I.

Genius the Egyptians certainly possessed; though LETTER that genius was more acute and steady, than liberal or elevated. They prosecuted works of expence and ingenuity with singular perseverance, and upon principles perfectly mathematical420; but being totally destitute of taste, they have failed to acquire a distinguished rank among the cultivators of the finer arts421. Their architecture attempted to supply greatness of design, by immensity of fabric; substituting altitude for sublimity, and ponderous solidity for stability422; Their statuary, like their architecture, delighted in huge masses of stone423. These they nicely chiseled into human or brute-forms, or a compound between the two; but displayed neither elegance of figure, animation of expression, nor grace in attitude424. Their

420. Diod. Sicul. lib. i. p. 88, 89.

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421. Winkelmann, Hist. de l'Art de l'Antiquité, liv. ii, chap. i. 422. Strabo. lib. xvii. p. 806. et seq. edit. Lutet. Paris, Typ. Reg. 1620. As the Egyptians were ignorant of the art of constructing an arch, they could not give stability to their buildings without great waste of labour and materials; nor do they, after all, convey to us the idea of stability (See the plates in Pococke's and Norden's Travels into Egypt, &c.). A straight stone laid over a door, however thick or strongly supported by columns, has not the firmness of an arch. Hence the Egyptians, from want of skill to cast an arch, were obliged to make their doors very narrow. The inconvenience and inelegance of which may be easily conceived.

423. Many of these I have already had occasion to describe, on the authority of Herodotus; who saw the stupendous works of Egyptian art before they had been much defaced, and when they had suffered no admixture from the ingenuity of other nations. His testimony, therefore, is superior to that of every other ancient author. Diodorus Siculus, also highly deserving of credit, and next in point of time, mentions a statue in a sitting posture, the work of Memnon Syenesis, larger than any noticed by that venerable historian. The measure of the foot was seven cubits in length (Diod. Sicul. Biblioth. lib. i. p. 44.). And the head of the wonderful Sphinx is still to be seen, which measures fifteen feet from the ear to the chin. Maillet, Descript. de l'Egypt, p. 221.

424. Winkelmann, ubi sup. The human figures in Egyptian sculpture have, with a few exceptions, their hands hanging down by their

PART I. Their painting, if we except brilliancy and durability of colours, was void of every excellence belonging to that captivating art425. The magical effects of light and shade, figures detached from their base, and seeming to aspire after immortality; that beauty more than human, yet copied from human forms, familiar in the paintings of Grecian artists, never animated an Egyptian tablature. Poetry they seem never to have cultivated; and music, as an art, their gloomy minds proscribed426. But music was employed, in celebrating the festivals and mysteries of their religion; and poetry had produced one hymn, which was chanted on such occasions427.

The learning of the Egyptians early attracted the curiosity of the Greeks. Their first sages travelled into Egypt428, and their most enlightened philosophers continued to consider the Egyptian priests as their masters in science, and resorted to them for instruction429. But in what the learning of the Egyptians consisted, we are left in some measure to conjecture, as none of their ancient books have come down to us. That they were deeply skilled in the principles of mechanics, appears from the machinery requisite to erect their wonderful obelisks, and amazing pyramids. Geometry was necessary to enable them to conduct the numerous canals with which Egypt was intersected, as well as to enable them to divide their lands anew, after sides, and their feet close, or nearly so (Id. ibid.). This learned, and enlightened antiquarian, has taken great care to distinguish the ancient Egyptian style, from that which was introduced into Egypt under the Macedonian monarchs, or Roman emperors.

425. Winkelmann, Hist. de l'Art. de l'Antiquité, liv. ii. chap. iii. Relat. du Sayd. ap Thevenot, tom. ii. Paul Lucas, Voyage to the Levant, vol. i. and all modern travellers of taste in the arts.

426. Diod. Sicul. lib. i. p. 73.

427. Herodotus, lib. ii. cap. lxxix.

428. Diod. Sicul. lib. i. p. 86.

429. Id. ibid.

the

the annual inundations of the Nile43°. In this neces- LETTER sity geometry is said to have had its origin43'.

That the Egyptians had carried their astronomical observations to a high degree of perfection, is put beyond dispute by the exact computation of their year432; by their calculation of eclipses, both lunar and solar433; and also by their conjectures concerning the appearance of comets434. Their progress in other sciences cannot be ascertained with any degree of certainty. But whatever might be the learning of the ancient Egyptians, it was confined chiefly to the ecclesiastical body; who involved it in symbols and allegories, which they unriddled only to those that were initated into their mysteries435. And, after all, until it had been refined by flowing through Grecian channels, it seems to have been, like their Nile, but a muddy stream.

What is acquired with difficulty is much prized. The Grecian sages, who travelled into Egypt, were obliged to remain there for many years, and to go through progressive degrees of initiation, before they could obtain access to the arcana of the priests436. They, therefore, set great value upon the secrets communicated to them; and kept up the high reputation of Egyptian learning, after their own country was furnished with more precious treasures of science.

