sufficient to concentrate during a short time so much physical power as may produce very astonishing effects. But if the violence of a shock, the crashing force of missiles, the astounding noise of artillery, and the blaze of fire, are of a kind to compose a total of real sublimity; how puny must all this brawling tumult of human fabrication appear when it is compared with the elements of nature in their awful strife, the vast and deep heavings of the tempestuous sea, the jagged darts of rending lightning from the summit of heaven, or when thunder breaks roaring out of the frowning blackness, and whirling eddies of the watery storm rush through the agitated air!

From the view just offered of its external appearances, we may infer that not the power or the pomp manifested in war have made it fit for poetical illustration. The battle-field is beset with sights and sounds of pain, to the

fancy not more agreeable than the loathsome, pestilential lazar-house.

The grim subject is capable of being invested with a certain kind of interest, in the exhibition of personal fortitude during a crisis of pain and danger. But it will not be difficult to prove that battle offers no peculiar, certainly no exclusive, advantage to this species of artistic effect. It depends, as has been seen, on suggesting, by means of the representation of immediate or imminent suffering, the sense of man's power to comprehend and defy extreme adversity, the exalted moral sentiment of a free will independent of physical compulsion. If space allowed, we could provide both argument and examples, and ample poetic precedent, for seeking the materials of this sublime imagination, not in the ghastly field of carnage, but in other relations of men to each other, to nature, and to supernatural realities.

anterior to Menes, gods

of the first series eight, gods of the second series twelve, demigods and manes, I say nothing, though this thick and far extending cloud adds to the mysterious depth of Egyptian antiquity, when the fancy tries to go back to its origin.

While the extreme antiquity of Egyptian culture is now a settled point, considerable diversity of opinion prevails concerning its details; and diversity of opinion is a sure token of uncertainty. It is only within the last half century, and through the learned researches of such men as Champollion, Bunsen, and Lepsius, that we have been put on the right road for acquiring a knowledge of the originals of the Egyptian state. This advantage has been gained by the well-earned suc

cess of those, and other eminent Egyptologists, in deciphering the hieroglyphics of the Nile. Those hieroglyphics, or sacred characters, are a species of picture-writing, descriptive originally of things, and not sounds, but at a later period, of sounds as well as things; which, till lately, were impenetrable mysteries, and, as mysteries, were supposed to contain the richest treasures of knowledge; but which, now that they have been laid open, prove, in their mythological, legendary, and half-historical details, more serviceable indirectly than directly. Indeed, the translation of these signs into equivalent English sounds has not yet been brought to completion. On many points there still remains a diversity of opinion. Nor are the data or facts complete on which our expositors have worked. Nevertheless, the cardinal points have been ascertained.

In order that you may understand how this result has been obtained, I must inform you that there are in ancient authors various passages alluding to Egyptian history. The famous Greek historian, Herodotus, (B. C. 450,) who wrote a sort of universal history, has devoted one book of his immortal work to Egypt. Of special value, too, is a long extract given by Josephus, the Jewish historian, from the writings of Manetho, an Egyptian priest, who, in the third century before Christ, composed, from original Egyptian authorities, a history of his native land. Hence, we possess a catalogue of kings of Egypt, running through thirty dynasties. This long line of monarchs supposes so great a lengthening of the recognized chronology, or, in other words, requires the age of the flood to be carried back so far that Manetho's authority was formerly held in little estimation. But, from the recent exploration of Egypt, it has received unexpected confirmation. The names of Manetho's kings have been found on Egyptian monuments. Copies of those monuments now exist in the British Museum in plates and in books; so that you may behold those primeval monarchs, sitting in their seats of honor, side by side, in long succession. It is true, the line is here and there broken; and, it is equally true, that scholars are not certain that more of them than some admit did not reign cotemporaneously, so that to take the sum of their reigns as the basis of a correct chronology, would

give an undue length to the Egyptian annals. There are, moreover, other points of doubt. Nevertheless, by researches the most indefatigable, ingenuity the most acute, and learning the most varied and profound, scholars have at length succeeded in giving a generally reliable form to Egyptian chronology, the result of which is, that the date of the flood must be thrown back many centuries.

The opinions of three most eminent writers on the subject may be here mentioned. The first I would refer to is Böckh, who, holding that the thirty dynasties of Manetho were intended to be all successive—that is, that they regularly followed each other-places the first year of Menes, the first king of Egypt, in the year 5702 before the birth of Christ. Not that he thinks that a real king of that name then began to reign. The succession with him is one of calculation. As such, it of course represents no historical reality. And no impartial mind, familiar with the subject, will deny that a thick and suspicious mist hangs over the springs of Egyptian chronology. A different view is taken by Chevalier Bunsen. Considering the dynasties as partly cotemporaneous, and partly successive, he sets the commencement of the Egyptian kingdom in the year 3643 B. C. Lepsius, Professor of Egyptian Antiquities in the University of Berlin, holding with Bunsen that some of the monarchs reigned in different capitals at the same time, is led to fix on the year 3892 as that in which Menes began his reign, and consequently as the first year of the Egyptian monarchy. That monarchy Lepsius divides into the Old Empire and the New Empire; while by Bunsen three divisions are made, namely, the Old Empire, the Middle Empire, and the New Empire.

