hitherto afforded little confirmation to the names given in the earlier portions of them, has now to some extent been removed. By the researches, in particular, of Lepsius, considerable progress has been made in the verification upon the monuments of the royal names which appear in the earlier dynasties, though there are still huge gaps to be supplied. But even had the identification between the monumental names and those of Manetho proceeded much farther than it has yet done-were it even complete, we should by no means be disposed to admit the chronological data of our author to be thereby established. For these monumental sources may have been tampered with as well as the written ones, and the one squared and adjusted to the other. Indeed, Heeren holds it as a matter of certainty that what the priests knew and related concerning the history of ancient Egypt, was all connected with the monuments, and extracted from them.* But the monuments also may have had the inscriptions upon them framed so as to bear false witness in a question of this kind. Wilkinson gives an instance of a name even in a chronological list of kings, engraved in the Grottoes of Chenobosicon, having been erased by a certain king and his own substituted in its room.t The fraud, it seems, was so ill managed, that it has not been able to escape detection amid the diligent researches of modern times; but perhaps more than the king were concerned in the matter, as it is understood that the priests had much to do, at least with the kind of inscriptions placed upon the monuments. And those monuments especially which profess to give a chronological series, a regular succession of kings, such as the table of Abydos, or the buildings at Karnack, must of course have been erected at a period long subsequent to that at which the greater part of the personages lived whose names they bear, and are simply to be regarded as the engraved registers of the priest hood. Why, may there not have been

among them many names as falsely conjoined in a historical point of view as those which Mr Salt is reported to have found written phonetically on the granite rocks at Elephantine, exhibiting the name Psammitticus immediately underneath that of Ptolemy? The mere circumstance of Lepsius having, in a sort of freak, carved out a tablet on a corner of the pediment, above the mouth of the outer passage of the great pyramid, and adorned it with a long hieroglyphical inscription in honour of his sovereign King William of Prussia and of Victoria of England, may give us an idea how easily the monuments might be made to speak the sentiments of the priesthood, even when these were farthest removed from any solid foundation in reality. And on the whole subject of the chronological value of the monuments, we conceive the three following principles, which were originally advanced as objections to some of Champollion's hasty conclusions, to be equally applicable to those of Bunsen. "In the first place, the period at which any given name was inscribed on a monument, may not have been contemporary with the erection of the monument itself, or with the age of the individual whose name has been so inscribed. Secondly, the style of the architecture of the monuments is by no means an infallible indication of the epoch to which their construction should be referred, inasmuch as the rise and decline of the art must necessarily exhibit many points in common, and show nearly the same relative imperfection, and the more ancient are consequently in danger of being confounded with the more modern edifices. (Besides, as this age delights in the Elizabethan style of architecture, why may not the generations belonging to the modern kingdom of Egypt have delighted to erect obelisks or temples in the style of the middle or the old?) Thirdly, though the dates of the monuments may be ascertained from these dedications, or from independent historical authority, the time when any

*Africa, ii. p. 47, etc.

name was inscribed on them is not determinable by the same evidence, and can only be inferred from accessory circumstances, which seldom amount to more than a probability, the value of which, in ordinary circumstances, cannot exceed that of a reasonable conjecture."*

These just and sober principles are little heeded by the great majority of the Egyptologists, who deem it perfectly conclusive evidence of the age of a monument, if it is built in a certain style of art, or of the contemporaneous existence of a king, if his name happens to be inscribed on it. And even the inscription of a stylus and ink-vessel on a monument of the fourth dynasty is paraded as a proof of the knowledge of writing with such materials, at a period somewhere between three and four thousand years before the Christian era. Who can tell whether it may not have owed its existence there to the hand of some facetious Lepsius? No suspicion of this sort ever seems to cross the imagination of our author; and in reference to the point just noticed, he rises with the utmost confidence far beyond the fourth dynasty. "We cannot doubt," he says, "that writing was known even in the first dynasty at the time of Menes, and we must suppose that the phonetic principle was already applied to it” (ii. p. 85). What evidence is held out to establish our belief in such interesting facts in the world's history? Why, Strabo was pointed to the pyramid of the labyrinth as being at once the work and the grave of Ismandes, the fifth king of the first dynasty; and Herodotus, who lived some two or three thousand years later than Ismandes, actually, "not as a matter of hearsay, "but with his own eyes saw that pyramid adorned with great hieroglyphics on the outside." Wonderful evidence

truly-but much more wonderful faith, that can build itself on such a foundation.+

