ADDRESS TO THE MUMMY IN BELZONI'S

EXHIBITION.

BY HORACE SMITH.

[English: 1779-1849; joint author with his brother James of "Rejected Addresses."]

AND thou hast walked about (how strange a story!)

In Thebes' streets three thousand years ago,
When the Memnonium was in all its glory,

And time had not begun to overthrow

Those temples, palaces, and piles stupendous,
Of which the very ruins are tremendous!

Speak! for thou long enough hast acted dummy;
Thou hast a tongue, come, let us hear its tune;
Thou'rt standing on thy legs above ground, mummy!
Revisiting the glimpses of the moon.

Not like thin ghosts or disembodied creatures,

But with thy bones and flesh, and limbs and features.

Tell us for doubtless thou canst recollect

To whom should we assign the Sphinx's fame?

Was Cheops or Cephrenes architect

Of either pyramid that bears his name?

Is Pompey's pillar really a misnomer?

Had Thebes a hundred gates, as sung by Homer?
Perhaps thou wert a mason, and forbidden

By oath to tell the secrets of thy trade, -
Then say, what secret melody was hidden

In Memnon's statue, which at sunrise played?
Perhaps thou wert a priest, if so, my struggles
Are vain, for priestcraft never owns its juggles.
Perchance that very hand, now pinioned flat,
Has hob-a-nobbed with Pharaoh, glass to glass;
Or dropped a halfpenny in Homer's hat,

Or doffed thine own to let Queen Dido pass,
Or held, by Solomon's own invitation,
A torch at the great Temple's dedication.

I need not ask thee if that hand, when armed,
Has any Roman soldier mauled and knuckled,
For thou wert dead, and buried, and embalmed,
Ere Romulus and Remus had been suckled:

Antiquity appears to have begun

Long after thy primeval race was run.

Thou couldst develop, if that withered tongue

Might tell us what those sightless orbs have seen,
How the world looked when it was fresh and young,
And the great deluge still had left it green;
Or was it then so old, that history's pages
Contained no record of its early ages?

Still silent, incommunicative elf!

Art sworn to secrecy? then keep thy vows;

But prithee tell us something of thyself;

Reveal the secrets of thy prison house;

Since in the world of spirits thou hast slumbered,

What hast thou seen, - what strange adventures numbered?

Since first thy form was in this box extended,

We have, above ground, seen some strange mutations; The Roman empire has begun and ended,

New worlds have risen, - we have lost old nations,
And countless kings have into dust been humbled,
Whilst not a fragment of thy flesh has crumbled.

Didst thou not hear the pother o'er thy head,
When the great Persian conqueror, Cambyses,
Marched armies o'er thy tomb with thundering tread,
O'erthrew Osiris, Orus, Apis, Isis,

And shook the pyramids with fear and wonder,
When the gigantic Memnon fell asunder?

If the tomb's secrets may not be confessed,
The nature of thy private life unfold:

A heart has throbbed beneath that leathern breast,
And tears adown that dusky cheek have rolled :
Have children climbed those knees, and kissed that face?
What was thy name and station, age and race?

Statue of flesh, -immortal of the dead!

Imperishable type of evanescence!

Posthumous man, who quittest thy narrow bed,

And standest undecayed within our presence,
Thou wilt hear nothing till the judgment morning,
When the great trump shall thrill thee with its warning.
Why should this worthless tegument endure,

If its undying guest be lost forever?
O, let us keep the soul embalmed and pure

In living virtue, that, when both must sever,
Although corruption may our frame consume,
The immortal spirit in the skies may bloom.

SETNA AND THE MAGIC BOOK.

FROM THE EGYPTIAN; TRANSLATED BY W. M. FLINDERS PETRIE.

THE mighty King User-maat-ra (Rameses the Great) had a son named Setna Kha-em-uast, who was a great scribe and very learned in all the ancient writings. And he heard that the magic book of Thoth - by which by which a man may enchant heaven and earth, and know the language of all birds and beasts was buried in the cemetery of Memphis. And he went to search for it with his brother An-he-hor-eru; and when they found the tomb of the king's son, Na-nefer-kaptah, son of the king of Upper and Lower Egypt, Mer-nebptah, Setna opened it and went in.

Now in the tomb was Na-nefer-ka-ptah, and with him was the ka of his wife, Ahura; for though she was buried at Koptos, her ka dwelt at Memphis with her husband, whom she loved. And Setna saw them seated before their offerings, and the book lay between them. And Na-nefer-ka-ptah said to Setna, "Who are you that break into my tomb in this way?" He said, "I am Setna, son of the great King Usermaat-ra, living forever; and I come for that book which I see between you." And Na-nefer-ka-ptah said, "It cannot be given to you. Then said Setna, "But I will carry it away by force."

