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were due to the decline of the martial virtues among the Egyptians, the discontent of the people in consequence of the exactions of, and the labours imposed upon them by, the first race of kings, and possibly to domestie treachery. Having once established their authority, we must suppose one of two cases-1st. Either that they continued to exist as a separate military caste, wholly distinct from the Egyptians; or, 2ndly, that they gradually adopted the language, manners, and religion of the people they had subdued, and through the lapse of time, intermarriages, and other obvious means, lost those peculiarities which were proper to them as foreigners, and which caused their name to become ultimately a byword of reproach. If we take the first case, a comparatively short period of time will suffice, say the 250 years commonly assigned to their dominion; if we take the second, a larger portion of time will be needed, such as M. Bunsen's 922 years. The question, then, lies between the comparative probabilities of these two assumptions, and neither does nor can admit of the intervention of a third. Now, it is a noticeable circumstance that Manetho-or Josephus speaking for him gives their number at the date of their expulsion, and, after a residence in Egypt of, according to him, 511 years, at 240,000 persons, the same number which Bryant gives to them at their entry; whence it may be inferred that they preserved to the last their original state of isolation, though it may be concluded, at the same time, that their numbers had been latterly much diminished, possibly by the war of thirteen years' duration which they had maintained with the natives before they were finally driven out of the country. The grand point, however, is the establishment of the fact of their isolation, for if that be once settled, the shorter term of residence will follow as a matter of necessity; and it will also follow, that the shorter that term can be made the stronger will the case become; for, a residence extended to upwards of 900 years, the complete domestication which this would imply, and the exercise of imperial functions for so long a time, are irreconcilable with the theory of a distinct class-existence, and so entire a separation of the shepherds from the rest of the population as their

history, as it has come down to us, absolutely requires. The difficulty is considerable with 250 years; it is doubled with 511; and it becomes altogether insuperable with 922; for it must be remembered that, whatever chronology be adopted, we have the same story to tell at the end of it, namely, that the Hyksos were gathered together in a single stronghold to the number of 240,000 souls; that they were there besieged by a king of Upper Egypt, and compelled, in terms of a capitulation, to abandon the territory they had so long oppressed by their presence, and to evacuate the country, not in detachments, or portions, but as a whole. We repeat, then, that considering the peculiar structure of society in Eastern countries, and particularly in ancient Egypt, we can believe, if obliged to do so, this to have been practicable after the lapse of two centuries, or thereby, but to be scarcely conceivable after the lapse of five centuries, and to be wholly unimaginable after the lapse of nine. Universal

history furnishes nothing analogous to the conditions on which the Chevalier Bunsen's middle empire is founded, for it will not be alleged, we presume, that the sojourn of the Israelites in Egypt is a parallel case, and if not, we know not where one is to be found; for though the English are a ruling military class in Hindostan, they are not domesticated there as the Hyksos were in Egypt; while the Chinese example of the Mantchoo Tartars is so little in point, that they have governed the Celestial Empire for only 160 years (1692) and are now so thoroughly incorporated with the people whom they subdued, that, though much dissatisfaction is expressed with their rule, the recent movement against them has failed to make any sensible impression upon it. At this moment it is 789 years since the Norman Conquest of England, less by 133 years than the Chevalier Bunsen asks for the duration of the shepherd dominion in Egypt; but who could now separate the Norman from the Saxon, the Saxon from the Dane, or the Dane from the Briton? And unless human nature was different in ancient Egypt from what it is in modern Europe, how can we believe that after the lapse of nearly a thousand years it was possible to collect the Canaanitish invaders into one body, to shut them up in a fortress

with their families and their effects, and finally to drive them from the land they had made their own into the wilderness, for by this time they could have had no other home, and no other country, than Egypt? It appears to us, therefore, that this part of M. Bunsen's general argument, which he obviously thinks the strongest, and which he has made so many sacrifices to establish, is really the weakest, since it is opposed not only to the canons of experience, but to the laws of social progression and amalgamation in every age. So far from removing the difficulties that have always belonged to

the Hyksos period, it increases them fifty-fold; and we must conclude these very general remarks on this unquestionably able and learned work, by expressing our regret that its accomplished author should have allowed his zeal in the cause of Egyptian archæology to render him unjust to those who think less highly than he does of the historical value of the Egyptian monumental records, and whose chief sin is, that they decline to postpone the authority of Genesis to Lepsius's "Todtenbuch," and to give up the Flood in obedience to M. de Ronge's last "Memoire sur quelques Phénomènes Célestes."