We by no means wish to be understood by these remarks as deeming it impossible to derive from the monumental remains of Egypt something of definite information regarding the greater landmarks of historical truth, and much insight into the manners and customs, the political condition and the religious beliefs of a remote antiquity. We do not doubt even that the different ages to which the larger monuments belong may with substantial correctness be determined, so far at least as to have them assigned to a comparatively modern or ancient period. But it is in regard to the broad and general lines of the system, and not its minuter points and ramifications, that we consider this practicable. And the chronological bearing, either of the written or of the monumental records, especially when they carry us far up the stream of time, is precisely the subject on which we are disposed to be jealous of their testimony, and to decline them as safe and competent authorities. For it was here that the vanity of the Egyptians peculiarly displayed itself, and where we have abundant evidence that they actually played fantastic tricks, and practised enormous and systematic frauds on the public. Wilkinson, who combines, in a rare degree, sobriety of judgment with exactness and variety of learning, and to whose distinguished merits in this interesting field of inquiry we are glad to see Bunsen everywhere paying a deserved tribute, always appears to estimate at their true value in this respect the Egyptian sources. He is never betrayed by them to dogmatise about remote eras, and to speak with certainty of the dates of ancient events. Even when he comes to the Exodus of the children of Israel, which he con

Encycl. Britan. Art. Hieroglyphics, p. 353.

ceives to have taken place in the fourth year of Thothmes III., so far down as the eighteenth dynasty of Manetho, he yet only "supposes "it to have occurred at that precise period; and afterwards gives Lord Prudhoe's reasons for a period about two centuries later (i. p. 54, 77-81), leaving the decision to the learned, as one on which a positive opinion cannot be pronounced.' And in reference to periods centuries earlier still, he says, "The primeval history of states, especially at so remote an epoch, must necessarily be a matter of pure conjecture, since they are beyond the reach of authentic records; and if those nations themselves had handed down to us what they deemed their real annals, we should find them so complicated and improbable, that it would be out of our power to separate truth from fiction. Such is the character of the uncertain fragments of Manetho, preserved by later writers" (i. p. 15).

In this respect, indeed, there is a remarkable difference between the earlier Jewish records and those of all other eminent nations-such as forms of itself no mean proof of the superior credibility of the former. The Jews had much the same temptation as the other nations of antiquity to exhibit in their annals an ancestry of superhuman greatness and interminable length. It is well known how keenly Josephus felt cut at the reproaches cast upon his people by Apion and Manetho respecting the supposed lateness of their origin, and the original meanness of their circumstances. And if the fathers of the Jewish nation had been actuated by the same spirit as their later Rabbins, and had possessed the same unlimited control over their national records which the Egyptian priests did over theirs, we can easily conjecture what dependence could have been placed on them as a groundwork of historical certainty. Even the stern impartiality and unvarnished truth which appears in them did not operate as a sufficient check upon Josephus to prevent him from intermingling much that is fabulous with his history, especially when he comes upon the territory of Egyptian affairs, as if he then