Then Ahura said to Setna: "Do not take this book, for it will bring trouble on you as it has upon us. Listen to what we have suffered for it."

AHURA'S TALE.

"We were the two children of the King Mer-neb-ptah, and he loved us very much, for he had no others; and Na-neferka-ptah was in his palace as heir over all the land. And when we were grown, the king said to the queen, I will marry Na-nefer-ka-ptah to the daughter of a general, and Ahura to the son of another general.' And the queen said, No, he is the heir: let him marry his sister, like the heir of a king; none other is fit for him.' And the king said, That is not fair they had better be married to the children of the general.' And the queen said, 'It is you who are not dealing rightly with me.' And the king answered: 'If I have no more than these two children, is it right that they should

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marry one another? I will marry Na-nefer-ka-ptah to the daughter of an officer, and Ahura to the son of another officer. It has often been done so in our family.'

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"And at a time when there was a great feast before the king, they came to fetch me to the feast. And I was very troubled, and did not behave as I used to do. And the king said to me, Ahura, have you sent some one to me about this sorry matter, saying, "Let me be married to my elder brother?" I said to him, 'Well, let me marry the son of an officer, and he marry the daughter of another officer, as it often happens so in our family.' I laughed and the king laughed. And the king told the steward of the palace, Let them take Ahura to the house of Na-nefer-ka-ptah to-night, and all kinds of good things with her.' So they brought me as a wife to the house of Na-nefer-ka-ptah; and the king ordered them to give me presents of silver and gold and things from the palace.

"And Na-nefer-ka-ptah passed a happy time with me, and received all the presents from the palace, and we loved one another. And when I expected a child, they told the king, and he was most heartily glad; and he sent me many things, and a present of the best silver and gold and linen. And when the time came, I bore this little child that is before you. And they gave him the name of Mer-ab, and registered him in the book of the House of life.'

"And when my brother Na-nefer-ka-ptah went to the cemetery of Memphis, he did nothing on earth but read the writings that are in the catacombs of the kings, and the tablets of the House of life,' and the inscriptions that are seen on the monuments; and he worked hard on the writings. And there was a priest there called Nesi-ptah; and as Na-nefer-kaptah went into a temple to pray, it happened that he went behind this priest, and was reading the inscriptions that were on the chapels of the gods. And the priest mocked him and laughed. So Na-nefer-ka-ptah said to him, 'Why are you laughing at me?' And he replied, 'I was not laughing at you, or if I happened to do so, it was at your reading writings that are worthless. If you wish so much to read writings, come to me, and I will bring you to the place where the book is which Thoth himself wrote with his own hand, and which will bring you to the gods. When you read but two pages in this, you will enchant the heaven, the earth, the

abyss, the mountains, and the sea; you shall know what the birds of the sky and the crawling things are saying; you shall see the fishes of the deep, for a divine power is there to bring them up out of the depth. And when you read the second page, if you are in the world of ghosts, you will become again in the shape you were in on earth. You will see the sun shining in the sky, with all the gods, and the full moon.'

"And Na-nefer-ka-ptah said, 'By the life of the king! tell me of anything you want done and I'll do it for you, if you will only send me where this book is.' And the priest answered Na-nefer-ka-ptah, 'If you want to go to the place where the book is, you must give me a hundred pieces of silver for my funeral, and provide that they shall bury me as a rich priest.' So Na-nefer-ka-ptah called his lad and told him to give the priest a hundred pieces of silver; and he made them do as he wished, even everything that he asked for. Then the priest said to Na-nefer-ka-ptah: This book is in the middle of the river at Koptos, in an iron box; in the iron box is a bronze box; in the bronze box is a sycamore box; in the sycamore box is an ivory and ebony box; in the ivory and ebony box is a silver box; in the silver box is a golden box, and in that is the book. It is twisted all round with snakes and scorpions and all the other crawling things around the box in which the book is; and there is a deathless snake by the box.' And when the priest told Na-nefer-ka-ptah, he did not know where on earth he was, he was so much delighted.

"And when he came from the temple, he told me all that had happened to him. And he said, 'I shall go to Koptos, for I must fetch this book; I will not stay any longer in the north.' And I said, 'Let me dissuade you, for you prepare sorrow, and you will bring me into trouble in the Thebaid.' And I laid my hand on Na-nefer-ka-ptah to keep him from going to Koptos, but he would not listen to me; and he went to the king and told the king all that the priest had said. The king asked him, 'What is it that you want?' and he replied, 'Let them give me the royal boat with its belongings, for I will go to the south with Ahura and her little boy Mer-ab, and fetch this book without delay.' So they gave him the royal boat with its belongings; and we went with him to the haven, and sailed from there up to Koptos.

"Then the priests of Isis of Koptos and the high priest of Isis came down to us without waiting to meet Na-nefer