BABYLONIAN LITERATURE. 13 



epoch ; and finally, the perpetual boastings 

 of Kuthami, his national vanity, his jealousy 

 of foreign nations, traits which recall to 

 mind forcibly the tendency of the spirit 

 of the East at the opening of our era, 

 convince Prof. Meyer that the author had 

 consulted Greek authors, but that he de- 

 signedly ignored their names, in order to 

 secure for the Babylonians the credit of 

 priority in all scientific and industrial in- 

 ventions. Prof. Meyer declares that, if he 

 were obliged to fix a date for " The Book of 

 Xabatheean Agriculture," he should fix it in 

 the first century of our era, consequently 

 seven or eight centuries after the period 

 in which M. Quatremere has placed it. 



It seems natural, in such a state of things, 

 to split up the question, and apply to it a 

 method, generally successful, when the great 

 works of antiquity are subjected to it. It 

 might be possible that, in regarding "The 

 Book of INabatheean Agriculture" as a compo- 

 sition of the materials of different ages — 

 modern in its latest form, but ancient as re- 