peculiarly felt the temptation to rise into the extraordinary and marvellous. But the singular fact is, that the Jewish genealogies rather abbreviate than unduly extend the chain of successive generations. We know for certain that names were sometimes left out of them-generations leapt over, as it were; and precisely on that account does it often become a difficulty to determine with exactness the era of particular events. We are therefore quite ready to concede to Bunsen, what he is at some pains to prove, that the genealogies given of the Egyptian period of Israelitish history are, if not all, at least many of them, plainly imperfect. They do not commonly recount every name in the series, but only exhibit a part, probably the more important links in the chain. And if we had no other scriptural data than these to found upon for determining the length of Israel's sojourn in Egypt, we might safely allow the world and science to adjust our belief on the subject. In proof of what has been said, it might be enough to compare the genealogies of Aaron and Joshua: in the former we find simply Levi, Kohath, Amram, Aaron (Exod. ii., vi.), while in the other we have Joseph, Ephraim, Beriah, Rephah (or Reseph), Telah, Tahan, Laadan, Ammihud, Elishama, Nun, Joshua (1 Chron. vii.). It is manifestly incredible that the four generations mentioned in the first of these lists should have stretched over the same space as the eleven of the second; and we can only account for such a vast disparity in point of number by certain names in the full series being dropt from the first. Nor could we, looking simply at this genealogy of Joshua, which makes him the eleventh from Jacob, find much fault with the opinion of our author formerly adverted to, in so far as it holds the 215 years, commonly allowed for the residence of the Israelites in Egypt, to be less than the real period of their sojourn; as that certainly appears to be too short a time for the eleventh descendant from Jacob to be found among the full-grown men who left Egypt, and too short also for the families of Israel at large, having grown into such a

multitude. At the sametime, it is not to be overlooked that the history evidently indicates something extraordinary, if not unprecedented, in the rate of increase; for the words in Ex. i. 7 are literally, "The children of Israel were fruitful, and swarmed, and multiplied, and increased most exceedingly." But still we are rather inclined to agree with those chronologists who take the 430 years mentioned in Ex. xii. 40 in reference to the time of the sojourn in Egypt from the period of Jacob's descent, and regard St Paul, when speaking of 430 years having elapsed between the covenant with Abraham and the giving of the law (Gal. iii. 17) as referring to the covenant, not when originally made with Abraham, but when finally confirmed with Jacob, and made the foundation of their existence as a separate people. That term, however, is plainly the longest that can be admitted consistently with the veracity of Scripture; and we cannot regard the attempt of our author to establish a much longer one, in any other light than a blow directed, however unintentionally on his part, against the divine authority of the Bible.

Perhaps our readers think we have devoted too much attention to the merely chronological bearing of the work before us. Our apology is, the distinguished rank and reputation of the author, the high character of his work in a literary point of view, and the certainty of its not only appearing ere long in an English form, but also being pressed into the service of infidelity. It is to us matter of profound regret that Egyptology is taking so strongly the direction of a chronological opposition to Scripture. Bunsen certainly was not the first to give it that direction; with inferior resources, but with equal ardour, Champollion and Rossellini both evinced their determination to maintain the credit of the Egyptian authorities; but in Bunsen the accumulating materials have first found a master-builder to raise them into a compact and gigantic system. What may be the immediate effect of his labours can scarcely be divined till the public have been for some time in possession of the remaining portions of

the work. But for the ultimate result we entertain no apprehension. And if we needed anything to strengthen us in this confidence, beyond the infallible character of the sacred record itself, we might certainly find it in the friendly aspect which all that has yet with any certainty been reaped from the hieroglyphical field, carries towards the plain and simple literalities of the books of Moses.

It was an eventful moment for these books, however little thought of at the time, when the famous stone of Rosetta was dug up with its threefold inscription, in hieroglyphic, enchorial, and Greek, proving, as it did, the first step in a long and complicated process, which has at length restored to life and utterance the monumental remains of Egypt.

