without slavery, that we approve the offi- | Cornewall Lewis will do well to make a cial decision to make a full and searching note. This papyrus dates from the fourinquiry into the condition of the island. From the Saturday Review. EGYPT, ANCIENT AND MODERN.* THIS book is another proof of the vast and wholesome change that is gradually taking place in the learned literature of Germany. Although treating of a most abstruse subject, it is yet not only fit for human reading, but is absolutely one of the most interesting works which we have seen for some time. It consists of a series of essays or lectures delivered before a select circle in Berlin, during the last nine years, by Dr. Brugsch, the eminent Egyptologist. On changing his professorial chair at the Prussian University for his new official post at Cairo, he has published these essays as a farewell gift to his friends in Europe. They are divided into two parts, the first of which contains sketches and reminiscences of his journeys on the Nile, through the desert, and in the streets of Cairo. Teeming as these picturesque descriptions are with valuable and interesting remarks, we refrain from dwelling upon them. We prefer to reserve our space for the second part, in which the latest results of hieroglyphic science are put before us in so lucid and fascinating a manner that we are apt to forget at times how enormous were the labours which produced them. 66 teenth century B.C., when Pharaoh Ramses Miamun, the founder of Pithom and Ramses, ruled at Thebes, and literature celebrated its highest triumphs at his brilliant court. Nine pre-eminent savans were attached to the person of this king, the contemporary of Moses. At their head stood, as "Master of the Rolls," a certain Kagabu, unrivalled in elegance of style and diction. It was he, probably, who officiated as Keeper at that vast Library at Thebes of which classical writers speak as having borne the inscription "uys lurpetov"-somewhat similar to Frederic II.'s inscription over the Royal Library at Berlin, "Nutrimentum Spiritus." This hieroglyphic document is the only one hitherto known which belongs to the world of fiction. Hymns, exhortations, historical records, accounts of journeys, general essays, eulogies on kings, and bills, form the general staple of that very brittle literature. Written expressly "in usum Delphini" namely, for the Crown Prince, Seti Menephta, son of Rameses II.-our papyrus bears the following critical note, or mark of official censorship:-- "Found worthy to be. wedded to the names of the Pharaonic Scribe Kagabu and the Scribe Hora and the Scribe Meremapu. Its author is the Scribe Annana, the proprietor of this scroll. May the God Toth guard all the words contained in this scroll from destruction!" In language and manner it resembles most of the productions of its classical period. It is lucid and clear, and though full of poetical fancy, yet simple and unaffected, reThe first essay of the second part is en- minding the reader occasionally of the titled "An Ancient Egyptian Fairy Tale; grand simplicity in word and thought found the Oldest Fairy Tale in the World." It in Scripture. It further resembles the latis the first German, and altogether the first ter in its occasional monotony and repeticomplete, version of the celebrated papyrus tions; both, however, drawbacks common acquired by Mrs. D'Orbiney in 1852, which to nearly all the early documents of differis now in the British Museum. Although, ent literatures. The tale itself is rather a Dr. Brugsch says, the text has for years curious one to be selected for the special been before the learned world, nothing but reading of a young prince. Its "motive" extracts from it- of which we gave an is the same as in the story of Joseph and account some time ago- - have been trans- Potiphar's wife. The chief persons are two lated as yet. And he adds quaintly, that brothers and the wife of the elder one, who this first version is not a philological trick brings a false accusation against her young nor altogether an offspring only of his own brother-in-law. The latter saves himself fancy."My humble merit is confined simply and solely to the application to a given text of the rules of hieroglyphical grammar, which in these days have become the common property of science" - a statement of which the followers of Sir George from his brother's wrath, and goes, aided by the Sun-God, through a peculiar transformation. The wife meets her well-deserved fate, and the two brothers are in the end restored to each other's esteem and love, and the elder becomes regent of Egypt. Apart from the general literary interest attaching to this relic of more than three thousand years ago- which gains a peculiar significance from the fact that it was first written and read at the very Court of Ramses II. at which Moses was educated - it incidentally reveals so much of the manners and customs, the notions and views, of that peculiar era of ancient Egypt, that we cannot be too grateful for its almost miraculous preservation. Of more vital interest, however, are those hieroglyphic discoveries which enable us to trace the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt, in its monuments. Almost all recent investigators of this subject agree that the time between the immigration and the Exodus formed part of one of the most