NIEBUHR.

Great was what thou didst abolish; but greater what thou hast erected
High on the ruins of Fraud, shatter'd for aye by the blow.

Firm in the Faith didst thou stand, with a Prophet's serenest assurance,
Then when thy plummet explor'd deepest abysses of Time.
Then the primeval Reality sprang into day at thy bidding;

Rome the majestic arose, sepulchred long among lies.

Not without awe we beheld her antique regulation of freedom,
Ev'n in the cradle sublime, breathing of glory to come;

All to thine eye was reveal'd, every fragment for thee had its place-mark,
Each misinterpreted sign spake to thine augury clear.

Piercing indeed was thy wit, but combin'd with a heavenlier treasure:
Pure was thy love of mankind: Niebuhr! thy heart was of gold.
True to thy land and thy time, yet with brotherly sympathy scanning
Hoary Humanity's page, welfare and woe of the Past;

Loving thy glance, when it fell on the beauty, the freedom, of Hellas;
Loving thy labour of life, vow'd to the grandeur of Rome:
Yet was there leisure and love for the Orient's holy remoteness:
Never of Muses divine dull was the echo for Thee;

Nor didst thou coldly survey the resurgence of mystical Egypt,

When the unhoped-for light flash'd on her Pyramid Tomb.

Thither my venture is bound: but do Thou be the star of my guidance, Father! As upward I gaze, strengthen the eye and the heart.

EGYPT'S PLACE

IN

UNIVERSAL HISTORY.

BOOK I.

THE SOURCES AND PRIMEVAL FACTS OF EGYPTIAN HISTORY.

SECTION I.

HISTORICAL TRADITION AND RESEARCH AMONG THE EGYPTIANS.

A.

THE NATURE AND ANTIQUITY OF EGYPTIAN TRADITIONOF THE SACRED BOOKS IN PARTICULAR.

I. THE TWO ORIGINAL SOURCES ANNALS AND LAYS, ACCORDING TO THE GREEKS.

HERODOTUS describes the inhabitants of the cultivated portion of Egypt as the best informed or most learned of mankind. In one of his lost works Theophrastus

1 ii. 77. Αὐτῶν δὲ δὴ Αἰγυπτίων οἱ μὲν περὶ τὴν σπειρομένην Αἴγυπτον οἰκέουσι, μνήμην ἀνθρώπων πάντων ἐπασκέοντες μάλιστα, λογιώτατοί εἰσι μακρῷ τῶν ἐγὼ ἐς διάπειραν ἀπικόμην. The old translation, that they exercise the memory, is quite inadmissible: but even Schweighäuser's interpretation, adopted by Bähr, that they above all other men record past events and exploits, is scarcely accurate. In the whole section (c. 77-91.) no mention is made of their knowledge