coe 
562 
shown to the harlot Rahab (Joshua vi.° 
25) for her services to the conqueror of 
Canaan. By Vulcan, Herodotus often 
means Jehovah; he calls Sethos, or He- 
zekiah, a priest of Vulcan. Vulcan was 
the god of fire; and Herodotus, in com- 
mon with other heathens, supposed that 
the shekinah, of holy fire, which, in the 
temples of Jehovah, was kept burning at. 
the altar, and into which incense was 
thrown, was the proper and real object 
of adoration in a sect which tolerated no 
images: he mistook a rite of worship, ait 
emblem perhaps, for the Being worshipped. 
At one hundred and ten years of age 
Joshua (xxiv. 29) is stated to have died; 
previous to which it isnot unlikely thathe 
may have incurred the calamity of blind- 
ness: but this circumstance, although 
stated by Diodorus, is not vouched either 
by the Jewish Scriptures, or by Herodotus. 
These coincidences of adventure are too 
peculiar, and of too extraordinary a kind, 
to have befallen several individuals; it is 
most rational therefore to suppose that 
the history of Joshua is the basis of ali 
that has been related concerning Sesostris. 
.The reputation of his victories might ea- 
sily travel to Greece in such a form, as 
to give rise to the extant exaggerated mis- 
representations, 
By admitting the identity of Joshua 
and Sesostris a copious stock of illustra- 
Memoirs of Dr. Douglas, late Bishop of Salisbury. 
[July 1, | 
tion is acquirred for the early books of 
Scripture; an obscure period of human 
events becomes distinctly luminous; an 
inconsistent portion of the Agyptian an- 
nals acquires certainty, simplicity and 
chronological precision; the student has 
fewer facts to remember; the sceptic 
fewer about which to doubt. 
The testimony of Herodotus relative to 
the personal resemblance between the 
Colchians and the gyptians implies that 
the troops of Sesostris had black com- 
plexions and woolly hair: it must there- 
fore be inferred that the followers of 
Moses, the conquerors of Canaan, the 
depositaries of the decalogue, the proge- 
nitors of the Jewish kings and prophets, 
were negroes. 
There is a chasm in the narrative of 
the book of Joshua, preceding the com- 
mencement of the twenty-third chapter: 
which affords an ample pretext for sup- 
posing him, during that interval, to have vi- 
sited and displaced his brother, and to have 
made expeditions into Libya and /Ethio- 
pia: and to have ameliorated the agra- 
rian legislation of Egypt, as is narrated 
by Herodotus, It justifies the predilec- 
tion of Moses, and exalts the character 
of Joshua, to observe that the natural as- 
cendancy of his courage and his intellect 
was recognized along the Nile, as along 
the Jordan. : 
MEMOIRS AND REMAINS OF EMINENT PERSONS. 
; DR. JOHN DOUGLAS, 
LATE LORD BISHOP OF SALISBURY, D.D. 
F.R, S$. a.s. &c. &c. 
6¢ Omnibus qui patriam conservaverint, ad- 
juverint, auxerint, certus est in celo & 
definitus locus, ubi beati z2vo sempiterno 
fruantur.” Cic. Som. Scip. 
OCTOR John Douglas, distinguished 
more than half a century, for learn- 
ing and science, was a native of Scotland. 
It would be ersy, from his country, and 
still more from his name, to arrogate all 
the lustre of high birth, and develope all 
the pride of genealogy, A recurrence to 
the days of chivalry, a display of valorous 
ancestors *‘ clad in complete steel,” and an 
alliance with the Scottish kings, would be 
admirably calculated to fascinate the 
wayward reader, or conceal the penury of 
biography under an affectation of una- 
vailing pomp and useless grandeur. But 
these false and adventitious aids are not 
wanting on the present occasion: It is 
mnnecessary to put in any pretended 
claims on the score of birth, when a man 
has been ennobled both by nature and 
education.* : 
The subject of this biographical sketch 
was born in 1721. We are unacquaint- 
ed with the precise spot in which he first 
drew his breath; but it was undoubtedly. 
to the north of the Tweed. His parents, 
who moved in a humble sphere, migrated 
* It may not be unnecessary, however, to 
observe in this place, that, since writing the 
above, we have learned that the bishop’s 
grandfather was a younger brother of Dou- 
glas of Talliquilly, in the South of Scot- 
land, and the immediate predecessor of Bi- 
shop Burnet, in the living of Salton, in East 
Lothian. “But whoever is acquainted with 
Scotland, must know that nothing is more 
customary than claims of this sort; and even 
the incidental circumstance of being of the 
same izame as a manof rank, formerly carried 
along with it a certain ennobling quality, that 
tended not a little to flatter the vanity of the 
fortunate possessor, 
from , 