glorious epochs of Pharaonic rule — namely, that of the eighteenth dynasty. For twenty centuries Egyptian sovereigns had held all the country in undisturbed possession, when suddenly, pushed by the Assyrians, Shemitic hordes broke into the Eastern Delta and seized upon it, gradually extending their dominion so as to make even the kings of Upper Egypt tributary. For more than five hundred years the Egyptians bore the yoke of these foreign conquerors - called in the inscriptions either " Amu," i. e. "shepherds of oxen," or "Aadu," "detested, wicked ones"-whose kings held court at Tanis (Hauar, Avaris) in much prouder style than the Theban monarchs themselves. Who were the gallant and skilful generals who, by a few bold strokes, reconquered the independence of Egypt, and expelled or utterly subdued the foreign population, is not known. But this reverse to the fortunes of the native Pharaohs happened, we know for certain, during that eighteenth Theban dynasty, and the three centuries that followed form the most flourishing period of Egyptian history. Egyptian armies penetrated into Palestine, marched along the Royal road by Gaza and Megiddo to the banks of the Euphrates and Tigris, made Babylon and Nineveh tributary, and erected their last victorious columns on the borders of Armenia, where, as the hieroglyphic texts have it, Heaven rests on its four pillars. No doubt these conquests in Asia, and the thousands and thousands of Shemitic prisoners whom the conquerors carried home as slaves, were looked upon in the light of reprisals for the long period of Shemitic oppression. Endless are the processions of figures on the gigantic and apparently indestructible temple walls erected by these wretched Asiatic prisoners, representing them in the act of carrying water to knead the mortar, forming bricks in wooden frames, spreading them out to dry in the sun, carrying them to the buildings in the course of erection, and the like; all this being done under the eye of Egyptian officials lounging about armed with weighty sticks, while different inscriptions inform us of the nature of the special work done by these "prisoners whom the King has taken, that they might build temples to his gods." About the middle of the fifteenth century before our era, there arose a new dynasty, the nineteenth, at the head of which stands Rameses I. It is under the long rule of his grandson, Rameses II., who mounted the throne at about 1400, that we meet with the first monumental hints regarding the events recorded in Scripture. This Per-ãa or Pher-ão - literally" High House". who reigned sixty-six years, erected, so the hieroglyphical sources tell us, a chain of forts or fortified cities from Pelusium to Heliopolis, of which the two principal ones bore the names of "Rameses" and "Pachtum," our biblical" Pithom;" both situated in the present Wadi Tumilat, near the sweet-water canal that joined the Nile with the Red Sea. Papyri of the time of this "Pharaoh of the Exodus" give a glowing description of those new strongholds. In the Papyrus Anastasi (in the British Museum), the scribe Pinebsa reports to his superior, Amenenaput, how very and "incomparable" life is in Rameses, how "its plains swarm with people, its fields with birds, and its ponds and canals with fishes; how the meadows glitter with balmy flowers, the fruits taste like unto honey, and the corn-houses and barns overflow with grain." This official further describes the splendid reception given to the king at his first entry (in the tenth year of his reign) into the new city, and how the people pressed forward to salute "him, great in victory." We even find the very name of the Hebrews recorded in the official reports of the day. A papyrus in the Museum of Leyden contains the following, addressed by the scribe Kauitsir to his superior, the scribe Bakenptah :· "sweet May my Lord find satisfaction in my having complied with the instruction my Lord gave me, saying, Distribute the rations among the soldiers, and likewise among the Hebrews (Apuru) who carry the stones to the great city of King Rameses-Miamun, the lover of truth; [and who are] under the orders of the Captain of the police soldiers, Ameneman. I distribute the food among them monthly, according to the excellent instructions which my Lord has given me. Similar distinct indications of the people and their state of serfdom are found in Monuments," but turn to a chapter quaintly another Leyden papyrus, and even in the entitled "What the Stones are Saying." long rock-inscription of Hamamât. Joseph It is the vast and varied number of stone had never been at the court of an Egyptian inscriptions found in Egyptian tombs of Pharaoh, but at that of one of those Shemite which Dr. Brugsch here treats. He finds kings of Avaris-Tanis; and when, after the the reason for the people dwelling during expulsion of this foreign dynasty and the their lifetime in tents of mud, but erecting quick extinction of the one which over- everlasting monuments for their corpses, in threw it, Rameses had come to the throne, their firm conviction of the existence of it was natural enough that "he knew not another, an everlasting, world, to which Joseph." this present one is merely the entrance-hall. While a general inscription on the walls of these tombs uniformly exhorts the living to praise the Deity gladly, to leave all