with Pelusium for its capital. The other was named The Second Augustamnica, and its capital was Leontopolis. While the Delta, with the country immediately surrounding it, was thus divided into four provinces, Middle Egypt retained a great portion of its former nomes, under the name of Middle Egypt or Arcadia. Upper Egypt was however always considered a separate country amidst these changes; it received new accessions, especially from the north, and hence arose a double appellation-The First Thebais and The Second Thebais. The former was called Oasis Magna, and its capital is said to have been Antropolis; the capital of the latter was Coptos.

The derivation of the name Egypt has caused considerable discussions among the learned, and will always be a subject of etymological theory and speculation. According to the ancient mythology, Ægyptus, son of Belus, and brother of Danaüs, gave his fifty sons in marriage to the fifty daughters of his brother. Danaüs, who had located himself at Argos, was jealous of his brother, and ordered his daughters to murder their husbands on the first night of their nuptials. The injunction was obeyed by them all except Hypermnestra, whose love induced her to spare her husband Lynceus; even Ægyptus was killed by his niece Polyxena. His son Ægyptus succeeded him as king of the large territory of Africa, after him designated Egypt, but which had previously been called Aëria. Passing over this mythological story, which seems to be a disfigured tradition of some early sacerdotal contest, we find Egypt styled Mitzraim or Mizraim in the Sacred Scriptures, and also Matsor and Harets Cham; hence we have repeatedly the Land of Mizraim, and the Land of Ham, so called, it is generally supposed, from Mizr, or Mizraim, the second son of Ham; and the Arabs and other Orientals still designate the country Mazr, Mezr, or Mizr. Bochart, in his "Sacred Geography," contends that the name Mitzraim, being a dual form, indicates the two divisions of Egypt

into Upper and Lower. Calmet alleges that the name denotes the people of the country rather than the father of the people; Josephus calls Egypt Mestra; the Septuagint, Mesraim; Eusebius and Suidas, Mestraia. It would be tedious to give all the ingenious etymologies advanced by various writers; suffice it to say, that the Egyptians always called their country Chemia or Chame, probably from the burnt and black appearance of the soil. The phrase, The Land of Ham, has two significations. in the Scriptures. When we read of Chedorlaomer defeating the Zuzim in Ham, Gen. xiv. 5, it applies to a tribe which inhabited a district between the Dead Sea and the mountainous ridge of the Abarim; but subsequently it is exclusively applied to Egypt, as in the 78th Psalm, "He smote all the first-born in Egypt, the chief of their strength in the tabernacles of Ham;" in the 105th Psalm, "Israel also came unto Egypt, and Jacob journeyed in the Land of Ham ;" and in the 106th Psalm, "Wondrous works in the Land of Ham, and terrible things by the Red Sea." A common opinion respecting the etymology of the word Egypt is, that Alyvos is composed of ala (for yaia) terra, and yʊπTOS, or rather XOTOS; and that Egypt signifies the Land of Kopt, or the Coptic Land. Another opinion is, that the word Aiguptos is a mere softening of Gupt-Pta, or AigupsPtas, formed of gups or aigups, a vulture, and pta or ptas, a demon; the vulture being one of the principal symbols of the Egyptians, who were not known by the name of Copts until the time of Amrou.

An ingenious writer in the Asiatic Journal (1834) advances a new theory on this subject. This writer, Mr Beke, in a paper on the geography of the Sacred Scriptures, informs us that, "with respect to Egypt, it is necessary that I should here state my conviction that that country is not the Mizraim of Scripture into which Abraham went down, Gen. xii. 10, and after him Jacob and his family, Gen. xlvi. 3-7, and out of which Jehovah brought the Children of Israel, Exodus

xii, 51; nor is it, I consider, the kingdom of the Pharaohs of a subsequent period, 1 Kings iii. 1, xiv. 25; 2 Kings xxiii. 29; neither, consequently, can it be the object of the denunciations of the Prophets, Jer. xliii. 8-13; Ezek. xxix. xxx, &c. If the opinions thus asserted be correct, it is evident that, independent of the many important results which must ensue, the country of Egypt can have little or no connection with the history and geography of the Sacred Scriptures."

