Verlaine was in solitary confinement at Mons. He came out of prison a fervent Catholic, and after seven years' silence a volume of religious poems (certainly among the finest and the most profoundly sincere religious poems ever written) was published obscurely, under the name of Sagesse (1881), at the office of a Catholic publisher. Since then, now lodging at the expense of his friends in some miserable garni, now a little more comfortably in hospital, he has published Jadis et Naguère (1884), a book of poems which represents every side of his work; Amour (1888), and Bonheur (1891), pendants to Sagesse; Parallèlement (1889), and Chansons pour elle (1891), its antithesis; besides some prose books, Les Poètes Maudits, Louise Leclercq, Mémoires d'un Veuf, Mes Hôpitaux, Mes Prisons; and two privately printed books of verse, Dédicaces (1890), and Liturgies Intimes (1892). Not many years ago, editors, even in Paris, dared not print his name; his genius was bemocked when it was not ignored; and the greatest of modern French. poets was infinitely less regarded than, let us say, M. Jean Richepin. To-day, all that is changed. Verlaine remains what he always was, but the public has come to accept him as a poet, even, to some extent, as a man. For, as a man, it has come to see that he is necessarily what he is; that the conditions of his life can never be changed; that he is "irreclaimable," to use the favourite expression, and that it is perfectly right that he should be irreclaimable.

ARTHUR SYMONS.

THE MYSTERY OF ANCIENT EGYPT,

IVID as is the interest now awakened in the religious writings of ancient Egypt, and numerous as are the students who have devoted themselves to their investigation, little progress has been made of late years in elucidating their meaning. The object of the worship inculcated by that religion, the relations of the worshipper to the object or objects worshipped, the signification of the particular symbols under which those relations were at once veiled and expressed, are but little better understood, notwithstanding the greatly increased knowledge of the sacred writings, than when the hieroglyphics themselves were still undeciphered. And side by side with the enigma in writing stands the enigma in stone, the Grand Pyramid of Ghizeh, concerning which so many theories have been put forward by writers not one of whom has attempted to produce confirmatory evidence from Egyptian sources. That extraordinary building, to which not even its immediate companions bear any true resemblance, at least in the hidden parts, stands a majestic and well-nigh as inscrutable as when the Hir-Seshta, or "Master of the Secret," was an officer of Pharaoh's household.

Yet, strange to say, prominently as these mysteries stand out in everything that relates to ancient Egypt, no one has hitherto thought of collating the secret of the monument with the secret of the doctrine contained in the mysterious books of Thoth, to whom the origin of Egyptian wisdom was attributed.* Such an omission is the more singular because indications are not wanting on either side to hint at the connection. That Khemmis, or Khufu, should have adopted the pyramidal form in the hieroglyph of his name is not surprising, as he is probably the monarch by whose orders the building was erected. But it is well worthy of attention that the same form should enter into the hieroglyph of the star Sothis, or Sirius, the determinator of the great

M. Maspero courteously informs me that the same idea has occupied himself, but that he has not published.

Egyptian cycle. And in a papyrus of somewhat late date, but not wanting in authority, Isis is called the Queen of the Pyramid. On the other hand, the Ritual of ancient Egypt is full of allusions which become vocal only when applied to the Grand Pyramid. Such are the festivals of the "Northern Passage," of the "Southern Passage," that of the "Hidden Lintel," that of " Osiris who dwells in the Roofed House," and in the" Pool of the Great House." So in the Kalendar of Esne we read of the "Festival of the Socket," and again of the " Opening of the Doors," which is closely connected in the Ritual with the orientation. Nay, the very titles employed, whether in the written or the masonic record, point directly, though secretly, to each other. Where else, if not in those chambers so jealously concealed, shall we look for the "Hidden Places," the master of which is claimed for its own master by the Book of the Dead? That secresy which is enforced by the one is strictly enjoined by the other. "This book," says the first chapter of the Ritual, “is the Greatest of Mysteries. Do not let the eye of anyone see it: that were abomination." Again, hundreds of years before the date of the principal papyrus containing the Book of the Dead, as early as the twelfth dynasty, the inscription on the coffin of Amamu, buried in the sacred. city of Abydos, makes a similar allusion: "Thou hast not gone dying. Thou hast gone living to Osiris. Now thou hast found the words of order, the mystery of the secret places." What a sudden significance, then, attaches to the title "Ta Khut," the Light, whereby the Grand Pyramid, that monument of flame, was known to the Pharaohs, when, turning to the sacred papyri, we find the opening chapter to be the Per-m-Hru, or Way of Illumination. For the doctrine contained in those mystic writings is acknowledged to be nothing else than an account of the path pursued by the departed after the dissolution which takes place at death. But that path passes through seven stages: the renewal of the "inner man" (or Ka), the new birth of the soul, the regeneration of the new man by union with the soul reborn, the ordeal or sanctification of the regenerate, the justification of the sanctified, the illumination of the justified, and the consummation of the illuminate in the House of Light. And for each of these stages we shall find a corresponding chamber in one of the "seven halls in the House of Osiris,' illustrated by features recognisable from the Ritual, in that doubly hidden portion of the structure which for thousands of years preserved the secret of its own existence.

