Father Clement: a Roman Catholic Story. By the Author of Decision, &c.-W. Oliphant, Edinburgh, 1823. -Price 4s. 6d. IT is with much satisfaction we name this interesting little work, to which it is impossible to find an objection. The object of it is to expose the insufficiency of the Popish faith, to afford comfort in life or confidence in death; and to do this, the author, instead of painting it with all the exaggerations and misconceptions with which it is so usual to represent what we mean to decry, has very judiciously drawn it in its fairest form, in the character of a sincere, devoted Christian, with every quality of heart and mind to recommend what he so conscientiously professed; and yet has contrived to leave on the mind the most thrilling horror for the errors from which he suffered. We think the interview between Dormer and Ernest in the eleventh chapter is inimitable. We should only spoil the interest by making an extractthe work will probably be perused by most of our readers, and we think with interest by all above the age of childhood. First Steps to Botany, intended as a popular illustration of the Science, &c.-By J. L. Drummond, M. D. -Longman and Co. Conversations on Botany. Fourth Edition.-Longman and Co. We are always well-pleased when we meet with a book sufficiently light and simple to give amusement to young people, and yet free from the puerility that betrays its having been written for them, ond by that means very generally renders it useless to their improvement. The first named work before us is very clear, and full of useful and pleasing information, put together in a manner the most likely to take attention. strongly recommend it to all young learners of botany. The second work, Conversations on Botany, is intended, we believe, for much younger children, and will be found useful where the other may be thought above their сараcity. We Procrastination, or the Vicar's Daughter. A Tale. -Burton and Smith, 1824.-Price 5s. WE have already given our opinion upon the too frequent reading of religious story books, or, as they might be termed, juvenile novels. We can only therefore remark of the tale before us, that it is natural, and free from the exaggerations so frequent and so objectionable in fictitious tales. BAKER AND SON PRINTERS SOUTHAMPTON. THE OF EDUCATION. ASSISTANT OF MAY, 1824. A SKETCH OF GENERAL HISTORY. HISTORY OF EGYPT, FROM 1491 To 588 B.C. WE have already related all that we know authentically of Egyptian history, up to the time when, by divine interference, the people of Israel were released from injurious slavery, under some monarch named to us in Scripture by the common appellation of Pharaoh; and we have said that historians are not agreed as to the distinguishing name given to this monarch in profane history. We recommence, therefore, as we finished, in total darkness. Some prince, with his principal nobility and the flower of his army, had perished in the Red Sea, in the year, as nearly as can be calculated, B.C. 1491. What succeeded this catastrophe, we know not with any certainty. Some king of Egyyt, called in Scripture Shishack, took and plundered Jerusalem in the time of Rehoboam, B.C. 971. Many historians think this king to have been Sesostris, others assert the contrary. It is by all agreed that such a prince as Sesostris did sometime reign, and distinguished himself by extensive conquests and deeds of wonder. We decline to repeat all the marvellous doings ascribed to this prince. They had some foundation, no doubt, but the truths can never now be distinguished from the falsehoods. It is asserted of him, that all the male children of the kingdom, born on the same day as himself, having been taken and brought up with him by his father for the purpose, he was sent with this well-fitted band to Arabia, which he conquered, and afterwards Africa, as far as the Atlantic. When himself the reigning king, it is by almost all antiquity agreed that he over-ran and pillaged all' Asia, and a small part of Europe-for his progress is said to have been arrested in Thrace, by the want of provisions and the difficulty of the passes; and he returned thence into Egypt, laden with his Asiatic spoils, disbanded his armies, and devoted himself to works of peace. In all the countries he subdued, he set up pillars to commemorate his victories. In his own, he erected a temple in every city, ornamented with gigantick statues. He fortified the eastern side of Egypt with a wall one hundred and eighty-seven miles in length. He built cities, dug canals, and raised a large fleet. He divided Egypt into thirty-six provinces and the people into classes. His character is painted with every sort of excellence, and no fault but that of ambition. He finally became blind, and ended his days by suicide an act which was considered at that time the consummation of all earthly glory. So completely was the Creator's claim to controul over the life he had given to his creatures forgotten throughout the heathen world, that until the establishment of Christianity, every man was supposed to have a right of ending his own existence as soon as he became tired of it; and it was esteemed more honourable to die, than to endure adversity. That Heathens, who knew not their Maker or his laws, should so err, is less surprising to us than that Christian historians should go on recording the deaths of Brutus, and Cato, and other such heroes, in a tone of admiration, in characters of greatness, calculated to leave a very wrong impression on the minds of the unreflecting reader. Such is the recorded history of the famed Sesostris. When our readers consider that even the century in which he existed is unknown, that there is a differeuce of ages between one chronologer and another in the date of his reign, they will feel how little the recital of his deeds is to be depended on. Sesostris was succeeded by his son Pheron, or Sesostris II., of whom we hear nothing worth recording. We decline giving dates where we pretend to know none but there is now an interval of two or three hundred years in which neither history nor fiction tells us any thing of Egypt or her kings. We then hear of a cruel prince by the name of Amosis; and of one Actisanes, who was king of Ethiopia as well as Egypt; and then of Mendes, who built a famous labyrinth. Next in order is the reign of Cetes, or Proteus, in whose time it is agreed by writers of antiquity that the Trojan war commenced. Then we have Rhampsinitus, and Nilus, and Cheops, but not without intervals, and long lines of nameless kings. It is to little purpose that we speak of Cephrenes and Mycerinus, and Bocchoris, and Asychis, and Anysis, and Sabbaco, supposed to be the person called So in Scripture in the time of Hoshea and Sethonnames that might belong, for aught we know, many of them to one person. After this, we are not told why, the kingdom of Egypt was divided and governed by twelve kings at once, till Psammitichus, one of the kings, destroyed the other eleven and re-united it. Here the darkness of Egyptian history begins in some measure to clear, and historians give us the date more positively, fixing the commencement of this reign in B.C. 670. Psammitichus was a wise and successful ruler. In his reign, we again hear of the Greeks as a nation. It is indeed the intercourse of this people with the Egyptians from this time forward, that enables us henceforth to record with certainty the events of Egyptian history, more carefully recorded by the Greeks than they had been by themselves. Psammitichus was much engaged in war with the Scythians-a people of whom we have not before heard-but the world had been rapidly increasing, and new nations were growing into |