THE MYSTERY OF THE BEASTS.

In that tract of time which lies between the ages of fable and the epoch when the blended civilisation of Rome and Greece assumed its most gorgeous aspect, in all antiquity, the sciences which rest on the observation of positive facts made no progress. We cannot say they did not exist. One man opened the inquiry, but in this line of philosophy that solitary individual had no disciples. Aristotle, the philosopher we allude to, perused with attention the habits of brutes, and recorded them with care, and classed them in accordance with the laws of a rude comparative physiology. But he had no followers in this path. The sciences of which he laid the basis, and of which he foresaw the results, were stifled by the swarming luxuriance of fable. In lieu of observations, the most incredible and preposterous romances were massed together in the pages, for instance, of Elian, Ctesias, and even Pliny himself, philosophers who seem to have swallowed the grossest figments without a twinge of fastidiousness. It is perfectly amazing, and we can only account for it by supposing in those ages writing was so rare and costly an accomplishment, that individuals who could use the pen deemed it unbecoming to use their eyes. If the theologians of pagan antiquity were poets, as Bacon observes, their naturalists were even worse. Animals that crowded about their steps, and which they could not move their eyes without see

In

ing, are the heroes of the most extravagant legends. The whole world is metamorphosed by superstition. Truth is ignominiously swept out, and dreams substituted for reality. Writers stride forward from prodigy to prodigy, with the arrogance and self-esteem of authors who scorn to be observers. the presence of brute instinct, manthe king of the creation-abdicates his reason, in order to endow the meanest animals with this prerogative. Nothing is more strange. When every being in existence is metamorphosed, he next proceeds industriously to invent a world of impossible beings, and his childish credulity greedily believes in all that his own teeming fancy invents. Finally, Polytheism attributes prescience to brutes-the power of ascertaining and indicating futurity; and, by way of climax to this pile of absurdities, sublimates them into deities. It is, we think, worthy of inquiry, why the inferior animals should be thus humanised at once by superstition, and poetry, and philosophy.

According to the doctrine of the metempsychosis-introduced into Greece by Pythagoras and Timæus—the brute animals are human beings in an altered form. In their new shape, they preserve a recollection of their former condition. They were believed by some philosophers to possess three souls the sensitive, rational, and vegetative soul-corresponding to what, in recent times, has been termed in

tellectual, organic, and animal life. A book was written by Plutarch, to prove that animals possess reason, inasmuch as the operations of our boasted understanding are more liable to error than the mysterious operations of instinct. Poets, and even philosophers, regarded them as our earliest teachers of the useful arts. At an early period (according to Pope)—

"To man the voice of nature spake :— Go! from the creatures thy instruction take; Learn from the birds what food the thickets yieldLearn from the beasts the physic of the field. Thy arts of building from the bee receive; Learn of the mole to plough, the worm to weave; Learn of the little nautilus to sail,

Spread the thin oar, and catch the driving gale.

Learn each small people's genius-policies-
The ant's republic, and the realm of bees:
How those in common all their wealth bestow,
And anarchy, without confusion, know.
And these for ever, though a monarch reign,
Their separate cells and properties maintain."

A grasshopper, instructed by the melodious teachings of the nightingale, carried off the prize in the Pythian games. The chargers of the Sybarites were famous for pleasing manners and accomplishments. They particularly surpassed in dancing; and on one occasion, when the battle-trumpet sounded a charge, and all the Sybarite cavalry were advancing at the signal, the Crotonian enemy suddenly struck up a reel, or jig, or dancing tune, whereupon the Sybarite chargers, mistaking a battle for a ball, began to foot it featly to the measure, and capered, and pranced, and tramped, so as to disorder the ranks, and, through love of pleasure, forfeited victory.

