the remaining 122 are of the form and dimensions of fig. 2, representing the bud of the same plant. During the reign of the Pharaoh whose likeness is here sculptured, the great temple of Karnak was subjected to certain repairs and extensive obliterations of the names and titles of more ancient Pharaohs, to make room for those belonging to Rameses II., as well as for representations of that celebrated Egyptian monarch making offerings to the national divinities. These fragments are actually pieces of some of those repairs and substitutions which were made at the time above stated, which, being in this instance only superficial, had fallen from their places, and were picked up by Mr. James Burton, out of whose collection they were bought by Dr. Lee. The accompanying wood-cuts have been engraved more particularly to explain from which of the two kinds of columns, and from what part of the column, these fragments were derived. It will be evident from the radius given by the portion left of the curve or circumference of the column, that the fragments could not have belonged to the larger column, whose diameter at the place where the figures occur is at least ten feet, so that, if they are derived from any column of this celebrated hall, it must have been from one of the smaller; and this is further corroborated by the fact of the decoration on the larger columns being in that style of sculpture peculiar to the Egyptians, as may be seen by some photographic views of the hall in this collection, and not in basso-relievo proper, as are these fragments. No. 3 is a representation of the whole figure as it occurs on these columns, showing the actual pieces of stone that were inserted into the column at the time of the repairs and obliterations which took place in that particular part of the great temple of Karnak in the reign of Rameses II., B.C. 1150.

A contemplation of this relic leads us to the interesting question as to the date of the flight of the Children of Israel, the decision of which, Sir Gardner Wilkinson observes, with becoming deference to other Egyptologists, "I leave to the learned reader, and shall feel great satisfaction when the subject becomes so well understood as to enable a positive opinion to be pronounced upon it." Then, after submitting his own idea respecting the Bondage Kings, he thus gives the Duke of Northumberland's view of the subject:

It is extremely difficult to determine the date of the Exodus in Egyptian history from the want of sufficient data in the Bible, and from the incorrectness of names given by ancient historians; but the event is so important, that even an attempt to ascertain that date must be intereresting.

The first text bearing on the subject is (Gen. xlvii. 5, 6), “ Pharaoh spake unto Joseph saying, Thy father and thy brethren are come unto thee; the land of Egypt is before thee; in the best of the land make thy father and brethren to dwell: in the land of Goshen let them dwell." (Gen. xlvii. 11), “ And Joseph gave them a possession in the land of Egypt, in the best of the land, in the land of Rameses, as Pharaoh had commanded." In this quotation it does not appear that the land was called Rameses when Pharaoh gave it to Jacob: his words are, "give them the best of the land;" the remainder of the text is in the form of a narration by Moses. But the land was called Rameses when Moses wrote, and consequently it was so called before the Exodus. It probably received its name from one of the Pharaohs. We may there

fore conclude the Exodus did not take place until after the reign of a Rameses; and the earliest king of that name is distinguished among students in hieroglyphics by the title of Rameses I. Private individuals bore the name long before; but it is uncertain whether there was any older king Rameses.

"Now there arose up a new king over Egypt which knew not Joseph." (Exod. i. 8.) This text would agree with Rameses I., who appears to have been the first king of a new dynasty, and might be ignorant of the benefits conferred on Egypt by Joseph. "Therefore they did set over them (the children of Israel) taskmasters, to afflict them with their burdens, and they built for Pharaoh treasure-cities, Pithom and Raamses." (Exod. i. 11.) The last was the name of the Pharaoh, and it is remarkable that the prefix used to designate Rameses II. was compounded of Pi "the," and Thme "justice;" and, though the figure of the goddess Thme is introduced into the names of his father and of other Pharaohs, he is the first Rameses in whose prefix it occurs, and we may therefore conclude it was for this monarch that the Hebrews built the treasure-cities.

Another instance of the name so used is confirmed by the testimony of Strabo and Aristotle, who attribute the making of the Suez Canal to Sesostris, and Herodotus says that it entered the sea near the town of Patumos. Sesostris is now generally believed to be Rameses II., and the circumstance of his name being found on buildings near the canal gives another Pithom built by this king.

Lysimachus mentions that "in the reign of Boccoris, King of Egypt, the Jewish people being infected with leprosy, scurvy, and sundry other diseases, took shelter in the temples, where they begged for food, and that, in consequence of the vast number of persons who were seized with the complaint, there became a scarcity in Egypt. Upon this Boccoris sent persons to inquire of the oracle of Ammon respecting the scarcity, and the god directed him to cleanse the temples of all polluted and impious men, and to cast them out into the desert, when the land would recover its fertility." This the king did with much cruelty.

