114 TRANSFER OF THE 



CHAP. III. 



dignity ; but that institution had not had time to 

 develop itself at the period of the erection of 

 the costly edifices of Solomon in Jerusalem. 

 The laws of Solon, to which Athens was mainly 

 indebted for its subsequent prosperity and its ul- 

 timate fame, were not introduced till four hun- 

 dred years after the time we are now reviewing. 

 Lycurgus, the lawgiver of Sparta, was born one 

 hundred years after Solomon ; and his system of 

 laws was by no means favourable to, nor pro- 

 ductive of, national improvement in the arts of 

 peace, or to the increase of the wealth of the 

 community which adopted it. 



The other countries of Greece, Boeotia, Thebes, 

 JEtolia, Locris, Doris, and Achaia present in 

 their brief history but few notices, and none 

 which can lead us to consider their progress in 

 civilization to have been earlier than that of 

 Athens and Sparta ; and though Macedonia ul- 

 timately became master of the whole of Greece, 

 it had only attained the rank of a kingdom, and 

 a state of regular but rude society, two centuries 

 after the reign of Solomon. 



It is clear from history, that Abraham, the pro- 

 genitor of the Hebrew nation, nine hundred years 

 before the erection of the sacerdotal and royal 

 edifices of Solomon in Jerusalem, had advanced 

 towards the civilized state more than ten centu- 

 ries before any part of Europe had emerged 



