History of the Mace and Verge.

These are small matters, and in thesist the progress of an error (as I

judgment of many persons, perhaps

rather frivolous. But I am one of think it) which threatens to become those who consider the appendages of established in our English Literature. GENT, MAG. November, 1823.T

418

John Chalkhill the It relates to John Chalkhill, author of the poem of "Thealma and Clearchus," and of two Songs preserved in Walton's "Complete Angler." An attempt is now made to annihilate the said John, and to transfer the whole merit of his poetry, to one who needs no addition to his fair fame, even his friend and editor, Izaak Walton.

Mr. S. W. Singer, who published a very neat reprint of " Thealma," (1820) at the Chiswick-press, said very modestly, in a short advertisement, "I have sometimes been in clined to doubt whether "Thealma and Clearchus" might not be a youthful production of his [Walton's] own. This is merely a conjecture, but the pastoral feeling which pervades the poem may give it some colour; and do think that he had quite enough of the Poet's imagination to have produced it."

Upon this, an unnamed writer in the 66 Retrospective Review," [vol. IV. p. 231,] has founded the following bold assertion. "Mr. Singer was the first to question the authenticity of Walton's statement [concerning the author of the Poem], and his researches satisfied him that Chalkhill was altogether a fictitious personage." Unless this statement was drawn from a subsequent declaration of Mr. Singer, the result of further enquiry, it is contradicted by himself in the very advertisemement already quoted. For be there says, of the same poem, "it is said to bear marks of being only an unrevised fragnient, and this is the only circumstance, if true, that would militate against the supposition of its having been written by Walton."

Now this circumstance does very strongly militate against it, for that it is a fragment, and not completely revised by its author, is evident; and Walton, who published it in the last year of his long life, would hardly have left it in that state, used as he was to the exercise of his pen, had it been a juvenile production of his own. Mr. Singer, therefore, does not seem, when he wrote his preface, to have been satisfied by his researches that Walton was the author. But the gentleman who conceived him to be so produces other arguments of his own. "It is not easy to conceive, that a gentleman of his [Chalkwell's] taste and talents, who enjoyed the friendship of Spenser [as Walton asserted],

should wholly escape the panegyrics or censures of his contemporaries, and the industrious researches of poetical biographers."-Observe here, that the industry of such biographers never existed till the Eighteenth Century. He proceeds, "Had he been more than a fictitious personage, honest Izaak would hardly have dismissed him with such a brief and unsatisfac tory notice: the narrative old man would have treated us with some of the delightful garrulous details, in which he commemorated so many of his literary friends. The author of "Thealma," the friend of Spenser, and a brother angler, certainly deserved, and would have received, a much more ample allowance of biographical gossip. The conclusion appears to us inevitable, that Chalkhill was merely a nomme de guerre, like Peter Pindar or Barry Cornwall."

The writer then admits some possibility of doubt whether Walton might be the author, but strongly expresses his own conviction that he was: a conclusion which he attempts to establish by arguments.

The arguments, however, are specious, and have consequently convinced the Editor of a very recent and elegant edition of the " Complete Angler;" whether Mr. Major, the publisher, or some friend for him. [p. xlix.] Thus the opinion gains fresh force. Yet it is, probably, quite false. The honest, guileless Izaak, was little likely to publish his own verses under a false name; which he did thirty years before he sent out "Thealma," if John Chalkhill meant himself; for the "Complete Angler," where Chalkhill's two songs are given, was first published in 1655. As unlikely was he to crown such a fiction by a fictitious character of the supposed author, and to assert it for truth.

I have also this truth to say of the author, that he was in his time a man generally known and as well beloved; for he was humble and obliging in his behaviour, a gentleman, a scholar, very innocent and prudent; and indeed his whole life was useful, quiet, and virtuous. God send the story may meet with, or make all his Readers like him." Could this be Walton writing of a non-entity, or of himself?

