvellous reply; it has therefore excited alike the allonifh- 

 ment of the learned and of the ignorant. But the wonder ceafes, 

 and an eafy folution of the difficulty prefents itfclf, if we fup- 

 pofe that the priefts of the oracle were Telegraphers. 



It is probable that fignals were firft employed for defence to 

 give notice of an approaching enemy. The ftupendous wall of 

 China does not appear to have been intended for a barrier againft 

 the Tartars as a nation ; it was probably meant as a defence 

 againft their occafional inroads as banditti. To embodied ene- 

 mies it would have prefented no infurmountable obftacle, but 

 againft detached marauders it was an effedual fence. Gibbon 

 feems not to have perceived the real intention of this laborious 

 work ; he fpeaks of it confequently with too little refped when 

 he affirms that " it has never contributed to the fafety of an 

 " unwarlike people." It is true that their favage enemies have 

 upon fome occafions, " by their rapid impetuofity, furprifed, af- 

 " toniftied and difconcerted the grave and elaborate tadics of a 

 " Chinefe army." But war was never the tafte or bufmefs of 



this 



