With Plates, and Notes explanatory of the same. By J. G. Wilkinson, Esq. Malta. 1828. Accompanied by a Vocabulary and Appendix.

By

7. Extracts from several Hieroglyphical Subjects found at Thebes and other Parts of Egypt. With Remarks thereon. J. G. Wilkinson, Esq. Malta. 1830.

8. Notes on Hieroglyphics. By Major Orlando Felix. With Plates, lithographed at Cairo, &c. 1828.

9. Hieroglyphics collected by the Egyptian Society, and continued by the Royal Society of Literature. Arranged by Thomas Young, M. D. F. R.S. and others. London. 1828-1830. In large Folio.

If the results of a discovery which has restored to our age contemporary records more than a thousand years older than the reputed father of profane history, have been exaggerated by Champollion and the more enthusiastic of his followers, they have, on the other hand, been too much depreciated by criticism which takes its stand at so early a stage of the inquiry as not to afford to the general reader a fair view of its actual progress and positive results. It will be seen that we allude more particularly to the treatise of M. Klaproth, founded on the philological difficulties which embarrass the question, and on the inconsistencies discoverable in the writings of M. Champollion during its progressinconsistencies which ought to form a very secondary consideration with the critic whose object is to elicit the truth from a series of discoveries, the grand outline of which must be investigated and well understood before we can be qualified to seek for those minuter harmonies which must eventually characterize every legitimate system. Objections, however, of this nature, coming from a philologist of such unquestioned powers and resources as the author of " Asia Polyglotta," while the circumstances and progress which are independent of such objections are unaccountably kept in abeyance, are calculated to give impressions to the uninitiated, injurious to the cause of historical truth, and to the claims of those who have laboured so successfully in promoting it. To disabuse the minds of our readers of such impressions on the subject of hieroglyphic discovery, and on topics of a still higher interest which are connected with it, and to lay before them the actual state of an inquiry as interesting as it is important, is the object of the present article.

We have, therefore, placed at the head of it all the original materials which are necessary to direct us to rational conclusions; first, with regard to the origin and growth of the Egyptian nation, its arts and institutions, and the ages to which these phenomena

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are referable;-themes which, taking our tone from the classic writers of antiquity, we are too apt to consider involved in impenetrable mystery, and, consequently, fit subjects for unbridled speculation; and, secondly, on the fragments of the annals of that country which have descended to our times, and the extent to which its mysterious literature, so wonderfully recovered, is available for illustrating these and the contemporary history of nations. To this order we shall adhere as closely as data so multifarious and interwoven, and a due regard to perspicuity, will admit.

At the head of all ought to be placed the book of GENESIS, that record which every writer of sound judgment agrees to be the most ancient in existence; and which professing, as it does, to unfold the origin of all nations, forms, apart from higher claims, the only rational starting point for investigations like the present. The work next in order, the fourth on our list, contains a body of analogous historical information, drawn from the most ancient profane sources, which, forming no part of our usual course of study, and scattered through the folios of extensive libraries, had, until Mr. Cory's publication, remained inaccessible to the general reader. Those who have been engaged in searching for the materials here brought together in a portable and well-digested form, including, with few exceptions, all the copies and various readings of the fragments, can best appreciate their obligations to the gentleman who has supplied this desideratum in European literature, at a crisis when the recovery of the contemporary hieroglyphic records has rendered facility of collation more than ever desirable. This is preceded by the published results of the French and Tuscan literary expedition to Egypt, to which the learned world has long been anxiously looking forward; together with M. Klaproth's hostile "Examen:" and followed by the researches and collections which are exclusively due to our countrymen resident in Egypt and at home, since hieroglyphic inquiry has assumed a consistent form. All these we shall endeavour to place before the public in the light to which their respective claims entitle them. But previously to entering upon this task, it will be necessary to trace the progress of mankind and of history until growing civilization gave existence to the gigantic efforts here illustrated, which have caused the country where they are found to be unanimously voted the parent of the arts and sciences of Greece, Italy and modern Europe. This forms the primary element of the inquiry, without a clear elucidation of which the inquiry itself is not worth pursuing; we shall thus ascertain what it is that we may expect to be illustrated by the discoveries before us-a previous question too much overlooked-without rushing headlong on a subject which it may require the sagacity and learning of ages fully to evolve.

I. The sun of Egypt had been long on the decline when her intercourse with the Grecian states commenced in the reign of Psammetichus; and had altogether descended below the horizon before the father of Grecian history visited that extraordinary region about the middle of the fifth century B. C. Her monu

ments, history and institutions were, at that early period, objects of nearly as much mysterious wonder and admiration as at the commencement of the nineteenth century. It is true that the twilight of her political and literary glories continued for some hundreds of years later, and that monuments were raised and adorned with sculptures, in the ancient hieroglyphic characters and language, under the Ptolemies and Cæsars, and until the time of the Septimian family of Roman Emperors. Several Greek and Roman writers of celebrity visited the shores of Egypt during this interval, and have left posterity all that anxious inquiry could glean from the priesthood, who appear to have retained in their exclusive possession the sacred Hermaic language and literature, and to have been sparing in their communications to foreigners until the final extinction of their order. The historical notices thus obtained, although in many instances extremely valuable, would, however, have left the antiquities of Egypt in impenetrable obscurity, had not a few native fragments of the day-light of her history remained to guide our researches.