To prove this singular hypothesis, this writer quotes the account given by Herodotus respecting Egypt, and contends, from that ancient writer and other authorities, that the Gulf of Suez, or the western gulf which forms the Peninsula of Sinai, with the Elanitic or eastern gulf, could not be that sea which, by the direction and under the miraculous protection of the Almighty, was crossed by the Israelites on the occasion of their departure from Mizraim, as recorded in the 14th chapter of Exodus; that the Gulf of Akaba, or Elanitic gulf, was that part of the Red Sea through which their miraculous passage was effected; and that the Land of Goshen must have been situated somewhere in the Arabian Peninsula of Sinai. Referring the reader to the article RED SEA, in its proper place in the present work, for a condensed view of this ingenious theory, we merely here observe, that there can be no doubt that Goshen was that part of Lower Egypt next to Arabia and Palestine, and north-west of the Gulf of Suez-that the Israelites, when they departed from the land of their tyrannical bondage, held on their course till they came to Pihahiroth, at the foot of the mountains of Attaka, where they crossed that part of the Red Sea called the Gulf of Suez, opposite to Baal-Zephon, near the Wilderness of Ethamthat they traversed almost the whole Peninsula of Sinai and Arabia Petræa in their journey towards the Promised Land, and therefore they could not possibly pass the Gulf of Akaba, from which, when they were nearest the head of it, they were distant a few miles ;-and

that they entered the Promised Land by a very different route, from traversing the country of the Midianites, which they must have done if they had passed through the Gulf of Akaba. Add to this, that the Israelites were in Egypt or Mizraim groaning under the tyranny of Pharaoh

that they had been brought thither by Joseph, the prime minister of a former king-and that the Egyptian monarchs had no jurisdiction on the other side of the Gulf of Suez, which must render the fact of the pursuit of the Egyptians, and their destruction in the Red Sea, as well as the subsequent history of the Israelites in the Wilderness, altogether false, if they passed the Red Sea by the Gulf of Akaba.

The Mosaic accounts must of necessity be more authentic than those of Herodotus, or of any other ancient historian, who merely narrates what he was told, and who was unacquainted with the extraordinary facts recorded in the Scriptures. There can be no doubt that Mizraim, or the Land of Ham of the inspired writer, is the country for thousands of years called Egypt-one of the most interesting on the surface of the earth to the scholar, the antiquary, and the philosopher. Renowned as one of the earliest seats of civilization for ages before the western nations had emerged from their primeval forests, or perhaps before their countries were even peopled or colonized, Egypt exhibited a state of society, as it respects government, laws, religion, and customs, which has been an endless source of inquiry in succeeding times. The kingdom of the Pharaohs was the birth-place of science and letters, the cradle of art as well as of superstition, long before civil history dawned in other countries; while it abounded with stupendous monuments, which the fury of five successive conquests and the ravages of many centuries have failed to obliterate. Greece received her letters, science, philosophy, laws, and government, from the banks of the Nile; and the other nations of Europe, who derived from the Greeks their civilization and improvements, are in like

manner indebted to the Egyptians for the primary rudiments of knowledge.

Egypt claims a higher antiquity than any other country in the known worla, excepting, perhaps, Chaldea, China, and Hindostan; and this fact, as in the case of other ancient nations, renders its early history involved in fables, contradictions, and absurdities, the accounts of which are variously given by different authors, who are not only at variance with each other, but are even not always consistent with themselves. Like the Hindoos and Persians, the ancient Egyptians possessed allegorical traditions respecting the introduction of agriculture and the commencement of their civilization, such as the Songs of Isis, the antiquity of which is attested by Plato. They had also epic traditions, which are described to have been a kind of poetic chronicles, embracing the succession of high priests and the dynasties of the Pharaohs; and these, preserved in volumes of papyrus, were unrolled by the priests to satisfy the questions of Herodotus:-" The priests," he says, "afterwards recited to me from a book the names of three hundred and thirty sovereigns, successors of Menes. In this continued series, eighteen were Ethiopians, and one a female native of the country. This queen was Nitocris, which was also the name of the Babylonian princess." But it is not to be supposed that these were veracious histories, although they might be intended as such. They were rather a series of heroic tales, intermingled with religious legends and abounding with allegory, as in the case of the Hindoos and Persians, and even of the Greeks previous to the return or invasion of the Heraclidæ. None of these now remain; all are swept away, and in their stead we have the sacred books of the Hebrews, never lost, because they contain those truths which enlighten and renovate the world, but which, it must be acknowledged, as it respects Egypt, are fragmentary in their nature, and consist chiefly of details extremely general. The first time Egypt is mentioned by Moses is connected with the history of the