If Boccoris could be a mistake for the Coptic name OCIPI, with the article II. prefixed, it was Osiri, the father of Rameses II., who thus oppressed them. Again, the son of Rameses II. was called Pthamenoph. Josephus states that "the King Amenophis was desirous of beholding the gods, as Orus, one of his predecessors in the kingdom, had done; and, having communicated his desire to the priest Amenophis the son of Papis, the priest returned for answer, that it was in his power to behold the gods if he would cleanse the whole country of the lepers and other unclean persons who abounded in it; upon which the king gathered them together, and sent them to work in the quarries." Josephus relates in continuation that a revolt was the consequence of this measure, and, after some delays and difficulties, king Amenophis marched with 300,000 Egyptians against the enemy, defeated them, and pursued them to the bounds of Syria, having previously placed his son Sethos under the care of a faithful adherent.

It is probable that by Amenophis Josephus meant Pthamenoph, and this opinion is twice confirmed ; 1. By his son Sethos, the Se-ptha of the hieroglyphics, which is the only instance of a king so called in the known series of the Pharaohs; and 2. When he describes Horus as one of his predecessors, for the grandfather of Pthamenoph succeeded to Horus, who was the only Egyptian monarch who bore that name.

If these corrections of names be permitted, six Pharaohs, who succeeded each other in regular succession, are mentioned either as a direct or a collateral evidence of the Exodus having taken place at this period, 1. Horus, one of the predecessors of Amenophis. 2. Rameses I., the new king, who knew not Joseph. 3 Osiri I. or Boccoris, who oppressed the Jews 4. Rameses II. who built Pithom and Raamses. 5 Pthamenoph, the Pharaoh of the Exodus. 6. Sethos his son, who was placed with an attendant.

From the many complaints of oppression in the Bible, it appears that the bondage was both severe and of some duration; these two reigns may therefore not be too long; but what, may be inquired, would be the effect in Egypt of an oppression of so numerous a population, and of their subsequent Exodus? For, even if

the number of " 600,000 men, besides children," had not been mentioned, it is evident, from the previous account of their increased numerical force, that the Jews were a very large body. 1. To oppress and keep them in bondage required a powerful monarch and a warrior, and such were in an eminent degree Osiri I. and Rameses II. 2. The labours of so great a population could not fail to be distinguished, and no Pharaohs have left finer buildings, nor in greater numbers, than these two kings. 3. A successful revolt could only take place under a feeble monarch, and such was Pthamenoph, and the loss of so great a population would inflict a blow on the prosperity of Egypt, and cause a lasting debility. Such was the state of Egypt after the reign of Rameses II., when a sudden decline of the arts and power of the country ensued; and if, at the accession of Rameses III. they for a time re-appeared, and in great splendour, yet with this monarch the glory of ancient Egypt departed for ever,

Now this reasoning is so cogent and convincing, that-seeing the highest authorities differed by no less than 181 years in the important date of the Exodus, namely, from B.c. 1495 to 1314-I could not but adopt the Duke's theory. Still, wishing to know whether his Grace's opinions had since undergone any change, a note of inquiry was despatched, which brought an answer by return of post dated 22nd of September, 1863; and the following are excerpta―

I have seen no reason to alter my impression respecting the names of the Pharaohs, nor indeed of anything material since I formed an idea of them in Egypt. I have heard of some of Bunsen's theories on the subject, but they have not tempted me to read his book; he gives no reason to me to change, and therefore I do not. My opinion of the Pharaoh under whom the Exodus took place remains unchanged.

But it is not so easy to fix the date of the Exodus B.C., because the Egyptians had no fixed epoch; they had not the Hebrew A.M., nor the Roman ab urbe; the Egyptian date was only from the commencement of the Pharaoh's name, which may often be uncertain; as, for instance, when a King took his son as a partner on the throne, it was uncertain whether the son would count the years of his reign during his father's and his own reign; also, when there was a forcible insurrection, or a change of dynasty: in fact there is no satisfactory chronology in Egypt.

I think that the "Book of the Dead" proves that at that time the Egyptians fully believed in the immortality of the soul; but I do not think we possess a Book of the Dead sufficiently ancient. I have often pressed Birch, at the British Museum, to translate and print the part during the 17th dynasty of Egypt ;* but, till now, we have it only of a late date.

