There were sixteen kings in the eighteenth dynasty who reigned for about 348 years. The earlier monarchs of this race appear to have reigned in peace, for their monuments are covered with the representations of idolatrous ceremonies, or occasionally record some triumph over negro races to the south. But those of their successors show that they had incessantly to contend for the integrity of Egypt with enemies from the north east. The Exodus took place under the last monarch of the eighteenth dynasty, and Egypt never recovered the blow which this terrible event inflicted upon her prosperity; for her next monumental epoch is—
IV.—The Era of Decline. From the collation of Manetho's legend with the inspired narrative, we find that the Exodus was followed almost immediately by a second invasion of the shepherds, whereby the rulers of Egypt, with their infant monarch the son of Pharaoh who perished in the Red Sea, were once more expatriated and compelled to take refuge in Ethiopia. Thirteen years afterwards, the invaders were in their turn driven out by the Egyptians, and the young monarch recovered the throne of his ancestors. The monuments still in existence record his name, Remesses, which coincides with the name given by Manetho. They also inform us that after the expulsion of the shepherds he built the palace of Medinet Abou, the last expiring effort of the greatness of ancient Egypt. No trace of any large building, (scarcely that of one of any size) remains, which was begun in the 800 years of slow but sure decline, that elapsed between the expulsion of the second invasion of the shepherds, and the destruction of the monarchy
