The Book of Generations, in chap. x. of Genesis, states that Canaan was a son of Ham, and consequently brother of Cush, of Mizraim, and of Phut. This is given again in the First Book of Chronicles, chap, i., ver. 8. Cush (Gen. x. 10) held Babel, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. The verse says: “And the beginning of his kingdom was Babel and Erech,” etc. Again, verse 11 says: “Out of that land went forth Asshur and builded Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah and Resen, between Nineveh and Calah; the same is a great city.” Asshur (verse 22) was a son of Shem. Cush, therefore, was considered to be a dweller in Babylonia, and not in Africa. This is consistent with Havilah, son of Cush, being Havilah, chap, ii., ver. 11. Of the rivers of Eden, “the name of the first is Pison, that is it which encompasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold.” Khavilah has been well conjectured to be Kholkis or Colchis, and the river the Pshani, which, as I have pointed out in the Georgian languages, still means a river.

In my former paper I endeavoured to describe the condition of the people at the earliest period with which we are acquainted, and the effect, upon their civilisation produced by the Roman invasion, through the intercourse consequently established between Great Britain and Rome, at that time the grand centre and source of art and civilisation. The darkest period in our national history has now been passed through. Two causes mainly appear to me, in the first instance, to further the progress of civilisation among a people: The intercourse of a barbarous nation with foreigners who are more civilised than the former; The growing intelligence of the natives them-selves, whose capacities are thus stimulated, and their energies roused. Many other causes, no doubt, contribute in turn to the further advancement and development of civilisation, such as the institutions which spring up, and the pursuits that are followed, in any nation. Nevertheless, these two main causes to which I have particularly alluded, appear to me to be the primary elements, and are what first contribute to set the machine in motion.

It may be remembered (and I am especially induced to hope that it is so, now that the new volume of Transactions is in the hands of the members) that, on the last occasion at which I had the honour to address you, I mentioned, though I fear too cursorily, some of the necessary considerations due to an inquiry into the origin of monarchical, or, rather it should be termed, personal sovereignty. Speaking roughly, I stated that the origin of society, the origin of law, and the origin of religion, seemed to coalesce into the origin of government.

The early history of Denmark may be divided into two portions. For the first we have as materials only the native sagas and legends, which have been preserved for us by Saxo Grammaticus and others. The second portion, which covers a period when Denmark had entered into relations, sometimes hostile and sometimes diplomatic, with the great Frankish empire to the south, is illustrated by occasional notices in the contemporary monastic annals. These notices are of course of the highest value and interest. It seems clear that, if we are ever to glean any profitable materials about the earlier period, we must first gain a firm foothold upon the later, where we can check tradition by contemporary narrative; and I now propose to re–examine the history of the Danes from the time when they first appear in the Frankish chronicles, down to the death of their famous King Godfred.

It would be an easy task, and perhaps a not uninteresting one, to draw a picture of what Lancashire may be supposed to have been during the reign of Queen Elizabeth—its large forests, its trackless mosses, its many-gabled, moated, timber halls, and its old grey churches, would all form an admirable background to a stage upon which the persecuted Catholic gentry, the almost equally persecuted Puritan, the honest old yeoman and his comely dame, the hard-working husbandman, and the “sturdy beggar,” might be made to act their parts; but this would not be history, and may therefore be left to the hands of the romancer and the novelist.

It appears from the writings of Eusebius, Basil, Jerome, and Augustine, that libraries were at a very early period attached to various ecclesiastical establishments; and that these libraries were chiefly composed of liturgical and other service books, together with manuscript copies of the Scriptures (in the original language), homilies, catechisms, psalters, and other similar works. Many of these works were of great value and importance, especially those belonging to the Oriental churches. And to some of these early houses of worship were attached separate buildings for libraries and schools.

The mariners of the sixteenth century are no exception to the rule that the biography of great men illustrates the period in which they lived. Francesco Pizarro might have been a cowherd at Seville for ever, instead of a viceroy at Lima, for any value attaching to his biography to the student of European politics; but he and Cortez, Cartier, Hawkins, Drake, and many another, marked an epoch in the history of maritime adventure, namely, the period which witnessed the union of science and enterprise—a union enabling the sailor to navigate his bark into the wide and unknown seas, where no landmark points the course—a union which gave to civilisation another world. The Phoenician groping his way, hugging the land along the shores of Africa and Spain, and shooting across the channel, with the sun and stars alone to steer by, until he touched the lonely but rich shores of the Cassiterides, was a mariner of equal daring with those who, westward ho! set sail for the Spanish Main; but, with an increase of knowledge, there had been discovered a new world—a world that, without the sensitive needle, and the discovery of the fact that it was ever true to its magnetic principle, true as the star to which the sailor from Tyre had in his day attached his faith —and for the subduing of that world it was necessary there should be a new departure, not in enterprise, for that was conspicuous in the earth's central sea, but a union of scientific knowledge with the enterprise and energy common to all young nations—at least to all nations which have made their mark in the world, and left the impress of their life upon time's honourable records.