Narratives and statements such as these frequently occur in the writings of the ancients, who tell them with the grave air of satisfied and undoubting credulity. Indeed they saw no reason to doubt them, when their philosophers, whose names were symbolical of wisdom, recognised men in brutes, in birds, and even in insects; and when beasts were assimilated in intellect to men, we cannot be surprised if animals employed human language; that is, when reason dwelt in the mind, we can readily suppose it spoken by the tongue. The narratives of the fabulists are only dramatic versions of universally accredited traditions. That Esop's fox should converse with the stork, or that a philosophic discussion should beguile the leisure of the town rat, when visited by an acquaintance from the country, is not to be wonder

ed at, when history itself teems with similar examples. On the fall of Tarquin, a dog, in the open streets, could not contain his political sentiments, but gave expression to his republican opinions by loudly vociferating his congratulations. When Domitian was assassinated, an observant crow, perched on the capitol, favoured the city with its regicidal views by applauding the murderers. "It's a good deed," screamed the crow; "it is right well done." When Otho oppressed Rome, and Vitellius threatened the walls, the golden reins, to the terror of the alarmed city, dropped from the hands of the statue of Victory, and the oxen, in a low tone, were overheard exchanging private opinions on public affairs. When Lepidus and Catullus were consuls, a cock, in the farm-yard of Galerius, conversed like a human being; and Pliny, animadverting on this fact, gravely remarks, that " speaking cocks are very rare in history."

One of the most extraordinary features in this superstition is, that while beasts are adepts in the language of men, it is only in exceedingly rare cases that men ever attain to any knowledge of the language of beasts. All antiquity produced but five individuals who reached this extraordinary height of science, namely-Tiresias, Helenus, Cassandra, Apollonius of Tyana, and Melampus. Apollonius was suddenly gifted with this privilege in India, while manducating the heart of a dragon; and serpents communicated the faculty to Melampus. Here is the story:The servants of Melampus found a nest of serpents in a hollow oak, which, after killing the old ones, they brought to Melampus, who ordered the young creatures to be carefully brought up. When these serpents reached maturity, their gratitude for the care bestowed on their education caused them one day, while Melampus was wrapped in profound repose, to glide close to his ears and lick them repeatedly, a process which improved his hearing to such exquisite fineness, that he was astonished, on awaking, to hear the brutes utter sounds that were quite intelligible to him.

While it must be confessed that the zoology of antiquity is as fantastic and fabulous as an Arabian tale, it must be also admitted that, as far as we have yet gone, it is perfectly logical. For example: the brute has three souls;

he has consequently the same faculties as man, and the faculties being the same, the passions must be identical. Though modern science yields its unwilling assent to the undoubted and melancholy fact, that the material appetites and instincts of man are only too identical with those of the brute, yet it refuses to admit of this analogy in the moral sentiments. A profound and even infinite difference is clearly recognised, though to define what this difference consists in is a task of which modern science is incapable. It knows and proclaims, however, that the sacred ray which enlightens and warms man has not reached the lower animals. Now, antiquity was blind to this distinction. To the lower animals it attributed not merely the passions which agitate, but the moral sentiments which dignify, and the affections which console, mankind.* Rivals are found among the beasts and birds for the heroes of tragic passion, such as Phædra, Orestes, Pylades, &c. A goose, according to Pliny, fell desperately in love with a youth named Egius; and in Egypt a tender passion was conceived for the beautiful Glauce, a female musician of distinguished merit in the Court of Ptolemy, by an amorous ram. A sublime constancy in friendship has been manifested from time to time by horses, eagles, and dolphins.

A young girl in Sestos reared and fed an eagle, which, upon her death,

was inconsolable; it rushed into her funeral pyre, and perished upon her ashes. A dolphin died of grief for the loss of a child, during the reign of Augustus. This child was accustomed, on its way to school, to cross the Lucrine lake every day, which the dolphin observing, approached the child and bore it on its back, safely depositing its burden on the opposite shore. One day the child failed to appear, and the dolphin was seen waiting with evident uneasiness. The dolphin came the next day, and the next, but the child was dead, and the sympathetic fish, as if it were

"A crime in heaven to love too well,"

sickened and perished of grief. Such tales justify us in maintaining that antiquity assimilated beasts to The marvellous predominates

men.

in these facts :-On every hand real creatures are strangely transfigured; but the unbridled fancy of antiquity is not satisfied with transfiguration. When it has described grasshoppers that excelled in music, serpents that were profound linguists, eagles that committed suicide, and oxen that discussed politics, it turns from them in disgust to delight its greedy credulity with monsters made up of the discordant fragments of living types. Antiquity passionately loved a monster, and slighted or neglected existing animals, to conjure up with eager avidity animals that could never exist. The

*The poet Campbell seems to have been a convert to the doctrine of antiquity, when he says:

"The deep affections of the breast,

That Heaven to living things imparts,

Are not exclusively possessed

By human hearts.

A parrot from the Spanish Main,

Full young and early caged, came o'er
With bright wings to the bleak domain
Of Mulla's shore :

To spicy groves, where he had won
His plumage of resplendent hue-
His native fruits, and sky, and sun,
He bade adieu.