430. Herodotus, lib. ii. cap. cviii. cix. Diod. Sicul. lib. i. p. 73. Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 757. edit. sup. cit.

431. Id. ibid.

432. Diod. Sicul. lib. i. p. 46. The Egyptians computed their year at three hundred and sixty-five days, and one fourth (Id. ibid.), or six hours; within twelve minutes of the computation of sir Isaac Newton. 433. Ibid. Biblioth. lib. i. P. 73. 434. Id. ibid.

435. Clem. Alexand. Strom. lib. v. p. 566. edit. Paris. 436. Strabo, Geog. lib. xvii. p. 806. Clemens Alex. sup. cit. et Porphyr. et Jamblic. in Fit. Pythag.

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PART I.

Vain of being able to number among their scholars the most eminent Grecian philosophers437, and flattered by the adulation of that haughty and presumptuous people, the Egyptian priests arrogated to themselves and their venerable nation, the invention of the whole circle of the sciences438; of letters or alphabetic characters439, by which only science can be readily communicated; and the ordination of every civil and sacred institution. They first erected temples to the gods, appointed festivals, and practised divination by oracles and otherwise 44°. They had sent out colonies into all countries, and civilized the human race; by communicating, along with the elements of the arts and sciences, their maxims of religion and government441.

437. Strabo, ubi sup.

These

439. Id. ibid.

438. Diod. Sicul. Biblioth. lib. i. p. 63. 440. Herodotus, Historiar. lib. ii. cap. iv. lviii. lxxxiii. Divination had attained such perfection among the Egyptians, through the ingenuity of priestcraft, that oracular responses were not delivered by any human being, but apparently by the divinity consulted (Id. ibid.). In what manner this was contrived we are left to conjecture; the venerable historian (who alone could have given us genuine information on the subject) having only told us, that it was done in different ways (Herodot. ubi sup.). Two of those ways we can discover, with a degree of certainty. The Egyptians, we know, had vocal staThat of Memnon has become proverbial. These statues were of the colossal kind; and, as they were hollow, could easily admit priests within them. Thus the gods might seem to speak. We have also reason to believe, that the prophetic answer was often delivered without any visible representation; ; by a voice issuing, with awful solemnity, from the profound gloom of the Egyptian temples; while sacred pomp, and holy symbols, impressed upon the minds of the people the immediate presence of the Deity.

tues.

441. Herodot. lib. ii. et Diod. Sicul. lib. i. passim. The attachment of the Egyptians to their own country, and their aversion against intercourse with foreigners, contradict their pretensions to extensive colonization. Truth will not permit us to rank the Chaldeans or Hebrews among the number of their emigrants; yet these they claimed (Diod. Sicul. lib. i. p. 24. 73.). The Egyptian leaders, who conducted colonies into Greece, seem to have been violently expelled (Herodot.

I.

These pretensions have been too fully admitted by LETTER writers both ancient and modern; but especially by the early and latter Greeks. The wise and learned Strabo allows only to the Egyptians the invention of geometry442; while he ascribes to the Phoenicians the invention of arithmetic, the art of keeping accompts, or registers of mercantile transactions, and the discovery of the use of the pole-star in nocturnal navigation443. The Phoenicians, or Canaanites, have also a claim to the invention of letters; for before the invasion of Canaan by the Israelites or Hebrews, Cadmus had carried the Phoenician alphabet into Greece444; and we find in that country a city, which bore the name of Kirjath-sepher, or the City of Letters, in more ancient times445.

The

lib. ii. cap. clxxxii.): and must have been conveyed in Phoenician vessels. For the Egyptians appear to have been utterly unacquainted with navigation till the reign of Sesostris, and to have had no ships on the Mediterranean before the reign of Psammitichus.

442. Strabo, lib. xvi. p. 757.

443. Id. ibid.

444. The Arundelian or Oxford marbles, commonly called the Purian Chronicle (Epoch vii.), place the arrival of Cadmus in Greece 1519 years before the Christian æra; and consequently twenty-nine years before the Israelites left Egypt, according to the Hebrew chronology, and sixty-nine years before they passed the river Jordan, That Cadmus brought the Phoenician alphabet into Greece is not disputed; and all ancient chronologers place his arrival nearly as high as the Parian Chronicle.

445. Joshua, chap. xv. ver. 15. It is impossible to fix the era of the invention, or rather use of letters, as signs of words; for it appears that bieroglyphic symbols, among an ingenious people, naturally and imperceptibly, mould themselves into alphabetic characters (Divine Lega tion of Moses, book iv. sect. iv.). Dr. Warburton conjectures, that after the use of letters became common in Egypt, the Egyptian priests invented a sacred alphabet for secrecy. But from this opinion I must dissent; because symbolical hieroglyphics, soon after they ceased to be of general use (if ever they were so), would become so obscure as to answer the purpose of the most profound secrecy. And Herodotus, in speaking of the sacred and vulgar letters of the Egyptians (lib. ii. cap. xxx.), certainly meant no more than hieroglyphic symbols and alphabetic characters. This sufficiently appears by his telling