Of these fragments preserved by native historians, and which we shall have occasion to investigate at some length, the Greek and Roman writers knew little, or, at all events, they but ill understood and made very small use of them. As, however, it is the results of the inquiries of the latter which at present form the chief ground-work for antiquarian speculation, we shall devote a few pages to an outline of what has thus descended to us, and of the prevailing systems founded thereon by modern theorists, previously to discussing what we deem the more legitimate sources for illustrating the great body of original information brought to light by the progressive discoveries of the last fifteen years. By this course we hope to divest the subject of much of its complexity, to prepare the mind of the uninitiated reader to accompany us through a most interesting field of research, and to prove to the learned that much light yet remains to be derived from seemingly exhausted materials.

Herodotus has thrown no light on the origin of the Egyptian nation, but he has handed down by far the most perfect outline of its history from the commencement of the intercourse with Greece, ascending two centuries above his own time, and including the age of the last independent dynasty of Pharaohs; together with some valuable, though disjointed, historical and

chronological notices of the earlier and more flourishing periods. In common with other writers he tells us that the Gods first reigned, and that Menes succeeded them and founded the monarchy, at an epoch when the arts of civilized life were already far advanced; for he attributes the building of the city of Memphis, the foundation of the great temple of Phtha or Hephaestus, and several other works, to that prince. On the time when Menes flourished he throws no direct light, nor on the history of his 330* immediate successors, including Queen Nitocris and eighteen Ethiopian kings, beyond acquainting us that an hereditary hierarchy was co-existent with the monarchy, and that the numbers of successive kings and high-priests were equal. With Moris, the last of this portentous catalogue, the connected history of Herodotus commences. This prince made additions to the temple of Phtha, begun by Menes, and was one of the chief promoters of the Egyptian arts and sciences. This era is fixed with considerable exactness; "not quite 900 years had expired from the death of Moeris until the time at which the priests gave me this information.”—(l. ii. c. 13.) Eusebius refers the recital of his history by Herodotus to the Athenians, to the fourth year of the eighty-third Olympiad, or B. C. 445. This was the twentieth of the reign of Artaxerxes Longimanus, being the date of Nehemiah's mission from the Persian court-a circumstance which we mention, because it brings to mind the remarkable fact that the writer who has been universally called the father of profane history, and the most recent historian of the sacred Jewish canon, were contemporaries. Ascending, therefore, 900 years from this date, we find that the death of Moris occurred subsequently to the middle of the fourteenth century B. C., according to the priestly authorities of Herodotus---a date in remarkable coincidence with the era of King Menophres, which the astronomer Theon refers to the commencement of the canicular period, B. C. 1325-1321, 1605 years before the reign of Diocletian;† and the slightest acquaintance with the Coptic nomenclature of the kings of Egypt will make it evident that both accounts refer to the same prince. Me-ra, Me-phra and Me-no-phra alike mean "the beloved of Ra or Phra"-the sun, the genitive sign N being indifferently used or omitted. We are aware that Menophres has been by Larcher identified with Sesostris, and by Champollion with the Menophis or Amenophis of Manetho's

The five royal lines descending from Menes (Manetho apud Syncel. p. 40, ed. Par.), which were doubtless contemporary for several ages, will explain this number, which is not irreconcileable with the kings mentioned in the first seventeen dynasties. + See the passage, first published complete, from the Royal Parisian MS. in Cory's Ancient Fragments, p. 329.

nineteenth dynasty; and that the chronological system of this savant is mainly founded on the assumed coincidence of name—a coincidence which raises Moeris four centuries above the age assigned by Herodotus, but so imperfect, that Dr. Young pronounced that "the name of Menophres" was not to be "identified with any kind of certainty among Manetho's kings."* Here, however, we find not only a complete identity of names, but of dates; and there is no reign to which the root of the canicular cycle, or period of Menophres, can with more congruity be referred than to that of so great an encourager of the arts and sciences as Moris.

Next to Moris appears the conqueror Sesostris, at the interval of eleven generations above the death of Sethon, who was followed by the twelve contemporary kings, the immediate predecessors of Psammetichus, who first admitted the Greeks into Egypt. Adding the fifteen years of the Dodecarchy, on the authority of Diodorus, and the twenty of Taracus, or Tirhakah, the Ethiopian, on the authority of Manetho, and we may add, of the hieroglyphic monuments-both these intervals being omitted by Herodotusto that historian's fixed era of Psammetichus, B.C. 672-1, we find the year B. C. 707-6 for the death of Sevechus or Sethon; and ascending from this date 3663 years, being the interval of eleven generations according to the Egyptian calculation, we arrive at B.C. 1074-3 for the era of Sesostris, the last great Egyptian con

queror.

But this makes an interval of at least 250 years between Moris and Sesostris, on the showing of Herodotus, who, however, does not mention them as father and son, or even as immediately succeeding each other. In conformity with this gap, we find "seven generations of kings" interposed between the Myris and Sesoösis of Diodorus-equal to 233 years according to the technical computation of the priests-which, added to B.C. 1074, will bring us to B. C. 1307 for the death of Moris or Myris, scarcely differing from the former results. It is thus evident that Herodotus has supplied us with two radical epochs of great value, the reigns of Moeris and Sesostris, which form the boundaries of the most splendid age of Egyptian art and power, as will appear in the sequel, from the monuments of those princes. Of the princes who came between Sesostris and Sethon-Pheron, Proteus,

Yet Dr. Young might have recognised the name of Menophres in that of Mesphres or Me-phres, the fifth king of Manetho's eighteenth dynasty, whom all hierologists have admitted to be the Moeris of Herodotus. It is the same name with the omission of the genitive sign as before. In the Armenian version of Eusebius the same prince is called Me-m-phres. Here the genitive sign M replaces the N of Theon. Dr. Young, who refers the accession of Mephres to the year B. C. 1699, admits that it might have been" perhaps a century or two later."