hend from their emulation. The merciless hand of death has long before this, levelled to the ground these first teachers of mankind: their voice can no longer silence ours; the sullen foot of Time has already turned that once flourishing country into a desert, and its power can never more be employed in emulation of ours; the silence of the grave has long since closed on the whole of the inhabitants, and the greatest efforts of the human mind, and of the human power, is necessary to redeem the few precious relics from the hands of the barbarians who have now turned into dwellings the repositories of the dead, the very tombs of these departed spirits. If any thing is now to be obtained from these illustrious dead, it is the praise of sharing their immortality, by publishing to the world an impartial account of their doctrine and learning, an act worthy of a generous nation, to whom, perhaps, more than to any other, may be applied the " parcere subjectis et debellare superbos" of Virgil.

But to return.

We are informed by Tatian, that the Greeks had learned how to write history from perusing the Egyptian annals. This assertion is correct; from the most remote antiquity, the Egyptians had, in fact, adopted the custom of transmitting to posterity the memory of past events. Originally, they seem to have written them in verse, and inscribed them on stones, in hieroglyphical characters; but immediately after the invention of the alphabet

they employed prose, and began to write regular books, although they still retained the custom of celebrating, in lyric measure, the praises of their great men, and their heroes, which, as we have seen, was the office of a particular class of the priesthood. It seems, however, according to the account of the indefatigable Zoëga, who has collected all the authorities of ancient writers on this subject, that the books of history were very numerous in Egypt, and that the care of writing them formed one of the several duties of both the Hierogrammatæ and the Prophets. Herodotus," says

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he, "suppressing the mention of the books, asserts that he had acquired his knowledge about Egypt from the priests, who read to him from a papyrus the names of 330 kings, who had reigned in that country from Menes to Sesostris, amongst whom there were eighteen Ethiopian sovereigns, and one Egyptian queen."

To discuss the truth or falsehood of this statement, would lead us rather too far from our subject; and I have quoted the passage merely to prove, that, at the time of the Greek historian, the Egyptians had numerous volumes of history; the same is attested by Theophrastus, who seems to have been acquainted with the royal annals of Egypt. We know from Manetho that he had collected his history from authentic records; and in fact, Diodorus mentions histories of all sorts, sacred as well as profane, and commentaries written on them; this is also confirmed by Josephus, and by

Strabo, who even praises the simplicity of their style. It is from these annals and these records, that the Greek authors, such as Eratosthenes, Syncellus, Apollonides, Asclepiades, and others, have compiled their histories of Egypt. What we have said of history, must be applied to law also; for if the Egyptians have been the teachers of the Greeks in history, they have also been the instructors of mankind in law, and judicial proceedings; and in fact, the account of their laws forms but a part of their political history. The law proceedings which they instituted from the most remote antiquity, have been adopted by the Greeks and the Romans, and are at this moment followed by most if not all the civilized nations of Europe, and are to be found in some of the courts even of this country. For this we have the authority of Diodorus. "From the most remote antiquity," says he, "immediately after the fabulous age of the gods and heroes, Menes published a code of laws, and persuaded the people to adopt them for rules of life. These laws were afterwards improved by the kings Sasyches, Sesoosis, Bocchoris, and Amasis; and, being collected in eight books, they were intrusted to the whole body of the judges. According to the rules laid down in this code, the law proceedings were not allowed to be carried on by speeches, but by writing only. The plaintiff stated, on paper, the origin of his demand, and to this declaration the defendant was allowed to plead in writing. Should the answer not be deemed suffi

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cient, the plaintiff was permitted to repeat his demand, and state the arguments by which he might rebut the plea of the defendant; and to this second demand the defendant was again permitted to reply. The whole then was submitted to the judges, who passed their sentence accordingly."

Besides these books, which in some respects may be considered as of a public nature, (for they treated of subjects that interested the community at large, and therefore not confined to the priesthood, although exclusively entrusted to their care,) there were others, which the priests alone were permitted to consult, and the reading of which was carefully kept from the profane. Of this sort were the mystic books, and secret writings mentioned by Ammianus Marcellinus, which treated of the origin of the Egyptian religion, and contained other secrets of the same important nature: such was, for instance, the one which taught that the age of Apis was not to be prolonged beyond the established period. Among this class the undaunted Apuleius also reckons those which contained the description of the rites to be performed in the mysteries of Isis; Achilles Tatius those which treated of the phoenix; and Damascius those from which the philosopher Asclepiades, a native of Alexandria, collected the whole system of the Egyptian theology.

It is deeply to be lamented that Alexander Severus, while travelling in Egypt, in a fit of illhumour ordered all these books to be sought for,

and to be thrown into the tomb of Alexander. "Ne," says my historian Dion, " quisquam corpus ejus videret in posterum, neve ea, quæ in libris illis scripta erant, legeret." Something, indeed, of the same sort, had been ordered long before by Artaxerxes Ochus concerning the historical books, some of which however, the Egyptian priests were able to redeem from the hands of the eunuch Bagoa, by paying their weight in gold: and in latter times, a similar step was taken by another tyrant, the emperor Diocletian, who highly incensed against the Egyptians on account of a sedition, exercised against the people his cruelty, and even ordered that all their books on metals should be burned, in order that, by the hope of riches, they should not be again tempted to rebel.

Other books, equally forbidden to the profane, and only allowed to the highest class of the priesthood, were those which treated of the causes that produced the inundation of the Nile. Although it seems that the generality of the Egyptians knew nothing of the heavy rains which fall in Ethiopia, and which are the only cause of the inundation, yet Heliodorus asserts that the priests were not ignorant of them, but concealed this knowledge most scrupulously from the people, no doubt for the sake of enhancing their own authority, and keeping up the species of sacred worship which was paid to the Nile.

I am not aware whether the books which treated of the highest departments of astronomy were