lect the little they have discovered, are well known to those who have perused their journals; and the national jealousy which most if not all of them felt against the success of others who were not their countrymen, has been, perhaps, the greatest and most humiliating feature in this distressing picture. It was the principal cause of the failure of the indefatigable Belzoni; of the delay which Dr. Young experienced in obtaining a copy of the inscription found at Menouf; and of the trouble which most travellers have been obliged to take, and of which they most bitterly complain.

The absence therefore of historical monuments which commemorate any of the events attached to the sojourning and departure of the Israelites from Egypt, can never be considered as a conclusive evidence of their non-existence. They may still make their appearance, and the indefatigable and well-directed exertions of M. Champollion, who is now on the spot, at the head of two commissions expressly sent to dig, collect, and acquire any and every valuable remains of Egyptian antiquities, make me hope that the epoch is not far distant when the full knowledge of every thing connected with the history and customs of the old Egyptians will no longer be withheld from our scholars. Some valuable information has been already obtained from the collections which the several travellers have made. That of M. Caillaud possesses some curious specimens of almost

every article of dress, several of furniture, different utensils, cloth, musical instruments, and strings, combs, looking-glasses, baskets, and what perhaps will surprise you to hear, as much as it surprised me to learn, is, that the custom of wearing wigs and false hair was by no means uncommon amongst the Egyptians.

But we must return to our subject, and try whether, amongst the monuments and inscriptions we have, we can find any that have some reference to the Israelites and the Hyk-shos.

Amongst the Egyptian antiquities existing in the Museum of Turin, the indefatigable Champollion, in his first letter to the Duc de Blacas, mentions one which appears to me to deserve our attention, as it exhibits a fact, the explanation of which is rather difficult and puzzling.

You remember that in the elevation of the celebrated palace of Karnac, the remains of a much older building had been preserved, so as to form a whole with the new edifice. On these remains there are various hieroglyphical legends, and one in particular, which is often repeated. It consists, as usual, of two ovals, [Table 11. fig. 3. a and b.] the first exhibiting the prænomen, or mystic titles, and the second the name of one of the Pharaohs. The meaning of which is, "King of the obedient people, the sun, guardian of the worlds, loving Ammon, son of the sun, beloved (or chosen) by Phtha, Mandou-ei."

Of this inscription I suppose you will now be able to decypher most of the characters. I will

therefore mention only those which, being symbolic, may present some difficulty. In the oval a, the external phonetic hieroglyphics express the usual title common to all monarchs, "King of the obedient people ;" and amongst the internal, we see first the circle, which is the symbol of the god Phre, or the Sun, and the post with a jackal's head, the symbol of a guardian, then follows the beetle, as the symbol of the world, and the three dots, which are the mark of the plural number, and therefore of the three divisions of Egypt, or the Egyptian world; and the pedestal, an M, preceding the phonetic name of Ammon, (page 183,) means, loving Ammon. In the oval b, the external characters signify, as usual, son of the sun; and of the internal, the first three are the phonetic hieroglyphics of the god Phtha, (page 129,) and of the last two, the parallelogram stands for M, and means Mei, or Mai, that is, loved; the undulating line is an N, and means of, or by. Among the middle characters we have, first, the symbolico-figurative hieroglyphic of the god Mandou, and the two feathers, which are phonetic, and stand for I, or EI.

This Pharaoh Mandou-ei, is the Osymandias of the Greeks; the great conqueror whose magnificent tomb contained a voluminous library, and exhibited the sculpture of the campaigns of this prince against the Bactrians; Diodorus Siculus, who gives a minute description of this superb building, speaks of it from the information he had collected from the Egyptian annals, when he visited

that country; for the whole had disappeared. This of course must have been the effect of violence. The hand of time alone could not produce its annihilation. Time has been forced to respect, in Egypt, buildings less solid than this. But the curious circumstance to which I wish to call your attention is, that in all the legends of the Pharaoh Mandou-ei, the image of the god Mandou has been hammered away, and entirely cancelled. Even on the colossus of this prince, now existing in the Museum of Turin, and on which the name of this Pharaoh is repeated seven times, the same mutilation is observed: and the gentlemen who formed the commission of Egypt have also been obliged to publish, in the description of that country, the name of this prince, more or less mutilated in the two syllables which made the word Mandou, that is, they saw that in that place there was a hieroglyphic representing something like a sitting figure, which had been so defaced as not to allow them to discover that it had the head of a hawk, with two small feathers, or tufts. The same is observed in the colossus of this Pharaoh, in the British Museum.

This mutilation is much too general to suppose it the effect of chance. The cry of the whole nation can alone explain the striking phenomenon. History has in fact preserved accounts of some of these terrible judgments passed by the people on some of their sovereigns. We know the decree which was enacted against the founder himself of the

Egyptian monarchy, and the total abolition of the honours once paid to him; we read, not without shuddering, the very words of the malediction and curses poured on and inscribed against the very name of Menes, within the sacred precincts of the temples; and every scholar remembers in what degree of horror were held even those of Chéops and Chephrènes. We have then reason to suppose that something of the same sort was decreed against the Pharaoh Mandou-ei, and that the proscription of his memory was the cause of the mutilation. But then we should be inclined to ask, why so much hatred against a sovereign whose victories had extended their empire, and added new lustre to the annals of his reign, and adorned the capital, and indeed the whole of the country, with splendid and magnificent buildings?

M. Champollion, in noticing this extraordinary mutilation, leaves it in doubt whether this animadversion was directed against the Pharaoh, or the god Mandou; and after analysing this question in all its bearings, with that diffidence which at all times is the greatest characteristic of talent and learning, concludes the examination with the wellknown saying,

Non nostrum tantas componere lites.

Perhaps after this confession of such a man as Champollion, I ought to imitate his example, and let this monument alone; for the motto with which he concludes his observations may, with