428 TRAVELS TO DISCOVER 



These were the calamities, we may fuppofe, under which 

 the arts in Egypt fell ; for, as to the foreign conquefts of Ne- 

 buchadnezzar and his Babylonians, they affected cities and 

 the perfons of individuals only. They were temporary, ne- 

 ver intended to have lafling confequences ; their beginning 

 and end were prophefied at the fame time. That of the 

 AiTyrians was a plundering expedition only, as we are told 

 by fcripture itfelf, intended to lafl but forty years *, half the 

 life of man, given, for a particular purpofe,for the indemnifi- 

 cation of the king Nebuchadnezzar, for the hardfhips he 

 fuftained at the fiege of Tyre, where the obflinacy of the 

 inhabitants, in deflroying their wealth, deprived the con- 

 queror of his expected booty. The Babylonians were a 

 people the moil polifhed after the Egyptians. Egypt under 

 them fuffered by rapacity, but not by ignorance, as it did in 

 all the conquefts of the Shepherds. 



After Thebes' was deftroyed by the nrfl Shepherds, com- 

 merce, and it is probable the arts with it, fled for a time 

 from Egypt, and centered in Edom, a city and territory, the*-' 

 we know little of its hiftory, at that period the richeft in the 

 world. David, in the very neighbourhood of Tyre and Sidon* 

 calls Edom the ftrong citv ; " Who will bring me into the 

 u ftrong city ? Who will lead me into Edom f ?" David, 

 from an old quarrei, and probably from the recent in- 

 iligations of the Tyrians his friends, invaded Edom $,. 

 deftroyed the city, and difperfed the people. He was 

 the great military power then upon the continent ; Tyre 

 and Edom were rivals ; and his conqueft of that lafl 



great 



* Ezek. chap, xxix. ver. n. f Pfalm. chap. Ix. ver. 9. and Pfal. cviii. ver. 10: 



%. 2 oam». chag. yiii. ver. 14. 1 Kings, chap. x'. ver- 15^,1. 6. 



