the affluence enjoyed by the higher orders; and the very great distinction between them and the richer classes is remarkable, as well in the submissive obeisance to their superiors as in their general appearance, their dress, and the style of their houses. Some, indeed, seem to have been little better lodged and fed than those of the present day*; and the degrading custom of prostration before those in authority argues that they were subject to severe discipline and punishment, though, doubtless, only administered according to the rules of justice. That they were happy under their native princes, and contented with the laws and early institutions of the Pharaohs, is strongly argued by the constant feeling of dissatisfaction evinced by them against foreign rule, not only in the time of the despotic Persians, but of the Ptolemies, who sought, on many occasions, to flatter their religious prejudices, to content the priesthood, and even to court the good will of the people. And though some allowance must be made in these cases for the effect of change, the influence of the priests, and the impatience common to all people under a foreign master, we may fairly conclude, that the spirit of their laws, under the original system, was dictated by a scrupulous regard to justice and the benevolence of a paternal government.

* Herodotus (ii. 47.) speaks of poor people in Egypt who had scarcely any thing to live upon. I do not, however, imagine they suffered from hunger like the modern peasants, nor could the taxes have been as numerous or as oppressive. Diod. i. 80.

CASTES.

The great distinction of classes* maintained in Egypt was characteristic of the East, and custom naturally removed every unpleasing impression which so readily occurs to men educated with different habits and ideas; and provided justice was regarded, it offered no cause of discontent in an eastern nation. The division of Egyptian society into separate classes, or castes, has been noticed

by many authors. Herodotust says they were

divided into seven tribes, one of which was the sacerdotal, another of the soldiers, and the remaining five of the herdsmen, swineherds, shopkeepers, interpreters, and boatmen. Diodorus states that, like the Athenians, who, being an Egyptian colony, derived this institution from the parent country, they were distributed into three classes, the priests, the peasants or husbandmen, from whom the soldiers were levied, and the artizans, who were employed in handicraft and other similar occupations, and in common offices among the people§; but in another place || he extends the number to five, and reckons the pastors, husbandmen, and artificers, independent of the soldiers and priests.

*The Etruscans were also divided into four castes; but this institution appears rather to have been derived from the East than to have taken its rise in Italy. They were, 1. the Larthes, Tyrani, or lords: 2. the Tusci, or priesthood: 3. the Rasenæ, or warriors; and, 4. the people, or popular caste.

Herod. ii. 164.

Diodorus, i. 28.

As public weighers, notaries, and other of the usual avocations of large towns.

|| Diod. i. 74.

Strabo limits them to three, the military, husbandmen, and priests; and Plato* divides them into six bodies, the priests, artificers, shepherds, huntsmen, husbandmen, and soldiers; each peculiar art, or occupation, he observes, being confined to a certain subdivision of the caste, and every one engaged in his own branch, without interfering with the occupation of another: as in India and China, where the same trade or employment is followed in succession by father and son.

From the statements above noticed, the exact number of classes into which the Egyptians were divided appears uncertain; but as there is reason to conclude that some authors have subdivided the main castes into several of their minor branches, while others have been contented with the collective divisions, I shall endeavour to point out (as I have already had occasion to do in a former work †) the four great comprehensive classes, and the principal subdivisions of each.

The first caste was the sacerdotal order; the second, the soldiers and peasants, or agricultural class; the third was that of the townsmen: and the fourth, the plebs, or common people. The first was composed of the chief priests or pontiffs, as well as minor priests of various grades belonging to different deities, prophets, judges, hierophants, magistrates, hierogrammats or sacred scribes, basilico

* Plato in Timæo, near the beginning.

+ Egypt and Thebes, p. 230.

"Each deity has several priests and a high-priest." Herod. ii. 37.

grammats or royal scribes, sphragistæ*, hierostoli† or dressers and keepers of the sacred robes, doctors, embalmers, hierophori ‡, pterophori §, præcones, who appear to have been the same as the pastophori ||, keepers of the sacred animals T, hierolaotomi or masons of the priestly order, sacred sculptors and draughtsmen, beadles, sprinklers of water, and алoμvio, mentioned by Hesychius, who drove away the flies with chowries, and several inferior functionaries attached to the temples.

The second was divided into the military, farmers, husbandmen, gardeners, huntsmen, boatmen, and others the third consisted of artificers, tradesmen, shopkeepers, musicians, builders, carpenters, masons, sculptors, and probably potters, public weighers**, and notaries; and in the fourth may be reckoned pastors, poulterers, fowlers, fishermen, labourers, servants, and, generally speaking, the common people. Many of these were again subdivided, as the artificers and tradesmen, according to their peculiar trade or occupation, and as the

* Plutarch (de Isid. s. xxxi.) says the Sphragista were a class of priests whose office was to examine the victims, and to put a seal upon them, previous to their being sacrificed. Vide Herod. ii. 38.

† Plutarch. de Is. s. iii. "Those who have access to the adytum to clothe the statues of the gods." Rosetta stone.

The bearers of sacred emblems in the religious processions. Those who bore the flabella and fans in the processions in which the statues of the gods were carried.

i. 29.

Bearers of the small statues, or shrines, of the gods. Vide Diod.

¶ Herod. ii. 68. "There are certain persons, both men and women, whose business it is to take care of the sacred animals, and of each peculiar species: it is an honourable employment, and the son succeeds his father in the office."

** The Gabbónch of the present day: who are also public scribes.

pastors, into oxherds, shepherds, goatherds, and swineherds; which last were, according to Herodotus, the lowest grade, not only of the class, but of the whole community, since no one would either marry their daughters or establish any family connection with them; and so degrading was the occupation of tending swine, that they were looked upon as impure, and were even forbidden to enter a temple without previously undergoing a purification. Herodotus, indeed, affirms *, "they could not enter a temple ;" and the prejudices of the Indians against this class of persons almost justify our belief of the historian.

In my division of the Egyptian castes I have been guided by Diodorus, and have classed the soldiers with the husbandmen; though, I confess, to have placed them in a caste by themselves appears preferable, or with the magistrates who were not priests, as among the Hindoos. If they really were a class of the same caste as the peasants, that class must have ranked far above the others, and have been almost as distinct as a separate caste ; nor did the fact of their occasionally following agricultural pursuits reflect upon them any disgrace: and in like manner, a Hindoo soldier, or even a brahmin, may cultivate land without the fear of reproach.

Among the Indians are four castes : 1. Brahmins; 2. Cshatriyas; 3. Vaisyas; 4. Sudras. The first is taken from the mouth, the organ of the intellectual part; the second from the arms, or

* Herod. ii. 47.