Still more improbable is it, (if more can be) that he should so bepraise the poem, if his own; saying that, in it the reader" will find many hopes and

fears

John Chalkhill.-Egypt.

420

On the Character of the Antient Egyptians.

lize mankind, and embellish human life." How can this be supported by the writer? Enumerate with the most unsparing hand every art known among the Egyptians, and it appears a decided fact, that not one attainment was known to or flourished among them, but what found its ground-work in the peculiar religion and sacred customs of Egypt, and in its being entirely an agricultural land; and in not adhering to, or properly entering on those points, he leaves the reader in the dark. Commerce ancient Egypt never knew, any more than the Chinese, whom in numerous essentials the Mizraim strongly resembled, in spite of the sceptical snares of De Pauw: suffice it, that in the very point of commerce, they, as the Chinese, restricted all importations of merchandise into one mouth of the Nile only, and even into one city→→→→ Naucratis by name; in this instance exactly affording a parallel to the cus tom of China, in making Canton the depôt for European commerce at this day; and so decidedly was this a fixed rule of the state, that if any vessels were driven by stress of weather into the other branches of the Nile, or even wrecked, the goods, if preserved, were required to be re-embarked on native vessels, and conveyed up the Canopic branch to Naucratis. Instead of cultivating commerce, they viewed the sea through the medium of their my thological imagery with positive abhorrence; they deemed it a type of Typhon, evincing an aversion to its mariners, and (if ancient writers may be trusted), even sacrificing those who escaped shipwreck to their gods. Af ter the Greeks were introduced into the country by Psammeticus, the sovereigns of Egypt innovated on many old habits, and Pharoah Necho most eminently distinguished the grasp of his mind by having Africa circumnavigated; herein however we have another proof of the deficiency of Egypt, for he employed Phenician mariners.

Next follows a most extraordinary sentence, that the priesthood of this very religious people, to whom knowledge was exclusively confined, &c. devoted themselves to the service of the community, giving up their time to their sacred duties and improvement of their mind. Study their business, the good of the people their object; and pursuing what contributed to the political and moral welfare of Egypt with

[Nov

a zeal worthy of imitation in Christian societies: the arts then referred to, are Physic, Husbandry, Astronomy, Magic, and other occult sciences:-a most lame list, as their medical practice is greatly questioned; husbandry was the pursuit of all primæval nations, only Egypt was singularly distinguished then, as now, by the constant fertilizing Nile; their astronomy they partook with the land of Skiner; and the remaining arts, magic, &c. would only bewilder and blind a people. As to the success of the priests in their labours, in the religious knowledge they taught the Egyptians, and the morals they infixed, so worthy of our Christian practice, the best and most conclusive reply is contained in the eulogist's own words, as they conclude your extract:

"What raillery have this superstitious people been exposed to from their sottish

veneration for irrational creatures! Herodotus, Diodorus, and Ælian are consentient in their ridicule of this stupid idolatry. Mothers accounted it (oh horror!) a blessing for their children to be devoured by the ravenous Crocodile; and the people in extremities of famine would rather eat one another, than lay violent hands on these disgusting objects of worship."

Then follows Juvenal's ready and ten thousandth times quoted satire.

Now the manifest incongruity of application which these adverse propositions to the same class demonstrates, I conceive arises from an entirely erroneous conception of the subject altogether. Herodotus and Diodorus are most valuable guides while they are examined for the detail of all they saw, but in whatever they gained by report, and their own reasonings upon information, they will generally lead astray. The Priesthood in Egypt was the head class; the King must be one of their number, he was sometimes chosen from them, and when a warrior only, he passed an initiation, and was enrolled among the priesthood immediately after he began his reign. The Priests certainly had ample labours to perform in watching the royal regulatious of his domestic life, and in their own lustral observances and ceremonies; they formed also a great and distinguished part of his court and of the state. Egypt clearly and manifestly was politically established upon the great primary feature of Castes; its society divided altogether and immu

tably

1823.]

