imperfectly, on a genuine artistic plan. This is unmis takably the case in the discourse contained in i. 3-ii. 16; Isut with greater or less correspondence to the course of thought in the remainder of the book. Thus, according to Ewald (who aims, it is true, at an unattainable pre cision), chapters iii. and iv. consist of five strophes iii. 1-8, iii. 9-15, iv. 1-3 (incomplete), iv. 5-11, iv. 12, 13; chapters v. and vi. of a prologue (v. 1-3) and four strophes v. 4-6, 8, 9 ; v. 7, 10-17 ; v. 18-27 ; vi. 1-10; with a sort of epilogue in vi. 11-14. And the great critic De Wette goes so far as to declare that no Hebrew prophet has shown an equal regard for clearness and harmony of pro portion. (Comp. Dr Pusey, Minor Prophets, p. 152.) The date of the first public appearance of Amos cannot be ascertained. From the heading of the book (i. 1), which, though not by the prophet himself, has the air of a genuine tradition (Ewald, Die Propheten, i. 123), we learn that he " saw " that is, prophesied " two years before the earthquake." This earthquake is referred to again in Zech. xiv. 5, and, as some think, in passages of Joel and other prophets. It seems, therefore, to have constituted an era in popular tradition, but is of no significance for chronology, as has been well shown by Dr Pusey (Minor Prophets, p. 148). More to our purpose is the former part of the heading, which limits the prophetic career of Amos to the twenty-five years that Uzziah and Jeroboam II. were contemporary i.e., 810-784, according to the common chronology; 775-750, according to the Assyrian. (Comp. Schrader, Die Keilinschriften tind das Alte Testa ment, p. 120.) He flourished, therefore, in the greatest age of Hebrew prophecy. He seems to have been younger than Joel, to whose prophecy he makes several references, and more or less senior to Hosea and Isaiah. This view is fully borne out by the gradual emergence of the Assy rians on the prophetic horizon. Altogether absent from Joel s prophecy, they are but vaguely alluded to in Amos,
and first mentioned by name in Hosea and Isaiah.It was while "following the flock" (vii. 14, 15) that Amos received a prophetic impulse to leave his home and preach in the sister country. The circumstances are on several accounts worthy of notice. They indicate 1. A distinction between Hebrew prophecy, in its mature stage, and non-Hebrew viz., that the former is not dependent on a special artificial training ; 2. That though his writ ings are included in the prophetic canon, Amos did not consider himself officially a prophet (which has a bearing on the great controversy of Daniel); and 3. That prophets of the higher or spiritual order did not recognise the revolt of the first Jeroboam (comp. ix. 11 ; Hos. iii. 5). But the prophecies of Amos had a wider scope than the destiny of Israel. They show a dim presentiment of the philosophy of history, and of the reproductive power of revolutions. Accordingly, Syria, Philistia, Phoenicia, Edom, Ammon, Moab, and Judah were successively rebuked by the in spired messenger. But the chief blame fell upon Israel, whose unparalleled prosperity under Jeroboam II. had developed the germs of vices inconsistent with the religion of Jehovah. The denunciations of Amos produced a power ful impression. He was expelled with contumely by Amaziah, a priest of the reactionary image cultus at the frontier town of Bethel (vii. 10-17).
It is not to be supposed that the discourses of Arnos were delivered exactly as they stand. This view is pre cluded by their elaborate literary character, and by the allusions to the prophet s experience in Israel in ii. 12, v. 10, 13. He probably put them together, with the addi tion of a grand Messianic epilogue, after his return to Tekoa. There has never been a doubt of their genuineness. The text is good, but there are a few corrupt passages.
Some of the characteristics of Amos have been already mentioned. The tradition that he was a stammerer (based on an absurd etymology of his name), and the statement of Jerome that he was " imperitus sermone (sed non scientia)," only prove the incapacity of the ancients for literary criticism. The simplicity of his style is that of the highest art. He delights in abrupt short clauses, but they are linked together by the closest parallelism. And the supposed rusticity of his dialect is deduced from the spelling of only five words, analogies to which may be traced in the great poem of Job. All that we can admit as probable is, that the native force and talent for observa tion displayed by this prophet were derived from his early converse with nature on the wild hills of Judah. His imagery, in fact, from its freshness and appropriateness (comp. ii. 13; iii. 5, 12 ; iv. 2, 9; v. 19; vi. 12; ix. 9), almost reminds us of Dante, and entitles him to as high a place in the history of literature as in that of theistic religion.
(t. k. c.)
AMOY, a city and seaport in the province of Fo-kien, China, situated on the slope of a hill, on the south coast of a small and barren island of the same name, in 24° 28′ N. lat. and 118° 10′ E. long. It is a large and exceedingly dirty place, about 9 miles in circumference, and is divided into two portions, an inner and an outer town, which are separated from each other by a ridge of hills, on which a citadel of considerable strength has been built. Each of these divisions of the city possesses a large and commodious harbour, that of the inner town, or city proper, being protected by strong fortifications. Amoy may be regarded as the port of the inland city of Chang-chu, with which it has river communication; and its trade, both foreign and coastwise, is extensive and valuable. In 1870, 560 vessels, exclusive of Chinese junks, entered the port, of an aggregate burden of 224,436 tons; of these, 315, of 150,171 tons, were British. The chief articles imported were sugar, rice, raw cotton, and opium, as well as cotton cloths, iron goods, and other European manufactures; their value was £1,915,427. In the same year, 554 vessels, of 226,911 tons, cleared the port, including 314 British, of 150,826 tons; the chief exports were tea, porcelain, and paper, and their value was £1,144,046. It is not possible to give the statistics of the trade that is carried on by means of Chinese junks, but it is said to be large; and the native merchants are considered to be among the wealthiest and most enterprising in China. Amoy was captured by the British in 1841, after a determined resistance, and is one of the five ports that were opened to British commerce by the treaty of 1842; it is now open to the ships of all nations. The population of Amoy is estimated at 250,000.
electro-dynamics, was born at Lyons in January 1775. He took a passionate delight in the pursuit of knowledge from his very infancy, and is reported to have worked out lengthy arithmetical sums by means of pebbles and biscuit-crumbs before he knew the figures. His father began to teach him Latin, but left this off on discovering the boy s greater inclination and aptitude for mathematical studies. The young Ampere, however, soon resumed his Latin lessons, to enable him to master the works of Euler and Bernouilli. In later life he was accustomed to say that he knew as much about mathematics when he was eighteen as ever he knew; but his reading embraced nearly the whole round of knowledge, history, travels, poetry, philosophy, and the natural sciences. At this age he had read the whole of the Encyclopedic, and with such interest and attention that he could repeat passages from it fifty years after. When Lyons was taken by the army of the Convention in 1793, the father of Ampere, who, holding the office of juge de paix, had stood out resolutely against the previous revolu-