For these he changed the smoke of turf,
A heathery land, and misty sky,
And turned on rocks and raging surf
His golden eye.

But fretted in our climate cold,

He lived and chattered many a-day,
Until with age, from green and gold,
His wings grew gray.

At last, when blind, and seeming dumb,
He scolded, laughed, and spoke no more;

A Spanish stranger chanced to come

To Mulla's shore :

He hailed the bird in Spanish speech-
In Spanish speech the bird replied,

Flapped round the cage with joyous screech,
Dropt down, and died 1"

woods, mountains, seas, and even the infernal regions teem with horrible and dreadful forms such as dragons with enormous pinions, winged horses, crocottes, that cunningly lured woodmen from their toils by calling them by name, and enticing them into the solitudes of the forests, where they devoured them; griffins, with sharp snouts; four-legged birds, furnished with lion's claws, and covered with red feathers; the catoblepas, which shot from its terrible eyes glances that killed the most powerful warriors. The marticorus, according to the description of Ctesias, was a strange jumble of incongruous parts. It had green eyes, a scarlet skin, a lion's body, three rows of teeth, and the tail of a scorpion, in which, like a hand, it brandished a javelin. According to Pliny, fishes with horses' heads were often seen in the Arabian Sea, out of which they crawled at night to graze in the fields. The backs of whales were often seen rising above the surface of the Indian Ocean, to the extent of four acres; while in the waves of the Ganges enormous eels, thirty cubits long, slowly rolled their vast volumes. The fleet of Alexander was met by a shoal of monstrous tunnies, which opposed it with the discipline and numbers of an army. The Prætorian guards fight with sea-serpents, and crimson the ocean with their blood to the extent of thirty thousand paces. In the centaurs, the onocentaurs, and the hippocentaurs, the human shape is blended with that of the horse, the goat, the monkey, and the fish. Eschylus speaks of the daughters of Phorcys, who had one common eye among five sisters, an eye which passed from hand to hand, apparently like a modern opera-glass. Snakes were seen curling on the heads of the Gorgons, in lieu of ordinary locks.

All these monsters, according to a tradition which reminds us of the theories of geology, and which was known in the middle ages, were engendered in chaos, anteriorly to the formation of the earth. It was not merely poetry and popular credulity— science itself attested their existence. Pliny saw a centaur, embalmed in honey, exhibited in Rome in the reign of Claudius. The earliest Christian writers, Justin, Cyprian, and Jerome, admit their existence, believing them to be fallen angels, condemned to

stroll through dismal solitudes and uninhabited forests, until the day of judgment.

These hybrid beings are dispersed in considerable numbers over the whole earth; but there are creatures combining the limbs of men with the forms of beasts, which fail to reproduce their kind, or at best give birth to monsters of a different nature. One of these, termed the chimæra, the daughter of Echidna, presented

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A cherub's head, a serpent all the rest." This interesting creature was united to the fierce and terrific Typhon, to whom she bore four very anomalous children, renowned for an extravagant superfluity of members-such as the the hydra of Lerna with a hundred heads; the cerberus with fifty heads; and another chimæra which had the undesirable peculiarity of possessing four feet and three heads; as well as the dog of Geryon, slain by Hercules, &c. The heroes of antiquity, Theseus, Bellerophon, and Hercules, amused their leisure meritoriously, in braining this unnecessary plurality of heads, just as the solitary dragons that watched by the fountains or haunted the forests of the Celts were destroyed by the heroes of a later period. As paganism and the devil were personified by the dragons of the Christian legends, we may take it for granted that the destructive carnivora of archaic ages (which retarded the progress or arrested the foundation of civilisation) were represented by the monsters described above.

Amid this crowd of grotesque monstrosities, the phoenix appears as the type of beauty, gentleness, and grandeur. The existence of the phoenix is not simply asserted by the naturalists, the very gravest historians attest its existence. The appearance of a phoenix in the consulship of Paulus Fabius, and Vitellius, or the thirty-fourth year of our era, is described by Tacitus as an event of the first importance, and worthy of transmission to the remotest posterity" Every five hundred years the phoenix," says Tacitus, 66 comes into existence, though it is true," he adds, "some assign four hundred and sixty-one years as the true period. The first phoenix appeared in the reign of Sesostris; the second was seen in the reign of Amasis; and the last under Ptolemy III. This last phoenix,

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