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were visible. But their familiarity with the cursive character enabled them to restore the text with an accuracy of which no competent critic can entertain a doubt. When I speak of our being able to read and comprehend the language, you will not understand me as implying that all Egyptologists are equally learned and skilful. Nor are all Egyptian texts equally easy of translation.1 As in all languages, some are very easy and others extremely difficult. There is one long and most interesting document, of which I shall have occasion to speak later on, which will, I fear, long continue to baffle the efforts of translators.

Publication of Egyptian Texts.

The progress of the study was greatly retarded at first by the difficulty of obtaining authentic copies of

1 Other questions than those of a purely philological nature often arise in reference to the texts translated. I do not quarrel with the But translations given by M. de Rougé and other scholars of the great texts describing the invasion of Egypt in the time of Seti II. I have always considered the identification of the foreign invaders with the Achaeans, Tyrrhenians, Sardinians and Sicilians, as in the highest degree improbable. Nor do I believe that the Danai or the Pelasgi have been really identified under hieroglyphic spelling. When we reflect that Deutschland is called Allemagne in French and Germany in English, that the people called Dutch by us are called Hollandais by the French, that the Greeks only knew themselves as Hellenes, that the name Egypt was unknown to the inhabitants of that country, and that its real name, Kamit, was unknown to Greeks and Romans, we should be very cautious in identifying names on the mere strength of similarity in sound.

Egyptian texts. Almost all the old copies, not even excepting those made by Belzoni, are absolutely worthless. Science is insatiate, and its wants can never be adequately supplied, yet much has been done, both through the unassisted efforts of private individuals and through the munificence of governments and public bodies. The collection of published Egyptian texts which can be relied upon is now very considerable. To the plates contained in the Description de l'Egypte published in 1809 by the French government, as the result of a great scientific expedition, must be added the collections of Champollion, Rosellini and Prisse d'Avennes, Burton's Excerpta Hieroglyphica, Sharpe's Egyptian Inscriptions, Dr. Leemans's Monumens Egyptiens du Musée de Leide, Ungarelli's Obelisks, the magnificent Denkmacler of Lepsius, the Hieratic Papyri of the British Museum, and many other splendid publications bearing the names of Lepsius, Chabas, Bonomi, Rhind, Brugsch, Dümichen, Mariette Bey, E. de Rougé, Rossi and Pleyte, Naville, Ebers and Stern, Maspero, Guyesse, Golenischeff, Bergman, Wiedeman and others. Some of these costly works reproduce the original text in facsimile; in some of them the accuracy of the copy is secured by photography.

But large as is the collection of these texts, it is but a fragment of the texts actually in existence. Mariette Bey has published four folio volumes of plates from the temple of Denderah alone, but he

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Would

gives them only as a selection. To copy the whole be the work of years. Dr. Dümichen would, he says, has published another folio volume of texts of special interest, selected from the same temple, without interfering with those published by M. Mariette. Every square foot of the walls is in fact covered with picture or text. I had the pleasure of passing some time, one or two years ago, at Qurna, on the left bank of the Nile, near Thebes, with a great scholar, who had spent much time in copying the inscriptions of a single tomb; but though he worked indefatigably and rapidly, he was compelled to come away leaving a great part of his intended work unaccomplished. that we might rely upon the zeal of future labourers for the completion of such tasks as the present generation is unable to perform! Unfortunately the monuments are rapidly perishing, and there are no effectual means of arresting the progress of destruction. The tombs are convenient abodes for Arab families, who destroy the paintings and inscriptions either by the dense smoke of their fires or by actually pulling down walls. I was taken to see the "Lay of the Harper," one of the most interesting remains of Egyptian poetry, which was published a few years ago by Dr. Dümichen; but we found the walls on which the poem was written a mere heap of ruins. But the vandalism of European and American travellers is most fatal to the monuments. There is, or rather was, a

famous picture at Benihassan which was formerly thought to represent Joseph presenting his brethren to Pharaoh. An English lady has been heard to request her guide to cut out for her the face of Joseph.

But this destruction in some form or other has been going on for centuries. Abd-el-Latif, a learned Arabian writer of the middle ages, tells us in his description of Egypt that the ruins of Memphis in his time extended half a day's journey in every direction, and that, in spite of the removal for building purposes of immense masses of materials, its ruins presented to the spectator a re-union of marvels sufficient to confound the intelligence, and which the most eloquent man would vainly undertake to describe. He then proceeds to give a very intelligent account of these marvels, which must have been scarce less astounding than those still to be seen at Thebes. But of Memphis there is at present hardly a trace left. And other great cities known to ancient travellers have disappeared with their monuments. Mummy-cases and coffins with most interesting inscriptions have for centuries been used as fuel. And innumerable manuscripts have suffered the same fate.

In speaking of our stock of information respecting the ancient world, Mr. Grote says that "we possess only what has drifted ashore from the wreck of a stranded vessel." If this be true with reference to such a literature as that of Greece, with its immortal

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poets, historians, orators and philosophers, how immeasurably more true is it of Egypt! Yet if we only look to quantity, the stock of original and trustworthy materials actually in existence illustrative of the religion of ancient Egypt, is more extensive than the corresponding materials extant for the religions of Neither Romans nor Palestine, Greece or Rome.

Greeks have left any sacred books. They have left poetry of the highest order, but no psalms or hymns, litanies or prayers, as the Egyptians have so largely done. No people certainly were more remote than the Egyptians from the idea that religion could exist without outward forms of worship. In studying their religion, we have to deal, not with a mere sentiment, but with a vast and complicated system of beliefs and institutions, resulting from their view of man's relations to the unseen world.

Most of the Texts are of a Religious Nature.

Of the many thousands of texts which have been rescued from destruction and made accessible to us, there are extremely few which do not bear directly upon the subject of the present Lectures. There are two reasons for this. The first is to be found in the fact that the Egyptians were among the most religious of the ancient nations. Religion in some form or other was dominant in every relation of their lives. One of