In the double symbology of Pyramid and Ritual lie both the chief

difficulty of decipherment and the strongest evidence of their correspondence. For as it was the characteristic of the Deity of Egypt to be a Hidden God, so it was essential that the symbols relating to him and to the connection of man with him should not betray these deepest mysteries to the postulant on initiation, but should reserve their more secret meaning for the adept after full probation. Here, then, was the problem which lay before the first "Master of the Secret," the originator of "the wisdom of the Egyptians": to express, but in expressing to conceal-to veil, but with a veil of light, the mysteries of the Deity; and to choose such symbols as would convey, without betraying, their living energy, their illuminative power, and, above all, their illimitable endurance. No ordinary image, it is clear, no mineral, no plant, no animal, no man, could suffice for an expression such as this. Only the orbs of heaven, obeying in their lustrous course the laws that know no change, could fulfil the required conditions. Alike in the pictured and the masonic record, the path of the Just is pourtrayed in characters of light, and his progress in the language of celestial motion; or, at least, that language gives meaning to both.

A remarkable instance is that of the Orbit, involving the relation between the rotation of the earth on its axis and its revolution around the sun, on which rested the whole kalendar of Egypt. Amongst the people of that country, as among ourselves, existed, as Dr. Brugsch has shown, the quadrennial cycle of Leap Year; but the divisions of the annual course were arranged on a far more scientific plan than the patchwork of our own system. Each year was considered to contain a regular orbit of thirty-six decades of days, divided either into twelve equal periods, or months, each consisting of three decades, or into three equal periods, or seasons, each made up of twelve decades. At the conclusion of the Orbit in each year was an interval of divine rejoicing, consisting of five distinctive festivals, each the birthday of a great deity; and every fourth year was celebrated the yet greater festival, or jubilee, of completion. Hence in the Ritual we have an entire "Book," containing several chapters, entitled the "Book of the Orbit," and "The Passage of the Sun." And in the Grand Pyramid we find all these features of the Orbit, together with many other phenomena of the realms of light, masonified in the magnificent and unique inner Chamber of Ascent.

Similarly, another great astronomical conception-viz., the Horizonruns not only through the Book of the Dead, but through all the funereal imagery of the country, as in the Sai-an-Sinsin, or Book of the Migration

of the Soul, the inscription of Khu-en-Aten already quoted, and that of Queen Anchnes-ra-neferab.* What horizon, then, is that to which such mystery attaches? It cannot be that of Memphis, or of any specific locality, for the horizon of the sacred writings is common to the Rituals of North and South, and there is but one circle which can be equally general that is, the circle passing through the celestial poles, the horizon of the point in the sky which is occupied by the sun at the vernal equinox, and which was held by the Egyptians to be the apex of the universal heavens. That horizon to a dweller on our globe, or approximately on any member of our system, forms, as it were, the floor of the celestial dome. From the midst of it on the day of equinox rises the sun right upwards in the sky as he divides the purple arch of the firmament by the royal arch of light, and from out of it the whole hosts of stars, from pole to pole, in serried array, follow him through the silent night, completing their numbers just in time to herald his return from the same horizon. "The road is of fire," says the Ritual; "they whirl in fire behind him." Now, this horizon seems strikingly indicated by the Entrance Passage of the Grand Pyramid, which, as is well known, points a little more than 3deg. from the North Pole. For accepting as most probable the date of foundation given by Dr. Brugsch (viz., the year B.C. 3700), we find that about two hundred and sixty years later (B.C. 3440) the Pole-star Alpha Draconis occupied, as Professor Smyth has pointed out, just that position, so that it would shine right down the passage. And thus the disciples of the Master of the Secret, who in successive generations must have watched for two hundred years the approach of the star, would receive in its final co-ordination the most convincing proof of the truth of those astronomical relations wherein their mystical religion was embodied. Hence, when we read in the Ritual of “The Good Paddle of the North, the Opener of the Disc," we recall at once the narrow paddle-shaped passage, widened at the entrance towards the north, which opens the sacred interior to the outer universe, the "long, long tube" which sweeps through space, pointing perennially to the position occupied by each successive star which for a brief period of centuries keeps watch before the Pole.

* Translated by Mr. Budge.

Dr. Brugsch pays a just tribute to the valuable information given by Professor Smyth, notwithstanding the mistaken character of his views. The date here quoted is an instance in point. For the Professor honestly records it as astronomically true, although rejecting it (in favour of a later one) as absolutely fatal to his own theories.