HISTORICAL VALUE OF EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES. 215 the moralist beholds in them the remarkable example of a people, believing in a doctrine of divine retribution, surrounded even at their feasts, and in their kings' palaces, with the mementos of death, and yet living in the grossest sensuality, the evidences of which remain pictured on the walls of the very temples, where also is recorded the sublime but vain doctrine of the awful balance and the judgment of Osiris. CHAPTER VI. HISTORICAL VALUE OF EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES. Speak, silent witnesses from ages past, Of younger ages, what have we to fear, While history, more remote, grows aye more clear. MOLESWORTH. A MUCH larger portion of this volume has been devoted to the consideration of Egyptian antiquities than has been deemed necessary for those of Babylon and Nineveh, or even of Jerusalem. The propriety of this can hardly fail to be apparent to every reader. The place which Egypt occupies in the world's history is altogether remarkable and unparalleled. In one important respect it stands alongside of Jerusalem, while in its influence on the earlier nations that established the great empires of the world, it stands alone, extending its wonderful teachings on every hand, centuries before the summit of Mount Moria, on which the church of the Holy Sepulchre at Je rusalem is now affirmed to stand, had borne another structure than the wild thicket, in which the typical ram was caught which the patriarch sacrificed instead of his son. Egypt was the secular, and Jerusalem the religious, teacher of the world. Jerusalem has triumphed at length. The divine Teacher hath sent forth his disciples to all the earth, commissioned to make known the lessons which he taught to every creature. The words of his mouth have free course. He shall see of the travail of his soul and be satisfied. Not so of Egypt and her teachings. Their influence was great ere Jerusalem was builded on her sacred hills. India, it is not improbable, learned from her its first lessons of knowledge of symbolic myth, and of error. Babylon and Assyria drank deeply from her strange fountains, and Greece and Rome received from thence the vivifying well-spring from whence was watered and nourished the strange but most poetical mythology which animated the dramas of Eschylus, and the fancies of Homer and Virgil. But all this has for ever passed away. Egyptian mythology is dead and vanished as the leaves of long-forgotten summers, that have decayed and decomposed into the incumbent earth. It is only as a key to a state of things as utterly passed away as the world before the flood, that we turn to its study; but as such it is invaluable. It reveals to us how men thought and acted, by what hopes and fears they were influenced, how they lived and how they died, in those old centuries when the fathers of the Hebrew race were dwelling in tents amid their flocks, or struggling in strange conflict with the accursed children of Canaan. The investigations into a field of research which promises such results, cannot fail to attract the most earnest attention. There is something extremely fascinating to the intelligent mind in the study of a branch of antiquities which seems to bring us into familiar contact with events and occurrences that happened contemporaneously with those which have been revealed to us only in connexion with the solemn and commanding disclosures of the inspired Scriptures. Glancing over the chronological tables of Wilkinson, we follow down from Menes and Athothis, his son, rulers, it may be, contemporary with, or perhaps even prior to the founders of Babel and Nineveh; to Suphis, the builder of the great pyramid; to Aphoph, under whom Abraham is supposed to have visited Egypt, when the beauty of Sarai won the favour of Pharaoh. After a considerable interval, familiar to us in many ways by the sacred narrative, we are next attracted by the events of the reign of Osirtasen I., under whom it seems most probable that Joseph was called from his dungeon to the position of honour and influence, by means of which we obtain so remarkable a glimpse of the internal economy of this singular land. Wilkinson remarks: "The accession of the first Osirtasen I conceive to date about the year 1740 B. C., and the length of his reign must have exceeded forty-three years. If the name of this monarch was not ennobled by military exploits equal to those of the Remeses, the encouragement given to the arts of peace, and the flourishing state of Egypt during his rule, evince his wisdom; and his pacific character satisfactorily accords with that of the Pharaoh, who so generously rewarded the talents and fidelity of a Hebrew stranger. "Some insight into Egyptian customs during his reign is derived from the story of Joseph, with whom I suppose him to have been coeval; and the objects taken thither by the Ishmaelites, consisting in spices, balm, and myrrh, which were intended for the purposes of luxury as well as of religion; the subsequent mention of the officers of Pharaoh's household; the state allowed to Joseph; the portion of lands allotted to the priesthood, and other similar institutions and customs-tend to show the advanced state of society at this early epoch." In this respect we are introduced to a singularly inter esting field of study, by observing the mutual relations of sacred and profane history which have been already noticed in parallel cases resulting from recent Assyrian discoveries. It is the previous study and knowledge of Egyptian antiquities, however, which has enabled the inscriptions and antiquities of Assyria to be so speedily turned to account. A single season may, to the superficial observer, appear to have sufficed for the application of recent Assyrian researches to the direct purposes of the historian, but the conclusions arrived at by Layard and Rawlinson, are in reality the results of the laborious investigations of half a century, in which some of the most learned men of Europe have engaged with unremitting assiduity. Returning, however, to our summary of the disclosures which have been revealed by these researches among the ruins of Egypt, we reach, after another interval, the reign of the first Theban or Diospolitan king, Ames, or Chebron, the introducer of a new dynasty, believed, on good evidence, to be that "other king who knew not Joseph." He is succeeded by Amunoph I., and by Amense, the sister of the latter, a singular evidence of the peculiar customs and also of the elevation accorded to women, consequent on the great advancement the Egyptians had then made in civilization. This queen is succeeded by Thothmes I., II., and III., in the reign of the last of whom, as has already been indicated, the wondrous manifestations of divine power were displayed which are recorded in the Book of Exodus. In many cases, neither the date of accession, nor of the death of these successive monarchs, has yet been discovered; nor is it necessary, for many purposes both of the chronologist and the historian, that more than a general approximation to this should be attained. There is abundant room, however, still left for the assiduous labours of the Egyptian scholar. Many discrepancies have to be reconciled, many dark and extremely dubious points to be cleared up. Following back their most interesting researches into ancient chronology, these patient investigators have gone back further and further in search of the beginning of things, till cautious students hesitate to follow them in their dim and dubious track. The process of investigation followed for this purpose may be very simply explained to the ordinary reader. Manetho, Eratosthenes and other ancient authorities, have left on record consecutive accounts of the kings of Egypt, much of which was long regarded as purely fabulous, and received little serious attention from historians. Recent discoveries in hieroglyphics have led to an entire change of opinion, though not without much confusion and error. These authors are now believed to have recorded historical facts. The knowledge of the special character and meaning of the cartouche, as the mark of a royal name, has drawn attention to these abundant marks on the ancient ruins of Egypt. More careful observation discloses the important fact, that they occur, not only thus detached on various temples and tombs, but that chronologically arranged tables of them are to be found constructed in various localities and at different dates. Here then is a most important element for further investigation. Of some of the more recent of these we possess accurate historical records; and knowing the date of accession, even of the first of the Ptolemies, it is not difficult, if we are sure that we possess a complete list of the whole intervening monarchs, to ascertain a very near approximation to the epoch of the first of Pharaohs, Menes. To guess at the length of a monarch's reign, merely by knowing his name, would be a sufficiently vague and profitless riddle; but, taking one with another, the chronologist does not run great risk of error when, taking them together, he estimates the duration of the reigns of some twenty or |