A Light Thrown upon Thtwyclides. By Franke Parker, M.A. (Williams
and Norgate.)—Mr. Parker wishes to put back the commencement of the Metonic cycle from B.C. -432 to B.C. 452. What set him about the inquiry was the difficulty he found in fitting the prophecies of the book of Daniel to the events of our Saviour's life. Agreeing with Dr. Pusey in attributing that book to the age of Cyrus, he thinks that the doctor altogether fails in interpreting "the weeks" that are so famous in con- troversy, and he has devoted the leisure, that the incumbency of a small parish with less than 100 inhabitants has afforded him to a diligent investigation of ancient dates, which has led him to the conclusion stated at the beginning of this notice, and also enables him so to fix the date of the twentieth year of the reign of Artaxerxes, in which that king issued the edict for the rebuilding of Jerusalem, that with a special niethod interpretation he shall arrive at results that will confound all "essayists and reviewers." But this special method of interpretation commencing with the demand that seven weeks shall mean 490 years, because of some mysterious connection between Lev. xxvi., 28, and the seventy years' captivity, whilst sixty-two weeks shall represent only 434 years, we candidly confess that we have not gone into either the investigation connected with the Metonic cycle or the prophetical calculations that result from it. We confine ourselves to announcing their existence in this volume, and that they occupy about 250 pages.
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