earthly things behind when the parting moment arrives, and to pray for the dead, there are others upholding most characteristically the advantages and the high rank possessed by the literatus in comparison with all other ranks and professions. Thus many are found like the following: The Exodus took place under Menephtes, the successor of that second Rameses in the sixth year of whose reign Moses probably was born. In the twenty-first year of his rule, Rameses had concluded a treaty with the Hittites, the text of which is found cut into a stone-wall at Thebes, and in which occurs the following important passage: "If the subjects of King Rameses should come to the King of the Hittites, the King of the Hittites is not to receive them, but to force them to return to Rameses the King of Egypt." This sufficiently explains the fear expressed by the biblical Pharaoh, lest the people might "go up from the land." The Shemitic population, subdued and enslaved as they were, had one glowing desire only to escape from Egypt, and join their brethren at home in their wars against the Pharaohs. The name of Moses is now universally recognized to be of Egyptian origin. It is the Mas or Massu of rather frequent occurrence on the monuments, and means" child." A certain connection of Egyptian ideas with the Mosaic legislation, its sacrifices, purifications, &c., is also no longer questioned. But there is one most important monumental testimony, which is not sufficiently recognized yet, and which fully proves that to those far-famed Egyptian adepts of priestly wisdom the sublime doctrine of the Unity of the Deity was well known, and that the manifold forms of the Egyptian Pantheon were nothing but religious masks, so to speak-grotesque allegorical embodiments of that originally pure dogma communicated to the initiated in the Mysteries. And the initiated took their sublime Confession of Faith, inscribed upon a scroll, with them even into the grave. The name of the One God, however, is not mentioned on it, but is expressed only in the circumlocution, Nuk ри Nuk I am he who I am." Who does not instantly remember the awful "I am that I am" sounding from amid the flames of the bush? We shall not further pursue these and similar points of high importance touched upon in the essay inscribed " Moses and the What does all this talk about an officer being better off than a scholar amount to? Just look at an officer's life, and see how manifold are his miseries. While still young he is shut up in a military school. He is there punished until out and beaten. After that, he is sent to the they make his head to bleed; he is stretched wars into Syria. He must wander on rocky heights, he has to carry his bread and drink suspended from his arm, like unto a beast of burden. The water he gets is foul. Then he is marched off to mount guard over the tent. After that, the enemy arrives and catches him, as in a mousetrap. Should he, however, be be like a worm-eaten block of wood. Should lucky enough to return to Egypt, he will only he be sick, he is put on a litter and carried on a donkey's back. His things, meanwhile, are stolen by thieves, and his attendants run away. Truly a picture of an Egyptian soldier's life worthy of Joseph Bertha, le Conscrit. But other trades and professions fare no better when contrasted with the savant's noble state. There are similar caricatures from the farmer's or peasant's life, down to that of the barber, "who has to run from inn to inn to get customers." Out of this high opinion of, and eager desire for, literary education and refinement, there grew almost naturally an eminently high ethical and moral code of feeling. Take the following inscription over a tomb at El-Kalb, over four thousand years old: "He loved his father, he honoured his mother, he loved his brother, and never left his house with an angry heart. A man of high position was never preferred by him to a humbler man." There are many traces even of that chivalrous deference to women which is always found in highly-cultivated nations. The names of the husbands are more often both in Firdusi and the Nibelungen, and of omitted in the genealogical tablets than a number of mysterious customs and notions those of the "Ladies of the House," whose common to both Persians and Germans. principal ornament, the stones record, was Although this is no less replete with intertheir "love to their wedded lords." They esting facts and speculations than the foreare called in the inscriptions- not gener- going essays, we cannot further enlarge ally given to poetic phraseology-"the upon it here. All we can do is once more beautiful palms, whose fruit was tender to thank the eminent author, now dwelling love," and the most glorious present accorded in that land which already has revealed to to the favourites of the Gods is "the esteem him so many of its secrets, and to express of men and the love of women." the hope that, notwithstanding his many official and editorial occupations, he will find leisure again to speak to us thus pleasantly of Pharaonic scrolls and stones. The last chapter in the book is a valuable contribution to comparative Indo-Germanic mythology, treating of certain Sagas found CHRISTMAS. [WE adopt selections made by the Boston Transcript, whose good taste may always be depended upon.] ON Christmas eve the bells were rung; |
