125 
Hystaspes; but, speaking generally, the Indus was the eastermost 
boundary of the Persian empire, and all the country beyond it 
was divided into a number of kingdoms and stales/’ 
“ About a hundred and sixty years after the reign of Darius 
Hystaspes, Alexander the Great advanced with ins army into 
India; that point of the Hyphasis, or Reeyah, where it receives 
the Setlege, or Setooder, was the scene of the memorable refusal 
of Alexander’s army to follow him. On his death, Seleucus made 
himself master of the Persian empire; and turning ins attention to 
India, sent Megasthenes in the character of ambassador to Paii- 
bothra, the capital of the Prasii; or the country watered by the 
confluence of the Jumna and Ganges.” 
I shall make no further quotations from the Horae Biblicae, as 
the Bamptonian lectures other a rich mine of information. 
“ In the countries of the East, where the serenity of the climate 
is peculiarly favourable to the observation of the celestial lumi- 
naries, we might naturally expect to discover an early attention to 
their magnitude and their motions. It was by their periodical 
revolutions, indeed, that the necessary concerns of human life were 
formerly regulated: the constellations were not only in after limes 
rendered subservient to the purposes of a blind and trembling 
superstition; they were not only regarded with emotions of fear 
or transport, as they were supposed to bear an aspect malignant 
or auspicious to the interests of man; but they were originally 
instrumental to more useful and noble ends: they directed the 
course of agricultural labours, and of maritime adventure. Astro- 
noray, instead of being the offspring of solitude, leisure, and 
contemplation, may be termed more properly the child of necessity 
