for I well know the glory there is in doing this upon earth from the first action (of life) even to the tomb. . . . I am a Sahu who took pleasure in righteousness, conformably with the laws (hapu) of the tribunal of the two-fold Right. There is no lowly person whom I have oppressed; I have done no injury to men who honoured their gods. The sincerity and goodness which were in the heart of my father and my mother, my love [paid back] to them. Never have I outraged it in my mode of action towards them from the beginning of the time of my youth. Though great, I have acted as if I had been a little one. I have not disabled any one worthier than myself. My mouth has always been opened to utter true things, not to foment quarrels. I have repeated what I have heard just as it I was told to me."

Great stress is always in these inscriptions laid upon the strictest form of veracity; as, for instance, "I have not altered a story in the telling of it." The works of charity are commonly spoken of in terms which are principally derived from the Book of the Dead.

"Doing that which is Right and hating that which is Wrong, I was bread to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothes to the naked, a refuge to him that was in want; that which I did to him, the great God hath done to me."1

1 Duemichen, Kalenderinschriften, xlvi.

"I was one who did that which was pleasing to his father and his mother; the joy of his brethren, the friend of his companions, noble-hearted to all those of his city. I gave bread to the hungry; . . . I received [travellers ?] on the road; my doors were open to those who came from without, and I gave them wherewith to refresh themselves. And God hath inclined his countenance to me for what I have done; he hath given me old age upon earth, in long and pleasant duration, with many children at my feet, and sons in face of his own son."1

God's reward for well-doing is again mentioned in the great inscription now at Miramar2 in honour of a lady who had been charitable to persons of her own sex, whether girls, wives or widows.

"My heart inclined me to the Right when I was yet a child not yet instructed as to the Right and Good. And what my heart dictated I failed not to perform. And God rewarded me for this, rejoicing me with the happiness which he has granted me for walking after his way."

We are acquainted with several collections of Precepts and Maxims on the conduct of life. Such are the Maxims of Ptahhotep contained in the Prisse Papyrus, the Instructions of Amenemhat, and the

1 Bergmann, Hieroglyphische Inschriften, pl. vi, 1. 8.

2 Ibid. pl. viii, ix.

Maxims of Ani; and fragments of other important works are preserved in the Museums of Paris, Leyden and St. Petersburg. The most venerable of them is the work of Ptahhotep, which dates from the age of the Pyramids, and yet appeals to the authority of the ancients. It is undoubtedly, as M. Chabas called it,1 in the title of the memorable essay in which its contents were first made known, "The most Ancient Book of the World." The manuscript at Paris which contains it was written centuries before the Hebrew lawgiver was born, but the author of the work lived as far back as the reign of king Assa Tatkarā of the fifth dynasty. This most precious and venerable relic of antiquity is as yet very imperfectly understood. Its general import is clear enough, and some of the sections are perfectly intelligible; but the philological difficulties with which it abounds will for many years, I fear, resist the efforts of the most accomplished interpreters.2 These books are very similar in character and tone to the book of Proverbs in our Bible. They inculcate the study of wisdom, the duty to parents and superiors, respect for property, the advantages of charitableness, peaceable

1 "Le plus ancien livre du monde," in the Revue Archéologique of 1857.

2 M. Chabas has fully explained the nature of these difficulties in the Zeits. f. ägypt. Spr. 1870, p. 84 fol. Dr. Lauth's essay in the Sitzungsberichte of the Academy of Munich, 1869 and 1870, is very valuable, and I confess myself to be greatly indebted to it; but even the best portions of it can only be accepted provisionally.

ness and content, of liberality, humility, chastity and sobriety, of truthfulness and justice; and they show the wickedness and folly of disobedience, strife, arrogance and pride, of slothfulness, intemperance, unchastity and other vices. It is only through a lamentable misunderstanding of the text that some scholars have discovered anti-religious, epicurean or sceptical expressions.1

The same morality is taught in the romantic literature which sprung up at a very early period and continued to flourish down to the latest times. It is an interesting question, but one which cannot as yet be answered with certainty, whether or no the moralizing fables about animals attributed to Esop are really of Egyptian origin? The Egyptian text of at least one of these fables is contained in a papyrus of the Leyden collection, but it is in "demotic," not in the early language of the country.

I have laid before you some of the characteristic

1 "Let thy face be white (i.e. enjoy thyself) whilst thou livest; has there issued from the coffin (māɣera chest) one who has entered therein ?" This hasty translation by Mr. Goodwin (Zeitschr. 1867, p. 95) does not deserve the success it has enjoyed, and I do not believe the author of it would have published it, had his attention been called in time to such difficulties as these: 1, the Egyptian preposition en cannot stand at the end of a sentence; 2, it never means "therein;" 3, the word maxera is never found in the sense of "coffin," but in that of "chest of provisions;" 4, the sentiment in question is absurdly out of place in the context where the words

occur.

features of Egyptian civilization, and I ought not to conclude without alluding to two errors, one of which may be considered as entirely obsolete among scholars, whilst the other may claim the sanction of very high authority.

Castes.

As long as our information depended upon the classical Greek authors, the existence of castes among the Egyptians was admitted as certain. The error was detected as soon as the sense of the inscriptions could be made out. A very slight knowledge of the language was sufficient to demonstrate the truth to the late M. Ampère. Among ourselves, many men may be found whose ancestors have for several generations followed the same calling, either the army or the church, or some branch of industry or trade. The Egyptians were no doubt even more conservative than ourselves in this respect. But there was no impassable barrier between two professions. The son or the brother of a warrior might be a priest. It was perhaps more difficult to rise in the world than it is with us; but a man of education, a scribe, was eligible to any office, civil, military or sacerdotal, to which his talents or the chances of fortune might lead him, and nothing prevented his marriage with the daughter of a man of a different profession.

1 "Des Castes dans l'ancienne Egypte," in the Revue des Deux Mondes, Sept. 1848.