chus of Sais, to take flight; but returning, supported by Greek and Carian mercenaries, he expelled the others, fifteen years after the division was made, about B. C. 650. From this time Egyptian history begins to be divested of fable, and may be accounted as certain as that of any other ancient nation.]

SECTION VI.

THE ANTIQUITY, GOVERNMENT, ARTS AND SCIENCES, RELIGION, AND MANNERS AND CUSTOMS OF THE EGYPTIANS.

1. A GREAT portion of the knowledge and attainments of the ancient nations, and, by consequence, of those of the moderns, is to be traced to Egypt. The Egyptians instructed the Greeks, who performed the same office to the Romans; and the two latter have transmitted much of that knowledge to the world, of which we are in possession at this day.*

2. THE ANTIQUITY of this empire, though we give no credit to the chronicles of Manetho, or those of the Chaldeans, Chinese, or Indians, must be allowed to be very great.-The Mosaic writings represent Egypt in the time of Joseph, about 1715 B.C. as a flourishing and well-regulated kingdom, divided into districts, containing numerous cities, with ministers of state; prisons for the confinement of criminals, which argues an established system of penal laws; a priesthood with permanent revenues; a knowledge of metallurgy and the manufacture of fine linen; the use of chariots for state purposest and for war; a trade in slaves, and other indications of a state of civilization that had been preceded by ages of progression. The nature of the country itself affords a presumption of the great antiquity of the empire, and its early civilization.-From the fertilizing effects of the waters of the Nile, it is probable that agriculture would be more early practised there than in regions less favoured by nature.-The periodical inundations of the Nile are owing to the vapours of the Mediterranean, which are driven to the southward as far as the mountains of Ethiopia, where, being condensed, they fall down in immense deluges of rain.‡

For the supposed origin of Egyptian science, see p. 407.

+ Chariots and carriages were not used in England until the reign of Elizabeth. The Nile begins to rise in Egypt about the middle of June, and continues to increase through the month of July. In August it overflows its banks, and reaches its highest point early in September; and the country is then mostly covered with its waters. In the beginning of October the inundation still continues; and it is only towards the end of this month that the stream returns within its banks. From the middle of August till towards the end of October, the country resembles a great lake or sea, in which the cities and towns appear as islands. The fertility imparted lies not only in the inundation watering the land (for rain seldom falls in Lower Egypt, and is almost unknown in the Upper Provinces), but also in the thick slimy mud deposited by its waters, like a coat of rich manure; and the seed, being immediately sown upon it, without digging or ploughing, springs up rapidly, grows with luxuriance, and ripens into abundance. It must not, however, be supposed

3. THE GOVERNMENT of Egypt, in the earliest times, was theocratic, or in the priests-each nome or district being ruled by its own priests. But from the time of Menes, it was a hereditary monarchy. The powers of the monarch were limited by constitutional laws; yet in many respects his authority was extremely despotical. The functions of the sovereign were partly civil and partly religious. The king had the chief regulation of all that regarded the worship of the gods; and the priests, considered as his deputies, filled all the offices of state. They were both the legislators and the civil judges; they imposed and levied the taxes, and regulated weights and measures. The great national tribunal was composed of thirty judges, chosen from the priests in the three principal provinces or departments of the empire-Thebes, Heliopolis,and Memphis.

These judges had revenues assigned them, that, being freed from domestic cares, they might devote their whole time to the execution of the laws. Thus, maintained by the liberality of the sovereign, who exacted an oath from them not to yield obedience even to himself if he passed an unjust law, they administered gratuitously to the people that justice to which they have a natural right; and as parties were their own advocates, the expense was no burden upon the people. To guard against surprise, the judges also required that every case should be laid before them in writing, lest they might be misled by that extraordinary gift of oratory which often dazzles the mind, and moves the passions. The penal laws of Egypt were uncommonly severe. Wilful murder and perjury were punished with death; and the false accuser was condemned to suffer the same punishment which the person accused would have suffered, had the charge been proved. Female chastity was most rigidly protected; and he who refused to render assistance to another when attacked, was equally liable to punishment with the individual who had done the injury. The Egyptians did not, like most other nations, consign the bodies of the dead to destruction; they preserved them by embalming, celebrating their obsequies with extraordinary solemnity. To be deprived of funeral rites they considered one of the greatest calamities; but these rites were not permitted till after a scrutiny into the life of the deceased, and by a judicial decree approving of his character. The characters even of the sovereigns were subjected to this inquiry; and Diodorus assures us that some of the kings had been deprived of funeral rites, and their memories thus consigned to infamy.