The priests in Egypt collected their divine ideas from all nations; thus, from the outside Jewish nation they took the "Mysteries of Osiris," which was the tale of Cain and Abel, and

* Mr. Birch informs me (Feb. 1864) that his translation of the Ritual has been for some time printed off, but its appearance has been retarded by waiting for type for the hieroglyphic portion. It will be published in the fifth volume of the work by the Chev. Bunsen on Egypt's Place in Universal History.

commemorated in them the mystery of death-which is still the great mystery. And the Egyptian priests mixed in those mysteries Sanskrit words which are still used in Hindoo prayers, as Om, repeated as often as Amen in our prayers.

As you say, we want a reprint from authority, to show what we believe in Egypt.*

In the Edes Hartwelliana (pages 192-3) mention is made of a sculpture representing Thoth, on obdurate basalt, from the ruins of Canopus, with the manner in which I procured it at Alexandria, as well as how it became installed in the British Museum; and my brief account is illustrated by a faithful drawing from the pencil of Mr. Joseph Bonomi. Carving on so indurated a stone being by no means common in the early days of Egypt, No. 419 of the Lee Catalogue was the more attractive, because it is also cut from green basalt, and is moreover of grave traditional interest. It consists in the upper portion of the statuette of an Egyptian King, whose name has been carefully erased from among the hieroglyphics in the columnar row at its back; while on the shoulders have been inserted, to the prejudice of former names, the nomen and prenomen of Pharaoh-Hophra, or Psammeticus III.-the unfortunate "Apries" of Herodotus (Euterpe, CLXIX.), denounced by the LORD to Jeremiah the Prophet, circa 600 years B.C. It is eleven inches high, and thus described in Dr. Lee's Museum book :

The style of work is that of the period of the Psammetici; but this statue could not, in the first instance, have represented any of that family, for otherwise there would have been no necessity to have

* It may appear fanciful to the gentle reader that a couple of old sailors should be corresponding upon Biblical chronology; but it will not seem so passing strange when he is reminded, that, in the early part of this century, they were both cruizing on the Mediterranean station-the very alpha of mental retrospection. Besides my high esteem for the Duke through a long series of years for his attainments and amiability, a warm professional regard springs from the following decided coincidents :

obliterated the cartouch on the shoulder containing the prenomen, which is common to all the Psammetici. The conclusion then is, that this statue originally represented Pharaoh Necho, who reigned after Psammetichus I. (see Chronology and Geography of Ancient Egypt by S. Sharpe). The beauty of the work, and the hardness of the material, must always have made this piece of sculpture of great consideration; and it is interesting to know that both these Pharaohs, whether Necho, whose real image we suppose it to have been, or Hophra, whose name it bears, are mentioned in the Bible. Another circumstance gives to this fragment peculiar interest, which in a measure compensates for the loss of the features, and that is the certainty of the direction of the blow which has deprived us of the entire right side of the face: it was aimed at the beard, than which, according to the notions of the Asiatics, no greater indignity could be offered to the statue of the King. And now, when we take into consideration the great esteem in which this statue must have been held to have made it worth the labour of obliterating the former names, and inserting those of Pharaoh Hophra, together with the great beauty of the work, we may reasonably conclude that it occupied a conspicuous place among the statues of the Beth Shemesh, or some other of the houses of the gods of the Egyptians, which were broken at the time of the invasion of Cambyses, which happened thirty-three years after the death of Pharaoh Hophra.

An engraving has been made of the hieroglyphics on the shoulders, and of the whole fragment, to scale, and restored in outline, with the hope that its publication may bring to light the lower half, which probably exists in some other collection.

Mr. Samuel Sharpe remarks, that we know of no statues in basalt-rock before the reign of Psammetichus I. Therefore this statue, with the name of Hophra Psammetic cut over a former name, was probably originally made for Necho, as both of the original names have been cut out. For the same reason it may be taken as evidence that the name which it now bears is that of a king who reigned after Necho; which, indeed, agrees with what we learn from the Bible, and other authorities, which tell us that Hophra was dethroned by Amasis, and was the same king as Psammetichus III., B.C. 591–566.

Such irrefragable corroboration as these cartouches afford, in bringing two of the Pharaohs of Holy Writ into what may really be termed palpable cognition, cannot but draw the deep attention of every educated reader; wherefore its figure and important details are annexed on the following page.

The gradual elucidation of these once-sealed pictorial characters, however it may be carped at in detail by various hyper-critics, derives some light from the mathematical origin of language: another instance of the truthful axiom that "knowledge is power." The study of human nature resembles a forest-tree springing from a hundred ramified roots, every one of which conveys to the trunk a portion of the requisite aid; and these several contributions, when duly concocted, send aloft the embryo of the fructification, which is, in fact, the end and aim of both animal and vegetable life. Man alone rises into the celestial sphere by his mysterious power of contemplating the POSSIBLE FUTURE,