On the Character of the Antient Egyptians.

tably into its various orders of culti vators of the soil, mechanics, tradesmen, soldiers, and priests; a system whose advantages and disadvantages would admit of much weight of argugument, and spin out into a tough discussion, pro and con, however unpa latable such provisions would be to the Liberals of the present day. But this grand feature of Egyptian Society once understood, it is clear that the Savans and Priests of Egypt would labour only in their own vocation, to be priests to the end of time, and to transmit their respective arts and practices to their descendants; their labours for the community would not be any cultivation of mind to enlarge the sphere of thought, or to clear the visual mental ray; but to preserve entire the fabric of rites and mysteries, king and priest as they found them: and the real study they pursued, with an ardour and intensity little dwelt upon, or brought forward, in the writer's expressions, was an attention to nature in all its branches, the sun, moon, and stars, wind, rain, or thunder, in short all that passed before the senses, and which might lead to rules of prescience for futurity: their memorials of nature were most extraordinarily minute, and the perpetual review of them gare the Priests of Egypt an appearance of knowledge almost divine. The real feature of wisdom possessed by Egypt grew out of her infatuation, as the writer in the Classical Journal designates their religious observances; for it is a great error of estimation to weigh the acts and deeds of Idolaters, by the rules and standard of the human feelings. The wonder only is how nations and individuals lapsed into these prac tices but in fact, if we once suppose a state or kingdom infected with a tone of devoted idolatry, to attempt an argument then upon the sacrifices or horrors it demands, as offences or outrages, à priori in reference to our unprejudiced feelings as humane creatures of reason, is vague, inconclusive, and useless. The voice of truth has said (Jer. ii. v. 10) upon this very point, and of these practices of animal worship, as firmly rooted in the land of Egypt," send unto Kedar, and consider diligently, and see if there be any such thing. Hath a nation changed their gods, which are yet no gods? ... And now, what hast thou to do in the way of Egypt, to drink the waters of

421

Sihor?" Here is Egypt, quoted by name, as persevering in these ways of idolatry; and the practice of the Misraim, is not singular, in this view of the subject, for preserving a cat in preference to his family. The animal not only typified his sacred goddess, but in the multiplied mystics of the priest's wisdom, was the divinity; the child was devoured by a crocodile! true, but the mother saw in it a glorious dedication of her offspring to Typhon; and however unnatural it is, the act is paralleled now constantly in the East, in our own dominions, in the sacrifices to Ireva and Cali. Only let the writer peruse the following:

"In November last, at Ooncar Mendatta, on the river Nerbudda, a young man about 20, sacrificed himself at the shrine of Bhyroo, and another victim buried himself, alive at Bhyroo Ghur near Oustin."

We need not then labour to cite Herodotus, Diodorus, Ælian, or Juvenal; the Asiatic Journal will establish equal acts of folly and infatuation, in a land even now clinging to the Castes, and holding as sacred Vedas and doctrinal traditions, coeval with Egypt's famed kingdoms; so that man, when become an idolater, in the 1800th year of the world, or the 19th century of the Christian era, is the very same character!

What, then, was not Egypt wise, great, and a benefactress of the world? Few are more impressed with that conviction, than the writer, or has more sought to attain the right medium of appreciating the merits and standard of this extraordinary land. The entire devotion of Egypt to idolatry, and that complex branch of it, animal worship and infinite symbolizations, was the wonder of antiquity-it must also be ours; it was their infatuation, as Diodorus and Juvenal justly say, but it I was nevertheless the source of their wisdom, and the true key to their characteristics, which neither the Greek or Roman writers justly appreciate, although yoked to an idolatry equally seuseless, but somewhat more refined. But in respect to Egypt, the intent study of nature which for ages it gave rise to, the incessant investigation of the animal world, and its great laboratory of plants, seeds, and natural phenomena, opened a sphere of appear

ances

to the priesthood, surprising enough to lead the wondering mind to adore the agent, in their total blind

ness