There was an extraordinary regulation in Egypt to discourage

that the Nile spreads itself over every spot of land, and waters it sufficiently without artificial aid. From time immemorial machines have been used to raise the water to grounds above the level of the inundation. Lakes were also formed as reservoirs to supply the deficiency, and canals to convey the water to the districts that required it. If the inundation reached the height of twenty-two feet, a rich harvest was expected; because then all the fields had received the requisite irrigation; and if it fell short of that height, then the deficiency of crops would be in proportion. Famines frequently occurred in Egypt from that cause.

the borrowing of money. The borrower was required to give in pledge the embalmed body of his father; and he was not only deprived of funeral rites if he failed to redeem it, but whilst he lived he was not permitted to bury any person descended from him.

Population was encouraged by many salutary laws. Polygamy was tolerated, but few Egyptians had more than one wife. Every man was bound to maintain and educate not only the children born to him in the state of marriage, but also those that he had by his slaves or concubines: whatever was the condition of the woman, whether she was free or a slave, her children were deemed free and legitimate. Homicide was punished with death, even when committed on a slave; and the exposing of infants was restrained by the severest penalties.

4. The Egyptians preceded most of the ancient nations in the knowledge of the useful ARTS, and in the cultivation of the SCIENCES. They understood very early the use of metals, both in the fabrication of serviceable utensils, in ornamental decorations, and in the coining of money, as a medium of commerce. Architecture was early brought to great perfection. Their buildings, the pyramids, obelisks, &c., have, from the extreme mildness of the climate, suffered little injury from time. Some of the obelisks, which are supposed to be more ancient than the pyramids, and consequently above 3000 years old, are entire at this day: one in particular may be seen at Rome, which was transported thither by Augustus, and which Pliny says was supposed to be older than the time of Sesostris. These immense masses, consisting of one entire block of granite, were hewn in the quarries of Upper Egypt, where some are now to be seen half-finished. During the inundation of the Nile, and by means of canals, they were conveyed on rafts to the places where they were to be erected. Pliny minutely describes the contrivance by means of which they were transported. The whole country abounds with the remains of ancient magnificence. Thebes, in Upper Egypt, was one of the most splendid cities in the universe.

The greater pyramids are supposed to have been erected about 900 years B. C. The great pyramid of Cheops, and that of Cephrenes, the second in size, have been entered, and found to contain numerous chambers, with a sarcophagus in one of the chambers of each, probably the sepulchre of the sovereign by whose command it was built.* The Egyptians believed that

* The pyramid of Cheops is an equilateral square, of which each side measures at the base 693 English feet. The stones of which it is composed are, many of them, 30 feet in length, 4 in height, and 3 in breadth. The superficial contents of the area are 480,219 feet, or something more than 11 English acres. The height of the pyramid is 481 feet, which is about the height of the cupola of St Paul's church in London. It rises from the base to the apex in steps of near 4 feet in height, and the summit is a square platform of 13 feet, composed of 10 or 12 stones. This form of construction in the manner of steps was probably given to the building, that it might receive a coating of marble, by laying upon each step a block of a prismatical form, which would thus bring the exterior of the building to a smooth surface, which is the appearance of most of the smaller pyramids at this day. The entrance is on the north side. The ascent is made by steps; and narrow passages lead to the

death did not separate the soul from the body; and hence their extreme care to preserve the body entire, by embalming, concealing it in caves and catacombs, and guarding it by such stupendous structures.

The remains of art in Egypt, though venerable for their great antiquity, are extremely deficient in beauty and elegance. The Egyptians were ignorant of the construction of an arch. The remains of painting and sculpture evince but a slender proficiency in those arts, and afford but a small degree of pleasure to the critical eye.

5.[The Egyptians possessed considerable knowledge of geometry, mechanics, and astronomy. The necessity for distinguishing their fields after the inundations of the Nile, and the division of the land by Sesostris, conducted them at an early period to the discovery of geometry. The conveyence of immense masses of granite for hundreds of miles, and the raising them to a great height in their buildings, attest their knowledge of mechanics. They were acquainted with arithmetic; they studied astronomy with ardour; they divided the zodiac into twelve signs; they had discovered the solar year about 1325 B. C.; they were able to calculate both solar and lunar eclipses. Thales, who received his knowledge of astronomy from the Egyptians, predicted the famous eclipse of the sun which separated the armies of the Medes and Lydians during an engagement, B. C. 603 (according to Dr. Hales). The position of the pyramids, most exactly corresponding to the four cardinal points, is, not without reason, urged as a proof of their knowledge in astronomy, as it requires even at present considerable knowledge in that science to trace a meridian line with perfect accuracy. They seem also to have had an idea of the motion of the earth.

