more in detail advert has been repaired in five blocks, from the middle upwards. Those five blocks came from a neighbouring quarry; but each original monolith was of a stone not known within several days' journey of the place, so that the means adopted for their transport are not easy to imagine or explain. What countless multitudes must have been required to move these stupendous masses!

Our readers, we are sure, need not be reminded how since the commencement of the present century the patient industry of some eminent men has poured a flood of light upon Ancient Egypt. Not only have its pyramids and sepulchral chambers been explored, but its hieroglyphics deciphered and its inscriptions read. By these means—that is, by the tablets at the back of the Colossi-we learn that both represent King Amunoph the Third, who began his reign about 1400 years before the Christian era. They were designed as the entrance to an avenue leading to the temple-palace of Amunoph, about 1100 feet farther inland. This palace-temple, once so richly adorned with its sculpture, sphinxes, and columns, is now a mere heap of sandstone-'a little roughness in the plain,' says Miss Martineau, 'when seen from the heights behind.'

Many centuries later, when Greeks began to settle in Egypt, they found that the easternmost statue of the Pair had been shattered down to the waist. According to one report, this mutilation was due to the capricious fury of Cambyses, as conqueror of Egypt. We regard it, however, as highly improbable that if Cambyses had been swayed by such an impulse, he would have been satisfied with the demolition, and that only partial, of only one of the statues. It is far more likely that, as Strabo, the geographer, was assured, an earthquake was the cause of the disaster. To the half-statue, which then remained, the Greeks gave the name of Memnon. They believed it--notwithstanding the strong asseverations of the natives, who rightly alleged Amunoph-to represent the fabled son of Tithonus and Aurora, the valiant prince extolled by Homer, who brought a host of Ethiopians to the aid of Priam.

But ere long a rumour rose that this was no ordinary statue. As ear-witnesses affirmed, it would sometimes, in the first hour after sunrise, send forth a musical voice. The sound, they said, was like that when a harp-string breaks. What more natural,' exclaimed the Greeks, 'than that the son of Aurora should hail in tuneful tones the advent of his mother!' Even those philosophers who might not admit the argument could not deny the fact. Men and women of rank came from distant lands to hear Memnon,' as was then the phrase; and we find the Vocal Statue

celebrated

celebrated all through the classic times. Thus when Juvenal, in his fifteenth Satire, is describing Egypt, he speaks of it as the

country

'Dimidio magicæ resonant ubi Memnone chordæ.'

Not all, nor nearly all, who came to hear Memnon' succeeded in their object. On many mornings the Statue remained obstinately dumb. When, on the contrary, the expected Voice came forth at daybreak, the foreign visitors frequently desired to engrave on the Statue itself a record of their gratification. Thus at the present day we find the whole lower part of the Statue covered with inscriptions from the classic times, in Greek or in Latin, in prose or in verse.

It is very strange that this huge mass, so conspicuous an object from the river, should have been unknown a century or more ago, and been subsequently, as it were, re-discovered. We have now before us a quarto volume, published at Paris in 1733, and at present become very rare, a Description de l'Egypte,' by M. de Maillet, formerly French Consul at Cairo. In this book an account of the Statue, with its name of Memnon, is given from the ancient writers, and M. de Maillet adds: Quoiqu'il en soit, il ne reste plus de traces aujourd'hui de ce colosse.'

6

In our own time the writers who have treated of this subject have mostly been disposed to connect the 'magical chords of Memnon,' as Juvenal calls them, with some artifice of the priests. They no doubt contrived the sound of the Statue'-so says, for example, Sir Gardner Wilkinson, in his 'Handbook of Egypt.' For our part we are not at all concerned about the character of the hierophants at Thebes, or bound in any manner to defend them :

'Oh worthy thou of Egypt's blest abodes,

A decent priest where monkeys were the gods!'

But our regard for historical truth obliges us to say that, as we believe, there was no priestcraft whatever in this case. The priests heard the Voice, as did the visitors, but were as ignorant of its real cause. They did no more than share the common error, although no doubt they benefited by it.

We are glad to find that the opinion which we have now expressed entirely accords with that of a most competent judge on any subject connected with classic times, M. Gaston Boissier. He has touched upon this question incidentally, while discussing the inscriptions on the Statue, in an Essay on the Roman Monuments in the East, which appeared in the Revue des Deux Mondes' of July last year. But for full details we would refer 2 M 2

to

to the earlier and more special treatise of M. Letronne; a rare book, however, of which there were only two hundred copies printed; and even of these no more than one hundred were on sale. It is mainly by the aid, then, of these two able archaologists-Boissier and Letronne-that we hope to render the whole case clear and convincing to our readers.

And first, as to the shattering of the Statue. Admitting an earthquake to have been the cause, there still remains the question by which, or at what period, these huge fragments were hurled down. M. Letronne has produced a passage from the 'Chronicle of Eusebius,' as translated by St. Jerome. It refers to the year 27 before Christ, when, as it states, the edifices of Thebes were levelled to the ground. Theba Egypti usque ad solum dirutæ.' Judging even from what now remains, it is clear that this is a great exaggeration. Yet still the fact remains beyond dispute, that in the year alleged there was a violent convulsion of nature, which wrought great havoc at Thebes. Now earthquakes are, or were, extremely rare in the valley of the Nile. This has been noticed by Pliny, who, in one sentence, has rather strangely lumped together Gaul and Egypt. Gallia et Ægyptus minime quatiuntur.' If then any person be inclined to doubt that the partial destruction of the Statue took place in the year 27 before Christ, he will find it very difficult to name any other earthquake to which within the necessary limits of time that partial destruction can be ascribed.

