may invest it with great benefit and profit to themselves, at the same time that they dispense those comforts to which I have alluded to their poorer brethren. Depend upon it that the interest of oftencontesting classes are identical, and that it is only ignorance which prevents their uniting to each other's advantage. To dispel that ignorance, and to show the means by which man can help man, notwithstanding the complicated state of civilized society, ought to be the aim of every philanthropic person; but it is more peculiarly the duty of those who, under the blessing of Divine Providence, enjoy high station, wealth, and education. Let them be careful, however, to avoid any dictatorial interference with labour and employment, which frightens away capital, destroys that freedom of thought and independence of action which must remain to every one if he is to work out his own happiness, and impairs that confidence under which alone engagements for mutual benefit are possible. God has created man imperfect, and has left him with many wants, as it were to stimulate each to individual exertion, and to make all feel that it is only by united exertions and combined actions that those imperfections can be corrected and those wants satisfied. This presupposes self-reliance and confidence in one another. It is to show the way in which those individual exertions can be directed with the greatest benefit, and to foster that confidence upon which your readiness to assist each other depends, that this society considers its most sacred aim. The next step which we contemplate taking is the erection of a model lodginghouse for families; and I hope the meeting will enable us to carry out that step, and that the attention of the public will be more generally engaged to the objects which we have in view."

ART. VII.-Egypt's Place in Universal History: an Historical Investigation in Five Books. By CHRISTIAN C. J. BUNSEN, D.P. and D.C.L., Translated by CHARLES N. COTTRELL, Esq. Vol. I. Longmans. 1848.

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THIS work will be regarded under two aspects-the one having reference to the materials for historic investigation which are here brought together the other concerning the opinions which are advanced as derivable from the investigation of these records of ancient facts. In the first point of view, we apprehend that all competent judges will be of one mind in praise the diligence and skill which are manifested by the author, who seems to have watched with interest the progress of hieroglyphical interpretation, from the time when a clue was first afforded by decyphering the Egyptian names of Ptolemy and Berenice on the Rosetta stone; and who has enjoyed the advantage of personal acquaintance with all the eminent men by whom that

clue was followed out and the discovery perfected; so as to have achieved by their combined industry and talents this the greatest of historical triumphs reserved for modern times; and putting us in possession of the means for understanding and interpreting monuments at once the most astonishing, as belonging to the earliest periods in the history of the presently existing races of mankind; and also the most instructive, as found in a land which was first among the nations of antiquity in the career of civilization, and long held the foremost place in arts and in arms so as to have been the country from whence Greece avowedly derived the elements of those sciences which we have inherited from her, and which are the especial boast of modern times, and dignify and adorn the enlightened nations of western Europe.

In preparing the Egyptian vocabulary, and the types necessary for representing the hieroglyphical signs contained in this volume, the author has judiciously availed himself of the practical knowledge and the artistic skill of Messrs. Birch and Bonomi, who are already known to the public by several works on Egyptian mythology, the produce of their combined talents. Many of the examples are to be found in the British Museum, and in that department of which Mr. Birch has the superintendance they may, therefore, be verified by all who desire to ascertain the facts for themselves. And with the same laudable intent of inducing the reader to examine for himself, and rest his opinion on sure grounds, the most important of the fragments which remain of Manetho, Eratosthenes, and Berosus, are given in an appendix, which occupies nearly a third of the volume. Extracts also are given from Eusebius, Clement of Alexandria, and Josephus, bearing on the history of Egypt, and on the chronology and modes of writing among the Egyptians; so as to put us in possession of all the information necessary coming to a right conclusion on the questions discussed in the work. Thus we have presented to us the fullest and the most exact work that has hitherto appeared on the interpretation of hieroglyphical inscriptions. Indeed, it is the only English publication which is at the same time full enough to be useful, and moderate enough in price to be within the reach of all. We have no doubt that it will be accepted as a valuable boon by the British public; and we should observe that, although it was first written in German, it is so admirably translated that the style has all the ease and freedom of an original composition. Nor should we have known otherwise, than by the title-page and preface, that it had been prepared in any other than the language in which it appears.

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The opinions advanced in the course of the work become a question quite distinct from that of the value of the materials for investigation which are thus brought together. Men might be unanimous in their commendations of the diligence and fidelity manifested in the collection of this dictionary or store-house of knowledge; and might still find room for diversity of judgment respecting the use which has been made of these various historical facts bearing upon the earliest and darkest periods in the history of mankind. For these discoveries, astonishing as they are, have not advanced us much nearer to certainty than before in determining the great epochs of Egyptian chronology, or establishing a connection between Egyptian history and that of the other great nations of the old world. We ourselves are not able to determine with certainty the year in which our Lord was born, or the exact commencement of the Christian era: other more remote epochs are involved in a still greater obscurity in proportion to the distance of time. In such cases there is room for diversity of opinion, which each man should feel himself at perfect liberty to express, while he allows the same liberty to others; and he will not only tolerate, but weigh with candour and impartiality, the arguments of others, although they should run counter to his preconceived opinions on the subject.

