wanderer, and the choice of his temporary abode depends on the abundance of food or superiority of pasture it affords to his flocks. This, and the means required for his own subsistence, are his chief care; and he seeks not to improve his condition, or to advance beyond the state in which his forefathers have lived. Like the hunter, he makes no progress in civilisation; and we observe, that, though surrounded by opulent and industrious nations, the Arab, to the present day, despises customs which he feels not the inclination to adopt.

Accidental circumstances generally have a tendency to form the different states of society; and that country which, from its nature, was adapted to the chase, would be inhospitable to the shepherd, and totally unsuited to the pursuits of the agriculturist. This last is the state most capable of improvement. In it, civilisation is encouraged, the industry of each individual is beneficial to the whole community, and the facility of providing for their wants enables a great number of persons to employ themselves in other occupations. And, since the mere tillage of the soil may be performed by a small portion of the population, the surplus is led to devise some method of profiting by their spare time and labour; and the energies of the mind are called forth, both to create and to supply numerous artificial wants. Mechanism, the division of lands, the rights of property, the exchange of commodities, and many other steps towards the improvement of society,

are the result of this mode of living; and various institutions, unknown to the hunter and the shepherd, succeed each other in proportion to the advancement of the rising state. It is, then, evident, that those countries, where argiculture is the chief occupation of the people, must make rapid progress in civilisation, and, consequently, rise to opulence and power; and we may reasonably suppose Egypt was one of the first to benefit by the advantages of its fruitful soil.*

Assyria is another notable instance of the same fact; and its fertility was unquestionably the cause of its early improvement and prosperity.

But the primeval history of states, especially at so remote an epoch, must necessarily be a matter of pure conjecture, since they are beyond the reach of authentic records; and if those nations themselves had handed down to us what they deemed their real annals, we should find them so complicated and improbable, that it would be out of our power to separate truth from fiction. Such is the character of the uncertain fragments of Manetho, preserved by later writers; and even the early history of the Greeks is so encumbered with allegory, and a mysterious system of mythology, that it is difficult to distinguish between real events and religious fable: a mode of uniting history and metaphysical theory not peculiar to the Greeks, but adopted by other, perhaps by all, nations of

*The exchange of commodities with other nations not only tends to benefit each in a commercial, but in a moral, point of view; and it is probable that Egypt trafficked with the Tyrians, as well as with the people of Arabia, at a very remote period.

antiquity; and, wherever we have been able to examine the ba is on which it was constructed, a striking similarity is observable in its general outline.

Whether Egypt was originally governed by an hierarchy or a monarchy, is still a question; yet, from the circumstance of the earliest names enclosed in ovals being preceded by the title priest instead of king, we might infer the possibility of a priestly form of government; and the account of Manetho, and other writers who mention the rule of the gods, would seem to sanction, or even require, such a construction. The succession of the different gods to the sovereignty of the country would then be explained by that of the respective colleges of priests; though the duration of their reigns is totally inconsistent with truth or probability. It is true that infant states are more usually governed by some individual, pre-eminent for his abilities either as a statesman or a warrior, than by a body of persons with equal authority; but, as the former opinion appears to be less at variance with what history has imparted to us, it is more reason. able to conclude that, like Judæa before the time of Saul, Egypt was ruled by an hierarchy, until the accession of its first king, Menes.

Any attempt to fix the precise era of this political change must be fruitless and unsatisfactory: if, however, it is beyond our reach, there are positive grounds for the conviction, that no Egyptian deity was ever supposed to have lived on earth*; and the

* Vide Herod. ii. 143. The priests also assured him that no deity had ever lived on earth (ii. 142.); and Plutarch (de Isid. v. 21.) observes that the inhabitants of the Thebaïd entertained the same opinions.

story of Osiris's rule in this world is purely allegorical, and intimately connected with the most profound and curious mystery of their religion. And so great was their respect for the important secret, and for the name of Osiris, that Herodotus* scrupled to mention him; and Plutarch † says the Egyptian priests talked with great reserve even of his well-known character as ruler of the dead.

The Egyptians justly ridiculed the Greeks for pretending to derive their origin from deities. They showed Hecatæus and Herodotus a series of three hundred and forty-five high priests, each of whom, they observed, was "a man, son of a man," but in no instance the descendant of a god: thus censuring the folly of Hecatæus, who claimed a deity as his sixteenth ancestor. Such is the meaning of the expression in Herodotus ‡, "a piromis, son of a piromis:" and it is singular that the historian should not have understood the signification of the word rômi (man, or pirômi, the man), as the sense alone suffices to point it out; and his translation proves how ignorant he was of the language of the country in which he travelled. Indeed, the information of Herodotus was frequently of a very imperfect kind, owing sometimes to an excess of credulity, of which the humorous Egyptians gladly took advantage in a Greek, and sometimes to a want of scrutiny, as

may

be seen in the account he gives of the sources

of the Nile.§

* Herod. ii. 86. et alibi.

Herod. ii. 143.

VOL. I.

с

+ Plut. de Is. s. 79.

§ Herodot. ii. 28.

The kings of Egypt are arranged by Manetho in twenty-six dynasties, from the time of Menes to the invasion of Cambyses, which happened B. C. 525; but whether any dependence can be placed on the names and number of the kings before the accession of the eighteenth dynasty, is a matter of great doubt; and some of the authors to whom we are indebted for the fragments of his work disagree in their arrangement. Nor do the monuments render us any assistance in this portion of the early history; though the great similarity in the names and order of the monarchs, in the eighteenth and some of the succeeding dynasties, suggests the probability of the original work of Manetho having been derived from authentic sources.

One great difficulty arises from the long duration assigned to the Egyptian monarchy: the sum of years from Menes to the Persian invasion being, according to Manetho, about 4750 years, without reckoning the fourteenth dynasty; and Herodotus' account, who was assured by the priests that 330 kings succeeded that prince*, requires, on an average of fifteen years to a reign, about 4950 years for the same period. A similar objection applies to the statements of Diodorus and other writers; but, as the examination of controverted questions can offer little interest to the reader, I shall only venture a few remarks on the period previous to the arrival of Joseph.

* L. ii. s. 100. He may mean 330 kings from Menes to Amasis, though he says to Moris; and in s. 143. he speaks of 345 kings and high priests, and in s. 142. of 341 generations before Sethos. He confounds reigns with generations.