10 THE HISTORY AND ART 



They died ; oblivion feiz'd each mighty name, 

 Forbidding time to waft them down ; 



For they no poets had to ling their fame, — 

 And poets only give renown. 



It is, however, certain, that when Jacob came into 

 Egypt, he found rhe inhabitants perfe<ftly acquainted 

 with the horfe, and ufmg it in its two-fold capacity of 

 carrying and drawing. And here, although the fub- 

 jeift has been already touched upon in former pages, 

 it miay not be improper to offer fome farther and more 

 cogent reafons, in favour of the affenion, that riding 

 is not only equal in point of time to the ufe of chariots, 

 bur, in all probability, anterior to it. It has been 

 already faid, that Egypt was the fpot in which the 

 liorfe was thought to have been firft fubdued and 

 difciplined by man ; and it appears from the Mofaic 

 hiftory, that in the firft inftance, where mention is 

 made of Pharaoh's chariots, that he is likewife faid to 

 have had his horfemen; which word, in the Hebrew 

 language, is explained by the commentators, to mean, 

 one who fits upon, and guides an horfe. The learned 

 Le Clerc is alfo of opinion, that the expreffion of " all 

 the horfes of Pharaoh, and his chariots, is the general 

 defcription of the cavalry belonging to him, and con- 

 fiders his chariots and horfemen, as the two different 

 fpecies of it." To this I muft beg leave to add another 

 obfervation, but without laying any greater ftrefs upon 

 it, than barely to hint it to the reader's notice, that the 



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