1824. J ^^i- Cook on impr 



destruction of Tmy,— of Ninevcli,— llie 

 loiindalion of Solomon's Tomple, and 

 of Home, — the eia of tlie Olympiads, 

 and (he eclipse ofTlialcs, &c. 



There have heen perhaps from 2 to 

 300 difieresit dates laid down by tiie 

 chronologist as the era of the Creation, 

 all of which differ, — not in a few years 

 only, bnt in thousands of years. That 

 there slioidd be much difTcrencc respect- 

 ing the time of tlie Nalivily is wonder- 

 ful, inasmncli as that may be called a 

 recent event. 



The difference in the epochs of the 

 Deluge varies 8 or 900 years, — tlic 

 Exode, 3 or 400 years, — the reign of 

 Scsostris, 5 or 600 years, — of Troy, 3 

 or 400 year?,— of Solomon's Temple, 

 upwards of 200 years. But, when we 

 come to the buildingof Rome, we really 

 should expect that this great dificrence 

 of the com|)utation of time, or the errors 

 in calculation, would cease ; and jet the 

 dillercnce between Newton's chronology 

 and others is more than 100 years ; tlie 

 eclipse of Thales, which occasioned the 

 battle between the Medes and Lydians 

 to cease, is stated with a difl'erenco of 

 twenty to twenty-five years. 1 have 

 just mentioned these events, to siiow 

 that great men have not agreed as to the 

 time of t'lie greatest of events that ever 

 liappened on the earth ; nor is it ever 

 jtussible to reconcile the dificrence be- 

 tween tliem, when Newton, perhaps tlie 

 greatest man that ever live<l, acknow- 

 ledges that he spent thirty years at 

 intervals in reading, in order to collect 

 together materials lor his chronology of 

 ancient kingdoms; that he had written 

 it over sixteen times, making alterations 

 eacli time; and yet his Chronology is 

 far from being perfect. His idea of 

 being able to lix the precise time of the 

 argonautic expedition by the prece;- 

 sior, of the eijuinoxes, is ingenious; but 

 how is he «ine it is accurate, when he is 

 guided by the observations recorded as 

 niadc by Thales? and all thdsc events 

 that are governed by his favorite system 

 of astronomical observations, especially 

 when he takes such data as Hcsiod's 

 accoimt of the rising of Acturius at sun- 

 set, r.ixty days alter the winter solstice, 

 as fixing a (>rcciso jjeriod of time to 

 reckofi from, may very probably lead 

 to error. 



It was not, however, tlic errors in 

 Chronology, or the men who have s!u- 

 <lied it, that I had in view, when I sat 

 down to address youj but to give you, 

 in a hasty imperfect way, an idea of a 

 work on that subject, which I think 

 Monthly Mag. No. 394. 



ovtd Chronology. 207 



would not only be found useful in 

 schools, but to readers generally who 

 have not much time at command. It 

 should, if possible, be condensed into 

 a small pocket-volume, composed from 

 comparing together the best systems of 

 Chronology, and endeavouring to fix, as 

 correctly as (lossible, the time when the 

 great events of the world happened. 

 But the plan which strikes me as the 

 most material, is to bring the great and 

 leading eras, epochas, and events, into 

 certain spaces of time, in order to fix 

 them permanently on the minds of 

 youth : such as twenty-five years, or, if 

 you will, a larger circle of time, as fifty 

 years. But, if twenty-five years is taken 

 as a spare of time, I wouM bring into it 

 the striking events of every kingdoin 

 that liappened in that period, in order to 

 fix them on the mind, in every cen- 

 tury, there would be four periods ot 

 spaces of lime, in which certain actions 

 ■were performed, characters lived, king- 

 doms and empires rose, flourished, were 

 eonqucred, or blotted out of the page of 

 history as independent states. 



By adopting a p'an something in this 

 way, one event would serve to bring to 

 mind another; and, the events of twenty- 

 five years once fixed on the mind, tho 

 events of four periods, or a hundred 

 years, would easily follow, and so also 

 those of ten centuries. I would not 

 confuse the mind with too many events 

 in eaeli period; but select those only 

 the most interesting to man, and espe- 

 cially such as m;nk strongly the pro- 

 gress of the human character, in eft'ect- 

 ing a change in the world, — in fixing 

 the fate of a nation by a battle, — of 

 science, literature, and the arts, by the 

 birth of a great man, — by the building 

 of a city, — the [)lantii)g of a colony, — 

 t'le discovery of new countries, — by the 

 invention and progress of poetry, sculp- 

 ture, and painting. 



i will, in order to convey to you more 

 clearly my idea, take some period of about 

 twenty-five or thirty years, and suppose 

 it a lesson for a boy ; and, by fixing on 

 some great event as the centre of a pe- 

 riod of firiy J ears, — that is, twenty-five 

 years before and twenty-five years after 

 itlie grand era fixed upon, — this point, 

 once perfectly fixed on the mind, would 

 serve to call all other minor events to 

 the memory. 



For instance: the Exode 1491 years 

 before Christ, — 430 years from the time 

 of their entering Egypt, in which 

 600,000 adults, besides children, de- 

 parted on Tuesday the 5lh of May, — 

 2 E OH' 