In approaching the history of any ancient people, as found recorded among themselves, we must remember that all these records necessarily fall very far short of the rise of that nation, and of the time when its history actually began. It is only after the barbarous time is past, and when a people has gained a settled place in the world, and leisure to cultivate the arts of peace, that it begins to record its history; and this is pre-eminently the case with Egypt and the monuments of its power and early history. The palaces and temples which remain are splendid monuments of both, even in their ruins; and, being the only records, they carry us no higher than the time when Egypt was able to erect palaces and temples, and was, therefore, great and powerful; and, being secured from foreign aggression, could direct its attention to internal embellishments, and that on a scale which indicates prodigious wealth and long association with grandeur.

Could we really discover the first beginnings of things, they would not be very unlike the history of Romulus, with his band of wanderers, getting possession of a hyde of land, and building a wall over which an active man might leap. But none of these humble beginnings will appear on the palaces and temples of a mighty empire. On the contrary, as the builder of these trophies of grandeur calls himself son of the sun and lord of the

world, so, whenever the early history of the nation is mentioned, some demigod will be introduced, and the whole become so involved in the mists of a fabulous mythology as to render the simple truth wholly undiscoverable in these pompous legends. And the case is not improved by having recourse to other channels of information, such as the priests could furnish, or such as may be found floating in the form of traditions among the people. These, in fact, stand on precisely the same footing as the inscriptions, and receive from time to time a fresh colouring from the altered condition of the people. The same demigods and heroes make up the tale, and figure on the monumental sculptures.

Manetho commences his enumeration of Egyptian kings with a dynasty of demigods amounting to sixteen; the first of whom he calls Hephaistos, the last, Zeus: and after these departed demigods he brings in the kings; Menes being the first, who is universally acknowledged to have been the founder of the Egyptian monarchy, and is generally regarded as the same person who is called Mizraim, the son of Ham, in ScriptureEgypt itself being called after him Mizraim in Hebrew, and being called Chem or Cham in Greek, after his father Ham, who is also supposed to be designated in one of the demigods, Ammon. Eratosthenes commences his list of Theban kings with Menes the Thebnite, or Thinite, as Manetho calls him: both titles proving that he came from another place, and was truly the founder of the monarchy. But he is called by Eratosthenes, Dionios, or son of Jupiter-showing that all before him is mythological and not historical. Syncellus begins his canon with "Mestraim, who is Menes," and calls him "the first native king of Egypt." Diodorus Siculus, speaking of the priests, says: "Some of them fable that the gods and heroes. first reigned in Egypt during a period little less than eighteen thousand years; and that the last of the gods who reigned was Horus, the son of Isis. They also relate that the kingdom was governed by men during a series of nearly fifteen thousand years, to the hundred and eightieth olympiad in which we have visited Egypt, which was during the reign of Ptolemy, who bears the title of the younger Dionysus:" and he says that, "after the gods, Menes was the first king of the Egyptians." Herodotus was informed that Menes was the first king of Egpyt. "After him, the priests read out of a book the names of three hundred and thirty kings, and among these were eighteen Ethiopians and one woman, a native Egyptian: all the rest were men and Egyptians; and the name of the woman who reigned also over the country of Babylonia was Nitocris. Of the other kings, nothing remark

able is in any way recorded, except the last, Moris-he dug the lake." When we find a mere list of names like this, with no remarkable facts recited, we may rest assured that, as a record, it is of late origin. The names are not mentioned until something memorable has been done, when forthwith a dignified line of progenitors must be found or feigned. Herodotus himself speaks in a manner implying a very reasonable doubt of the truth of what he heard: he only affirms that he was told all this :"From the first king to Sethos, the priest of Hephaistos (the contemporary of Senacherib), are three hundred and forty-one generations of men; and, in all these eleven thousand three hundred and forty years, they say no god has made his appearance in the human form; and during this time, they say that the sun has twice risen in parts different from what is his customary place that is to say, has twice risen where he now sets, and has also twice set where he now rises."

If the sun had really twice changed his course, such startling facts would surely have been pointedly referred to in naming the kings during whose reigns these transitions occurred; but nothing of the kind is mentioned. The modern astronomer very well knows that such changes are in the nature of things impossible; they could not occur under present circumstances, and, if they did occur, would occasion the utter destruction of every living thing, not only in Egypt, but throughout the world, by altering the relationship of land and water, heat and cold, and all the elements. Herodotus could scarcely believe what he wrote. And though we shall have to suggest an explanation of what he heard, which may acquit the priests of the crime of intentional deception, it will leave the testimony of Herodotus in no better condition than before; for, if he has misunderstood the priests in astronomical points, he may have misunderstood them in the historical. We give him all credit for fidelity, and believe that he had no wish to mislead. But we agree with our author where he says:

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"It is impossible that Grecian men of letters, some of them of the school of Aristotle, critics and commentators whose ingenuity has never been surpassed, could be deceived or satisfied with the Egyptian method of computation. But did they institute researches into the old Egyptian chronology, and are their labours preserved to us? the latter point, at least, considerable doubts may be entertained; for not only did Diodorus learn little or nothing from them, but modern investigators, far superior to the uncritical Sicilian, seem to have been so certain of not finding anything there that they have never even sought for it" (89).

And we agree in another discouraging fact that