Selected quad for the lemma: death_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
death_n	king_n	reign_v	year_n	15,865	5	6.0836	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A67135	Reflections upon ancient and modern learning by William Wotton ...	Wotton, William, 1666-1727.	1694 (1694)	Wing W3658; ESTC R32928	155,991	392

Time who was overthrown by Abraham and his Family in the Vale of Siddim the Kings of Chaldea seem to have been no other than those of Canaan Captains of Hords or Heads of Clans And Amraphel was Tributary to Chedorlaomer King of Elam whose Kingdom lay to the East of Babylon beyond the River Tigris Chushan Rishathaim King of Mesopotamia who was overthrown some Ages after by Othoniel the Israelitish Judge does not seem to have been a mighty Prince It may be said indeed that he was General to some Assyrian Monarch but that is begging the Question since there is nothing which can favour such an Assertion in the Book of Judges But when the Assyrians and Babylonians come once to be mentioned in the Jewish History they occurr in almost every Page of the Old Testament There are frequent Accounts of Pul Tiglath-Pileser Shalmanezer Sennacherib Esar-haddon Nebuchadnezzar Evil-merodach Belshazzar and who not But these Kings lived within a narrow Compass of Time the oldest of them but a few Ages before Cyrus This would not suit with that prodigious Antiquity which they challenged to themselves The Truth is Herodotus who knew nothing of it being silent Ctesias draws up a new Scheme of History much more pompous and from him or rather perhaps from Berosus who was Contemporary with Manetho and seems to have carried on the same Design for Chaldea which Manetho undertook for Egypt Diodorus Siculus Pompeius Trogus Eusebius Syncellus and all the Ancients that take notice of the Assyrian History have afterwards copied Ctesias knew he should be straitned to find Employment for so many Kings for Thirteen Hundred Years and so he says they did little memorable after Semiramis's Time Sir William Temple employs them in Gardening As if it were probable that a great Empire could lie still for above a Thousand Years or that no Popular Generals should wrest the Reins out of the Hands of such drowzy Masters in all that Time No History but this can give an Instance of a Family that lasted for above a Thousand Years without any Interruption And of all its Kings not one is said to reign less than Nineteen but some Fifty five Years The healthiest Race that ever was heard of of whom in Thirteen Hundred Years not one died an untimely Death If any Thing can be showed like this in any other History Sacred or Profane it will be easie to believe whatsoever is asserted upon this Subject If therefore the Chaldean Learning was no older than their Monarchy it was of no great Standing if compared with the Egyptian The Account of Nebuchadnezzar's Dream in the 2d Chapter of Daniel shews the Chaldean Magick to have been downright Knavery since Nebuchadnezzar might reasonably expect that those should tell him what his Dream was who pretended to interpret it when it was told them both equally requiring a super-natural Assistance Yet there lay their chiefest Strength or at least they said so Their other Learning is all lost However one can hardly believe that it was ever very great that considers how little there remains of real Value that was learnt from the Chaldeans The History of Learning is not so lamely conveyed to us but so much would in all probability have escaped the general Ship wrack as that by what was saved we might have been able to guess at what was lost If the Learning of these Ancient Chaldeans came as near that of the Arabs as their Countries did one may give a very good Judgment of its Extent Sir William Temple observes that Countries little exposed to Invasions preserve Knowledge better than others that are perpetually harrassed by a Foreign Enemy and by Consequence whatsoever Learning the Arabs had they kept unless we should suppose that they lost it through Carelesness We never read of any Conquests that pierced into the Heart of Arabia the Happy Mahomet's Country before the Beginning of the Saracen Empire It is very strange therefore if in its Passage through this noble Country inhabited by a sprightly ingenious People Learning like Quick-Silver should run through and leave so few of its Influences behind it It is certain that the Arabs were not a learned People when they over-spread Asia So that when afterwards they translated the Grecian Learning into their own Language they had very little of their own which was not taken from those Fountains Their Astronomy and Astrology was taken from Ptolemee their Philosophy from Aristotle their Medicks from Galen and so on Aristotle and Euclid were first translated into Latin from Arabick Copies and those Barbarous Translations were the only Elements upon which the Western School-men and Mathematicians built If they learnt any thing considerable elsewhere it might be Chymistry and Alchemy from the Egyptians unless we should say that they translated Synesius or Zosimus or some other Grecian Chymists Hence it follows that the Arabs borrowed the greatest part at least of their Knowledge from the Greeks though they had much greater Advantages of Communicating with the more Eastern Parts of the World than either Greeks or Romans ever had They could have acquainted us with all that was rare and valuable amongst those Ancient Sages The Saracen Empire was under one Head in Almanzor's Time and was almost as far extended Eastward as ever afterwards His Subjects had a free Passage from the Tagus to the Ganges and being united by the common Bond of the same Religion the Brachmans some of whom did in all probability embrace the Mahomet an Faith would not be shy of revealing what they knew to their Arabian Masters By this Means the Learning of the Egyptians Chaldeans Indians Greeks and Arabs ran in one common Channel For several Ages Learning was so much in Fashion amongst them and they took such Care to bring it all into their own Language that some of the learnedest Jews Maimonides in particular wrote in Arabick as much as in their own Tongue So that we might reasonably have expected to have found greater Treasures in the Writings of these learned Mahometans than ever were discovered before And yet those that have been conversant with their Books say that there is little to be found amongst them which any Body might not have understood as well as they if he had carefully studied the Writings of their Grecian Masters There have been so many Thousands of Arabick and Persick MSS. brought over into Europe that our learned Men can make as good nay perhaps a better Judgment of the Extent of their Learning than can be made at this distance of the Greek There are vast Quantities of their Astronomical Observations in the Bodleian Library and yet Mr. Greaves and Dr. Edward Bernard two very able Judges have given the World no Account of any Thing out of them which those Arabian Astronomers did not or might not have learnt from Ptolemee's Almagest if we set aside their Observations which their Grecian Masters taught them to make which to give them their due Dr. Bernard commends as much