One would naturally think that a prophecy like that of the seventy weeks (heptades) of Daniel—known to have been fulfilled—would admit of easy proof and explanation; but so far is this from being the case that (as Professor Stewart justly remarks) “it would require a volume of considerable magnitude to give a history of the ever-varying and contradictory opinions of critics respecting this locus vexatissimus, and perhaps a still larger one to establish an exegesis that would stand. I am fully of opinion that no interpretation as yet published will stand the test of thorough grammatico-historical criticism, and that a candid, searching, and thorough critique here is still a desideratum.”

Throughout the whole of man's mental development, which word in itself excludes any repetition or stagnation in history, we can trace action and reaction, or rather, according to Hegel's dialectics, “ progress by contrasts.” Certain ideas take root in humanity. They blossom, bear fruits, and then die away. Similar ideas shoot up again; not the same, but full of a new vigour and vitality, rooted in an altogether changed soil; composed of the intellectual blossoms and fruits of a previous era, nourished by the totally different mode of thinking, the increased or decreased amount of knowledge of new generations. This was the case with the acting and counteracting movements of idealism and realism in Greece. The ideas of Demokritos or Hippokrates were superseded by the idealistic arguments of Sokrates, whose principles formed the basis of the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle in the following century. The supernaturalism of Plato and the realism of Aristotle both had their followers, who read and understood them differently. We have first the celebrated physicist Strato, who looked upon the vôs of Aristotle as a mere consciousness of impressions. The activity of the soul was with him simply motion. He explained all existence and life as originating in the natural forces with which matter is endowed. Strato led to Epikurus, who was counteracted by the Stoiks, who, despite their professed idealism, were the most prominent materialists in physical science. We can trace an analogous phenomenon in our own times in which it often occurs, that men with theologically biased minds in metaphysical matters are the most pronounced realists where natural sciences are concerned.

Crail is a royal burgh situated on the eastern coast of Fife-shire, near the apex of that peninsula familiarly known as the East Neuk. Anciently written Carrail, Caryl, and Karaite, the name is derived from caer, a fortified place, and ail, a corner. A castle belonging to the Scottish kings occupied the rock which overhangs the present harbour, of which some vestiges remain. This structure was probably of ancient origin. Constantine, King of Scotland, while unsuccessfully contending with invading Norsemen, fell in battle among the rocks at Balcomie near Crail in 877. He may have occupied the castle as a principal seat. To Sir Robert Sibbald, writing in 1710, it appeared as “the ruins of a strong castle.” It was a favourite hunting-seat of David I. in the twelfth century, when he followed the chase in the adjoining territory of Kingsmuir. By a royal charter granted to the collegiate church of Crail, dated 24th November 1526, James V. de-scribes the site of the church as “an ancient borough where sundry princes, his predecessors, had made their residence and dwelling-place, and as he and his successors might do in time to come as reasonable causes and occasions should befall.” These expressions would imply that the castle was inhabitable in the sixteenth century. The royal demesne of Crail was frequently included in the jointure lands of the Scottish queens.

Had Daniel Defoe not immortalised himself as the author of that inimitable work “Robinson Crusoe,” he would still have held a prominent place in the foremost rank of English novelists by the production of two of his less known works, which have been over-shadowed by his great masterpiece, namely, the “History of the Plague in London,” and the “Memoirs of a Cavalier.” These historical romances, or, as they might be more accurately termed, imaginary autobiographies founded on facts, are such life-like delineations of character, and so historically true in colouring, down to the minutest touches of detail, while the scenes depicted have such an absorbing interest thrown over them, that we might well believe them to be veritable chronicles of the two imaginary heroes who are supposed to relate the events in which each is described as bearing so prominent a part, and either of whom might well exclaim with Father Æneas:

“Quaeque ipse miserrima vidi

Et quorum pars magna fui.”