162 Memnofi* of them raises a difficulty in my mind which appears to me insurmountable. The nation whose commerce this form of religion followed in its progress, was either the Egyptians themselves, or some other. Nothing certainly can be imagined more likely than that Egyptians should have planted the wor- ship of one of their tutelary gods in the countries they traversed. But in what period do we hear of a commerce in which the Egyptians were active ? Of fleets and caravans con- ducted by Egyptian merchants ? This is something which must be proved before it can ever be made the foundation of a tenable hypothesis. It implies a state of things not only attested by no evidence, but at variance with all that we know of ancient history, which informs us that except for some temporary conquests, or in consequence of a forced migration, the Egyptians before the age of the Ptolemies never left their native land. On the other hand notwithstanding our uncer- tainty about the dates of the Phoenician colonies and of their commercial expeditions, their high antiquity is sufficiently probable and well attested to be readily admitted in the dis- cussion of any hypothesis. But we have the strongest proof of which any negative assertion is capable, that they did not spread the worship of Amenophis over Asia, because we meet with no trace of that worship in any of their known settle- ments, but with others apparently differing from it both in nature and in name. If there was ever room for such a being as Amenophis in the Phoenician mythology, it seems to have been very early filled up by another person of kindred attri- butes, by their Thammuz or Adonis. Which of these two suppositions expresses Mr J.'s meaning, I cannot even con- jecture : but that he must adopt one or the other, and cannot have had any third people in his view, as the instruments of diffusing the worship of Amenophis, seems certain : but in neither case can I reconcile his hypothesis with history or analogy : it implies a fact wholly unattested, and intrinsically improbable. For these reasons I must at least suspend my assent to it, until the difficulties I have stated shall have been removed. The hypothesis I am about to propose can scarcely claim the merit of originality; for the steps which led me to it had been already taken, all but the last. Among others Butt-