But farther, this date accurately tallies with the other circumstances of the case. The visit of Strabo to Egypt was made between the years 18 and 7 of the Christian era, that is ten or twenty years after the earthquake which Eusebius has recorded. At Thebes he found the natives full of traditional resentment at the long past Persian conquest. They appear to have pointed out, or enumerated to him, various of their monuments as mutilated by Cambyses. But they always excepted the colossal Statue, which, as was said among them, had been rent asunder by a convulsion of the earth. That convulsion was then too recent for them to entertain or express any doubt upon the subject. But in the reign of the Emperor Hadrian, a hundred and fifty years later, the memory of the earthquake appears to have faded away, and the Colossus was then included in the list of monuments which Cambyses had attempted to destroy. Several of the inscriptions dating from that reign, and still to be traced along the base of the Statue, allude to this as to a certain fact.

It is to be borne in mind, that until the Statue was shattered to its waist there was no thought or question of its musical

sound

sound at sunrise. It was only since then that the Voice of Memnon' was heard, or that by degrees the rumours of it spread abroad. Miss Martineau is therefore quite in error when, after mentioning how the easternmost statue was shattered by Cambyses, she adds, after which, however, it still gave out its gentle music to the morning sun.' It was not in spite of, but in consequence of, the mutilation that the musical sound was heard.

On the rumours, as they gradually went forth of this wonderful voice, travellers, some of princely rank, were attracted to the spot, and bore witness to the miracle. Thus, when in the year 19 of the Christian era Germanicus appeared in Egypt, and sailed up the Nile, we are informed by Tacitus that he visited the Vocal Statue. But as we have already noted, Memnon was by no means constant or indiscriminating in his favours. On some mornings the pilgrims were gratified with the expected Voice, on others they went disappointed away.

From this variation there ensued, ere long, the common idea that to hear Memnon was a high privilege-a special favour of the Gods. The inscriptions at the base of the Statue, beginning, so far as their dates can be traced, in the reign of Nero, are forward to commemorate the fact.

Here follow some of these inscriptions as translated, the originals being partly in Latin and partly in very indifferent Greek.

'I, Funisulana Vetulla, wife of Caius Lælius Africanus, Præfect of Egypt, heard Memnon an hour and a half before sunrise on the Ides of February, in the first year of the august Emperor Domitian.'

This date corresponds to the year 82 of the Christian era.

In the seventeenth year of the Emperor Domitian, Cæsar Augustus, Germanicus, I, Titus Petronius Secundus, Praefect, heard Memnon at the first hour in the Ides of March, and gave him honor in the Greek verses inscribed below.'

Here then follow the verses, which seem of but moderate merit; although M. Letronne, considering the authorship, is disposed to view them with indulgence: Fort passables,' he says, 'pour être l'ouvrage d'un Préfet.'

'After the first hour, and when in the course of the second the genial day (alma dies) irradiates the ocean, the Memnonian Voice was happily heard by me three times.

Viaticus Theramenes made (this inscription) when he heard Mem

non

non in the Calends of June, Servianus being for the third time Consul. With him was his wife Asidonia Calpe.'

The third Consulship of Servianus answers to the year Lord 134.

(Greek Verses) by Cæcilia Trebulla.

of our

'Hearing the sacred voice of Memnon, I longed for thee, O my mother, and desired that thou also mightest hear it.'

(In Greek verse.)

Thy mother, O renowned Memnon, the Goddess, the rosy-fingered Aurora, has rendered thee vocal for me who desired to hear thee. In the twelfth year of the illustrious Antoninus, and in the month of Pachon, counting thirteen days, twice, O Divine Being, did I hear thy Voice as the sun was leaving the majestic waves of Ocean.

'Once the son of Saturn, great Jove, had made thee monarch of the East; now thou art but a stone; and it is from a stone that thy Voice proceeds.'

'Gemellus wrote these verses in his turn, having come hither with his dear wife Rufilla and his children.'

The 12th year of the reign of Antoninus answers to 150 of

our era.

But by far the most interesting visit ever paid to Memnon was from the Emperor Hadrian, in the year of Christ 140. That Emperor, whose intelligent curiosity led him to view in their turn almost every place of note in his dominions, appears to have passed many days, perhaps even a whole month, at Thebes. With him came his Empress Sabina; and in their train was a blue-stocking matron, Julia Balbilla by name. This lady desiring to do honour to her patron, inscribed at the base of the statue several pieces of pedantic verse composed by herself. In one of them she triumphantly relates that the Emperor heard Memnon no less than three times- a clear proof,' adds Balbilla, 'that the Gods love Hadrian.'

Sabina was not quite so fortunate. She was greatly displeased that when she first appeared before him Memnon remained mute. Her displeasure is still attested by an inscription in Greek verse, composed, it would seem, by one of her attendants, perhaps by the same blue-stocking matron who wrote the rest.

'Having failed to hear Memnon yesterday, we prayed to him not to be again unfavorable to us, nor withhold his Divine Sound; for the venerable