Patriarch Abraham, and even then the incident is without development. According to the Bible chronology, B.C. 1921, Abraham, with his own family, and that of Lot his nephew," and all their substance that they had gathered, and the souls they had gotten in Haran," proceeded from that country into the Land of Canaan, "unto the Plain of Moreh," where the Patriarch received the promise, "Unto thy seed will I give this land," Gen. xii. 5, 6, 7. A famine caused Abraham to retreat speedily from the country promised to his descendants. Having progressed from between Bethel and Ai towards the south, he at length crossed the future territory of the Twelve Tribes, traversed the Wilderness of Shur, and proceeded into Egypt, taking Lot and his family with him. The inspired historian gives us no information about the part of the country which Abraham visited; but from the little narrative which follows, two facts are established-the one, that Egypt must have been a country of considerable importance and population even at that time-the other, that Abraham had found his way to the metropolis, or residence of the king; that its monarchy had been established, and the title of Pharaoh applied to its kings, which continued to be their designation until the Captivity at Babylon, or perhaps longer, as Ptolemy was their general name after the time of Alexander the Great. When Abraham approached the frontiers of Egypt, he was afraid that the beauty of Sarah his wife might excite the jealousy of the Egyptians, and induce them to murder him, if she acknowledged him as her husband; and he therefore advised Sarah to say she was his sister, an evasion which in one sense was true, as he afterwards explained it to Abimelech on a similar occasion-"she is the daughter of my father, but not the daughter of my mother, and she became my wife” (Gen. xx. 12)—and we are to recollect, as Dr Waterland observes, that in these early ages of the world the rules about marrying with their kindred were not so strict, neither was there any reason that they

should be so; for the prohibited degrees came not to be minutely laid down till the Levitical law commenced, which has ever since been the standard to those who acknowledge Divine revelation. The anticipations of Abraham in this matter proved well founded. When the Patriarch entered Egypt, "the Egyptians beheld the woman that she was very fair; the princes also of Pharaoh saw her, and commended her before Pharaoh, and the woman was taken into Pharaoh's house," Gen. xii. 14, 15. The Pharaoh here mentioned is supposed to have been one of the Shepherd Kings who about this time seized Lower Egypt, and, according to Rollin, formed a dynasty which reigned two hundred and sixty years. This Pharaoh, we are told, literally viewing Sarah as Abraham's sister, and never for a moment imagining that she was his wife, treated Abraham with great tenderness and hospitality on her account, and added considerably to his household and to his cattle. But a severe visitation, called "plagues," sent by Divine Providence into the palace of Pharaoh, soon convinced him that Sarah was not the sister merely, but the wife of Abraham. In this case there was no fault on the part of the Egyptian king; the deception originated with the Patriarch, whose love of self-preservation caused the plagues with which the unoffending Egyptians were visited. He was guilty of a manifest dissimulation, which could only have proceeded from that prevalence of fear to which the best of men are liable, considering himself as a stranger among alicentious people, and exposed to the power of an arbitrary government; and, from a principle of worldly caution, that he might preserve his own life and his wife's virtue, he concluded that this would be the best expedient, although he would have acted much more wisely if he had committed the whole matter to the arrangement of God. Pharaoh sent for him, and thus addressed him: "What is this that thou hast done unto me? why didst thou not tell me she was thy wife? why saidst thou, She is my sister? so

I might have taken her to me to wife; now, therefore, behold thy wife, take her, and go thy way." Shortly afterwards Abraham departed from Egypt with all his household, and his flocks, and he is then described as being " very rich in cattle, in silver, and in gold,” Gen. xiii. 2. He took Lot with him into the south, not southward from Egypt, for Egypt was north of Canaan, but into the southern part of Canaan, which is called the south, and the south country, Josh. x. 40; xi. 16; and after various journeyings he arrived at "the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai," Gen. xii. 8; xiii. 3. Egypt is not again mentioned by the inspired historian until the time of Joseph, except incidentally on two occasions-the one when "the river of Egypt" is specified as one of the extremities of the Promised Land, Gen. xv. 18—and the other with reference to its being the country of Hagar, Sarah's handmaid, the future mother of Ishmael, who is termed a “handmaid,” or female slave, and was apparently one of those "maid-servants" whom Abraham had brought with him from Egypt.