6. THE RELIGION of Egypt consisted in the worship of the powers of nature, and of the heavenly bodies. One great intelligence was supposed to preside over all nature. They believed in the immortality of the soul; and esteemed the present state of existence to be of no value, in comparison with that which was to come, and which was to be the reward of a life spent in this world in the practice of virtue. The Egyptian religion had this peculiarity, that living animals were made to represent the real objects of worship. Their principal divinities were Osiris, Isis, Typhon, and Nephthys. In Osiris they recognised the vegetable kingdom, the Nile, the sun, fire, the male principle-active and

chambers, the walls of which are of red granite, highly polished, each stone reaching from the floor to the ceiling; and the ceilings are formed of large slabs of polished granite, extending from wall to wall. One chamber is 17 feet long, 14 feet wide, and 12 feet high; and the largest, 37 feet long, 17 feet wide, and 20 feet high; at the end of which stands a sarcophagus, also of red granite. Its length is seven feet six inches; depth, three and a half; breadth, three feet three inches; in which it is supposed the body of him for whom the structure had been raised was deposited. The sarcophagus is exactly the size of the orifice which forms the entrance of the pyramid, and could not have been conveyed to its place by any of the now known passages; consequently, it must have been deposited during the building, or before the passage was finished in its present state.

vivifying, which they represented by the bull or ox Mnevis, consecrated to the sun at Heliopolis; and by another, called Apis, dedicated to the moon at Memphis; and also by other emblems. In Isis they recognized the moon, the land of Egypt, humidity, the female principle, of which the symbol was a heifer. Typhon was the evil principle, king of death and destruction; and Nephthys his sister, the earth unfruitful, drought, and sterility. To the worship of these divinities was joined that of the animals useful to the shepherd, the husbandman, or society generally, as the Ox, the Ram, the Ibis-a species of stork, which destroyed the serpents that infested the country; the Ichneumon, a species of weasel, and the Cat, destroyers of serpents, rats, and crocodiles' eggs. The Egyptian added to these the worship of noxious animals, as the Rat, Crocodile, and Hippopotamus, to which he sacrificed in his terror to appease them; and lastly, the worship of useful herbs, of which the principal was the Lotus, which furnished him with part of his food.

7. The priests of Egypt, like the Bramins of India, were a distinct order or caste. They are supposed to have come from Ethiopia, and to have been the civilizers of the first inhabitants. They were the educated class in the state, and the inventors of emblematical or hieroglyphic writing, of which, according to Clement of Alexandria, there were three different kinds. 1, The Epistolographic, called also Demotic and Enchorial, which was the kind commonly in use; 2, the Hieratic, or sacerdotal language; and 3, the Hieroglyphic, or monumental writing. But of this last there were different species; as, 1, Phonetic, which expressed objects by means of characters employed as signs of sounds; 2, the Munetic, which was picture-writing, strictly so called; 3, the Symbolic, which expressed objects indirectly by synecdoche, by metonymy, or by metaphors more or less obvious; and, 4, the Enigmatic, which as the name implies, expressed ideas by means of certain enigmas.* The morality taught by the priests was pure and refined; but it had little influence on the manners of the people. So, likewise, the theology and secret doctrines were rational and sublime; but the worship of the people was debased by the most absurd superstition. Although animal worship was common throughout Egypt, yet it differed in different parts of the country. There were but a few species which were everywhere worshipped; the others were sacred in one district, but not in another. In one province they might be killed and eaten; in another, the punishment of death was the price of doing them an injury. "The multitude," says Diodorus, "have been inflamed into the highest pitch of fury, on account of the sacrilegious murder of a divine cat."

The accidental disinterment of a stone at Rosetta, inscribed with hieroglyphic and enchorial texts, together with a Greek version of both; and the subsequent discovery of a monument at Philæ, adapted for illustrating that of Rosetta, enabled Di Young and others to discover the key to that mode of writing, which has opened up so much of the treasure of Egyptian history, mythology, science, art, and learning; and, when further improved, will open still more.