The difference between the date assigned by Bunsen and that assigned by Lepsius is only 249 years. Yet such a difference is sufficient to show that absolute certainty has not been obtained. There can, however, be no risk in stating that our existing chronological system must be extended at its commencement. The exact addition which should be made cannot at present be stated. If, however, the figures given by Bunsen and Lepsius show a reason for interpolating at least 1,500 years in the line of the world's annals, the definite facts on which their calculation rests,

authorize as the date of the flood a much more remote epoch than any yet mentioned for long anterior to Menes must that destructive event have taken place; since in his time, it appears, the earth had become peopled again, the arts had revived, and social disquiet had so subsided as to allow the foundations of civil government to be laid. While, how

ever, these considerations go to authorize the extension of the line of time, in my judgment the line has already been unduly stretched. King Menes may, after all, be little more substantial than a creature begotten by sacerdotal credulity or national vanity.

At the same time, enough has been learned to show the necessity of the reconstruction of our received chronology. The prevalent system is often ignorantly identified with the word of God. It is true that a series of dates is placed in the margin of our Bibles. But by what hand? The hand of man. We of course do not mean to deny the existence, in the text of Scripture it

self, of certain chronological data. These data, Sir Isaac Newton, Archbishop Usher, and numbers of others, have worked into a system. That system, be it true or false, is their work, not its record. And while it is true that the Bible was given to men in order to lead them to God, not to teach them science, it is equally certain that in the Bible are found dates, which from the days of Solomon, if not from the exodus out of Egypt, present a series of perfectly reliable chronological points. The chronology of the Bible then carries us back, with entire certainty, several centuries anterior to the era of the foundation of Rome, or the commencement of the Grecian Olympiads-the two great resting-places of classic history. With

PYRAMIDS OF EGYPT.

the absolutely certain points of Egyptian history, the corresponding points of Biblical chronology are in entire agreement, and a close and impartial study of the earliest records of the Hebrew people will give sufficient reason for extending the ordinary chronology to a considerable degree.

Behold that tall fine figure, with a long spear and a flying cloak, urging his weary camel across the burning desert, accompanied by a small band. It is the patriarch Abraham, passing from Canaan into Egypt. Nearly two thousand years afterward, a small family of the poorer sort may be seen heavily treading the same hard and desolate way; they are a father, mother, and child-the child an infant

borne in a pannier, carried by an overloaded and famished ass. It is the Holy Family, flying from the bloodthirsty Herod; and that child is Abraham's spiritual descendant and Lord. The southern part of this same journey, so often accomplished by fugitives from Canaan, now forms part of the high road from England to India. Fourteen stations connect Cairo with Suez, a distance of eighty-five miles, | which twice every month are posted over in eighteen hours, in spite of all the hinderances of hill, ravine, and sand; while the silence of the desert is broken, and old forms of life which occasionally appeared there, as if they had come forth out of the night of antiquity, are replaced by the refinement, the opulence, the bustle, and the vulgarity of modern cities, shops, and quays.

What was the condition of the country when Abraham's eyes fell thereon? Give wings to your imagination, and accompany me. Taking a south-easterly direction, pass through the Straits of Gibraltar, up the Mediterranean, and then, landing at Alexandria, go up the Nile to Cairo, the ancient Memphis. Arrived there, walk out to that plain a few miles to the west of the city and the river, and ascend the great pyramid of Gizeh. The labour is immense, but great is the reward. Others have preceded us in the achievement. On the 15th of October, 1842, the national flag of Prussia, with its golden sceptre and crown, and its blue sword on a white ground, floated from the top of that oldest and highest of all the architectural works of man. The feat was performed by Professor Lepsius, who thus celebrated his sovereign's birthday. Stand, then, where that flag waved, and mark the objects of interest. Cast your eyes directly down in front as you look to the east and south. There you behold the valley of the Nile, a wide ocean in this season of overflow, (October,) everywhere inundated; waters which, intersected by those serpentine embankments, broken by villages standing like islands out of the flood, fill the entire plane of the vale, and reach across to that mountain chain which bears the name of Mokattam; on the most northerly point of which you behold the citadel of Cairo, rising above the town which lies there beneath.

That river, the Nile, is the parent and the benefactor of the land. On its periodical overflow depends the welfare and

almost the existence of the inhabitants. Observe how its bosom is covered with river craft. Some, rapidly drifting down the stream, are piled with corn, destined for shipment at Alexandria. There a gayer bark glides by; the pasha's flag waving at the stern, proclaims the presence of a bey or some other magnate on board, probably dispatched by the government to superintend the extortion of the imposts, to hasten the contribution of corn from a hard-working, starving peasantry, or on some similar errand of despotism. There you see a somber, dirty, dismallooking boat, crowded with young blacks, some on deck, others thrusting their sable faces through the cabin windows. They are slaves from the interior.

The mountains which run along on both sides of the stream were of old peopled here and there with ascetics. Five thousand anchorites are said to have found a home in those dreary cliffs. And the historian Rollin reports that the city of Oxyrinchus, in Lower Egypt, contained no less than 20,000 virgins and 10,000 monks, so that the monasteries could not receive them, and the monks lived over the gates and in the towers. And were you down there on the stream, you would be delighted to find yourself continually near palm groves, which, growing along the banks, nestle village after village within their luxuriant shade; but for which the fierce rays of the vertical summer sun would be almost intolerable, even to the natives. Observe how the slender trunks stand up like fairy columns. Above is a roof of waving green, inlaid with golden clusters of dates. During the inundation, while rowing through the intricacies of those groves, canopied by their beautiful foliage, you seem making your way through a vast portico of water-columns. Could you ascend that river, your eye would meet with a succession of ruins-gifts from the ever-lengthening past to the ever-vanishing present. Midway, Thebes would attract your gaze, and bid your feet tarry amid wonders of art and triumphs of civilization which Herodotus chronicled and Homer sang. Most, however, would you be delighted and awed by the sacred relics of Philæe, at the southern extremity of the land. Temples and porticos, based upon grand substructions, and combining with the green palms the pyramidal pylon or gateway, towering high above all-the