It has been already observed, that on account of the high antiquity of Egypt, and the prominent place which it occupies both in sacred and profane history, it is extremely difficult, and indeed impossible, to separate truth from fiction, fables from actual facts. This applies to all ancient nations, who, proud of their early antiquity, and misled by their prevailing superstitions, have not scrupled to set forth the most extravagant accounts of their heroes and their exploits. Divine power is invariably ascribed to the founders of dynasties and kingdoms, the result either of traditions respecting the original formation and progress of mankind, or of gratitude for the splendour with which those real or imaginary personages were invested by the particular nations of which they were the reputed founders, leaders, or ornaments. In the Sacred Scriptures we have a brief yet the only authentic account of the earliest

ages, for among the heathen or mythological writers, of whatsoever nation, we have, with the exception of some very few historical fragments, little more than a collection of allegories and legendary tales. Upon examination, however, most of those legends, notwithstanding their obscurity, will be found to contain references to those great primeval events, the recollection of which was retained, and to a greater or less extent still is retained, among every people upon earth, and for the commemoration of which were ordained so many of the ceremonies and mysteries of ancient times. From such traditions, transmitted for ages before they were committed to writing, little aid can be expected, and most of the researches of the antiquarian must be guided by conjecture; yet events and circumstances, obscurely mentioned in the Scriptures, may be occasionally illustrated, and some of those omissions supplied which the sacred writers considered as unconnected with the immediate events they were ordered to record, for we are assured that the canon of Inspiration" came not in old time by the will of man, but holy men of old spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost," 2 Peter i. 21. Persons, events, and dates in history, like systems of theology, are the subjects of research and examination, and we naturally proceed to those authorities which profess to contain the information we require. Referring, therefore, to Egypt, Moses is the first of the inspired historians who mention this country at an early period; yet, although he was born in it, resided in it for a considerable time, and was educated as the "son of Pharaoh's daughter," he gives us no geographical or historical details respecting it, except those which are in intimate connection with the history of the Israelites. The common authorities on which any dependence can be placed are Manetho, Herodotus, Eratosthenes, Diodorus Siculus, and Strabo, all of whom visited the country, and resided in it for longer or shorter periods. Other writers will subsequently be mentioned, of whom little is known. It is said that

one Hippys of Rhegium, and various travellers, visited Egypt some time before Herodotus, among whom one named Hecatæus, who travelled thither about the 59th Olympiad, is the most conspicuous. He visited Upper Egypt, and described particularly the state or city of Thebes, which is the reason why Herodotus, according to a learned German writer, says so little on that subject. Hellenicus of Lesbos is mentioned as having about the same time given a description of Egypt.

Herodotus visited and traversed the whole extent of Egypt, about seventy years after the conquest of the country by the Persian king Cambyses, when the names of its later monarchs at least could scarcely have been forgotten. The state or the city of Memphis is indeed the principal subject of his narrative; but he consigned to his history all that he had seen, and all which he had heard from the priests, adding to these his own opinions on what had passed under his view, or had been related to him by others. As the work of this great man is subsequently analyzed in this article, we pass him for the present, merely observing, that though the earlier part of his History is of a very questionable character as it respects its authenticity, yet, as he does not mention the dynasties of the Egyptian kings farther than Sesostris and Moris, his work may be considered within the province of legitimate history. Herodotus, we are told, was succeeded by Theopompus of Chios, Euphorus of Cumæ, Eudoxus of Cnidus, and Philestus of Syracuse, whose observations may be said to be lost, except a few fragments which now remain. Subsequent to the foundation of Alexandria, and during the reign of the first Ptolemy, Hecatæus visited Thebes. Manetho, an Egyptian priest of Heliopolis in Lower Egypt, lived in the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus, about two centuries and a half before the Christian era; and, by the order and under the patronage of that prince, he wrote in the Greek language the history of his own country in three books, dedicated to Ptolemy, and translated from the sacred