Page:An Essay on the Age and Antiquity of the Book of Nabathaean Agriculture.djvu/76

60 which he enunciates, and the facts which he relates; here, on the contrary, throughout the whole composition we find pitiful squabbles, polemics, a class of writings belonging to those forms of literature which mark the decay of human intellect. A great number of controversial books are mentioned in “The Book of Nabathæan Agriculture:” Másí, the Suranian, at least two thousand years before Christ, according to Dr. Chwolson, addresses an epistle in verse to his son Kenked: Támithri, the Canaanite, writes a book against Anúhá, the Canaanite: Dewánáï, three thousand years before Christ, wrote against the Syrian Mardáïád, who gave Syria the preference over Babylonia; and threatened him with a speedy death if he did not retract this impious heresy: Másí and Támithri are in scientific correspondence with one another; and in another place are made to write against each other. Kúthámí,