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consists of pictures representing a concert of vocal and instrumental music; a singer, accompanied by a musician on the harp, is supported by two chorusses, one of four men, the other of five women, the latter beating time with their hands. It is a complete opera; players on the harp of both sexes, players on the German flute, flageolet, on a sort of shell; dancers, forming various figures, with the names of the steps which they dance; and the female dancers of ancient Egypt, dancing, singing, playing at tennis, and performing various feats of strength and address.

The drawings representing the rearing of cattle, exhibit herdsmen, all kinds of oxen, cows, calves, milking, making cheese and butter, goatherds, ass-drivers, shepherds with their sheep, scenes relative to the veterinary art; poultryyard, containing numerous species of geese and ducks, and a kind of swan, which was domestic in ancient Egypt.

The drawings relative to games, exercises, and diversions, are particularly curious. Among them there is the exhibition of the Morra, the game which is so popular in Italy, particularly in Naples: the drawing straws, a kind of hotcockles; the mall, the game of piquets planted in the ground, the hunting of the fallow-deer, a picture, representing a grand chase in the desert, in which are depicted between fifteen and twenty species of quadrupeds; pictures of the return from the sport, game carried, dead or alive; several pictures of catching birds with nets, or with snares; drawings relative to fishing, with angling-rod, with the trident, or bident, nets, and the like.

The pictures exhibiting the exercise of domestic justice, consist of fifteen drawings of basso relievos, representing offences committed by servants, the arrest of the offender, his accusation and defence, his trial by the intendants of the household, his sentence, and the execution, which is confined to the bastinado, the account of which is deli

vered, with the documents of the proceedings, into the hands of the master, by the intendants of the household.

Domestic economy, is divided into ten different heads; and the drawings which represent them are very curious. The first division consists of pictures of several houses, more or less sumptuous; the second of vases of different forms, utensils, and moveables, all coloured, because the colours invariably indicate the materials of which they are composed. The third division contains the drawing of a superb palanquin. The fourth a kind of room, with folding doors, carried on a sledge, which served the great men of Egypt, in former days, for carriages. The fifth consists of pictures of monkeys, cats, and dogs, as well as the dwarfs and other deformed individuals, who, more than 1500 years before the Christian era, served to dispel the spleen of the Egyptian noblemen, as well as they did that of the old barons of Europe 1500 years after the Christian era. The sixth division exhibits the officers of a great household, intendants, secretaries, &c. The seventh, servants both male and female, carrying provisions of all sorts. The eighth, the manner of killing oxen, and of cutting them up for the use of the family. The ninth, a series of designs representing cooks preparing various kinds of provisions and the tenth, the servants carrying the dressed meat to the master's table.

The collection of drawings exhibiting historical and religious monuments, consists of inscriptions, basso relievos, and monuments of every kind, bearing royal legends, with a date expressed, as well as the images of various deities.

The department belonging to Navigation represents the building of vessels and boats of various kind and size, and the games of the mariners, which, M. Champollion observes, exactly resemble those that take place on the Seine on great holydays.

The last division belongs to Zoology, and exhibits a series

of quadrupeds, birds, insects, reptiles, and fish, designed and coloured with the utmost fidelity. This collection already amounts to more than two hundred specimens, and is extremely interesting. The birds, M. Champollion says, are splendid, the fish painted with extreme perfection; there are above fourteen different species of dogs, such as house dogs, hounds, &c. from the harrier to the spaniel.

Magnificent as this account may appear, there is no doubt that it will be considered as very insignificant when compared with the further discoveries which will be made. by the indefatigable and learned traveller.

LECTURE II.

Opinions of the ancients concerning the nature and use of hieroglyphics-Erroneous judgment of the moderns-Scarcity of monuments -The Isiacal table-Horapollo-HermapionThe Rosetta stone-Discoveries made by M. de Sacy, by Mr. Ackerblad, and Dr. Young-Enchorial or Demotic alphabet -Attempt at decyphering hieroglyphics-Manner of counting numbers-Interpretation of names-Reflections.

IN In my last Lecture I endeavoured to give some preliminary notions of the history and topography of Egypt, and we dwelt at some length on the number and nature of monuments which are still to be found, either in their original situation, or in the various public and private museums of this country as well as of others; but, above all, it was our business to ascertain what were the notions which both the ancients and the moderns entertained of the nature and import of hieroglyphics. The Greeks were fully persuaded that hieroglyphics were a sort of mystic characters, intended to preserve the most important mysteries of nature, and the most sublime inventions of man; they, therefore, considered the interpretation of these characters as exclusively confined to the priesthood, and

even by them very little understood, as their real and primitive knowledge had been lost and passed away, in the annihilation of the power of the Pharaohs, first by the usurpation of the Shepherd kings of the seventeenth dynasty, and afterwards by the irruption of the Persians, under Cambyses. This persuasion of the Greeks arose from their believing, what in point of fact seems to be the case, that Egypt was the parent of all arts and sciences, the storehouse of the most ancient records, and the repository of all the mighty events which had often changed the face of the world. This persuasion, joined to the profound secrecy under which the hierophant, or high-priest, imparted to the initiated in the mysteries of Isis the sublime truths, to which the veneration and credulity of mankind had attached so much importance, made the Greeks to look upon hieroglyphics as the mystic expression of these secrets, so carefully preserved from the people at large, the explanation of which it was impossible to obtain.

What has been said of the Greeks might be applied to the Romans also. They seem to have known nothing about the nature of hieroglyphics. The story itself of a reward being offered by one of the first Cæsars to him who should give a proper interpretation of the inscription on the obelisk which had been carried to Rome, seems very doubtful; but even if we wish to admit the reality of this story, as this reward was never claimed,and we know of no work, or even attempt made to

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