When these witnesses of ancient generations once more found themselves in a condition to deliver their testimony, and, partly through written words, partly through pictorial representations, brought up to view life and society as it existed in Egypt, at the very time when Abraham went down to sojourn there, when Joseph held the supreme direction of its affairs, and the Hebrews endured within its borders their long period of hard bondage; how searching as well as unlooked for an ordeal was thereby brought to bear on the historical verity of the sacred narrative! Moving as this does with perfect freedom among the occurrences of those remote periods, and touching incidentally on an immense variety of particulars respecting the political and social condition of the people, their modes of life and degree of civilization, their manners and occupations, their religious character and domestic habits-had it been any thing but the testimony of soberness and truth how surely would it have been found to cross at some points the evidence tendered by the singular array of witnesses with which it is now confronted! It is scarcely possible to conceive a severer touch-stone for an historical record, or a descriptive account of other and distant times. Herodotus, who visited Egypt for the express purpose of becoming acquainted with its affairs, and who certainly had no intention to

bring back a false report, has not been able perfectly to abide this test; on certain points he has been found to have written from imperfect information, and to have given an erroneous view of things. Later inquirers have in vast numbers fallen before it, and those especially, who have taken it as their peculiar calling to correct the misrepresentations of the Books of Moses; while, strange to relate, these Books themselves come forth without the slightest taint of suspicion upon their accuracy; nay, verified and confirmed in the very points, where a shallow infidelity prided itself in having discovered blemishes.

However defective the monumental remains of Egypt are, as furnishing the materials necessary for constructing an exact and well-founded system of chronology, we may confidently appeal to them as constituting, by their variety, the multiplicity of their inscriptions, and the fulness of their pictorial representations, sources at once of competent authority, and of ample information regarding every thing belonging to the manners and customs, or the civil and religious state of ancient Egypt. At a period certainly not less remote than that at which Scripture lays the scene of its events in the land of the Pharaohs, the monuments present a vast amount of evidence of the kind referred to, and evidence that is all found to correspond with the testimony of Moses, as face answereth to face. Every body knows how the Jews and Arabians gloried in their beards, but Joseph, Moses informs us, shaved himself when he made ready to appear before Pharaoh, implying that the long beard of other nations was in little favour there; and Wilkinson tells us from the monuments, that so particular were the Egyptians on this point, that to have neglected it was a subject of reproach and ridicule; and that whenever they intended to convey the idea of a man of low condition, or a slovenly person, the artists were sure to represent him with a beard.* Pharoah's chief baker, according to Moses, was wont to carry a basketful of bread

• iii. p. 358.

upon his head; and if Herodotus had not told us the same, as one of the singular customs he saw in Egypt, we should only have needed to cast our eye on yonder busy scene, the representation of a cooking and confectionary establishment in a tomb at Thebes, where, among other operations, we see a person bearing off the finished loaves in a row upon his head.† Pharaoh's chief butler, according to Moses, was so familiar with the vine and its fruit, that he could dream of seeing a vine before him with its branches and grapes, and of his taking the grapes and pressing them into Pharaoh's cup; nor only so, but the vine was among the fruit-bearing trees, the want of which in the wilderness was so much regretted by the Israelites. Impossible, the German rationalists have once and again exclaimed, for the vine was not introduced into Egypt till the time of Psammitticus, considerably more than a thousand years later, and the older Egyptians, would neither drink wine nor offer it in sacrifice. What mean, then, those gardens so frequently represented in the tombs at Thebes and elsewhere, in which the cultivation of the vine holds so prominent a place, where in one corner we see boys with their noisy instruments frightening the birds from the ripening fruit, in another, labourers employed in gathering the clusters, and in another again all the operations of the wine-press busily proceeding. And thou Herodotus, "Father of history," as thy country too fondly named thee, who hast all unwittingly given a handle to superficial and profane men, by reporting the vine not to have been grown in Egypt, as if thou hadst inspected every region of its territory,-what hast thou to say beside these faithful and impartial witnesses from the dead, but to confess thy error, and surrender thy title to another, even Moses, who wrote truer and better history than thyself, ten centuries and more before thou wert born?

The Egyptians, Moses tells us, counted it an abomination to eat with the Hebrews, and viewed with special