the meanwhile, we refer him to the paper entitled, "Signs of the Times," and ask him if its motto is not applicable to its sentiments.

We are happy to find that the Plate of the Bas-relief, in our last Number, gave satisfaction; and we anticipate as much for the head of Memnon, in the present. We have a great respect for living heads that have any thing in them, but we hate bad portraits, and meagre biographies; and therefore prefer the novel course of pretty frequently offering to our readers representations of the most celebrated objects of art in sculpture and painting, as embellishments of our Magazine, accompanied by papers on their peculiar character, and merits. To be sure, we flatter ourselves that we have that within us which passeth shew!-but these are days of exertion,-of patronage, of popularity,-of liberality,-and every fine quality besides ! The LONDON MAGAZINE, therefore, must play its part, as occupying a distinguished place amongst the noise and bustle. We apprehend that Magazines will soon form the only literature of the country !

It is well known, that there were two statues of Memnon: a smaller one, commonly called the young Memnon, whose bust, by the skill and perseverance of Belzoni, has been safely deposited in the British Museum; and a larger and more celebrated one, from which, when touched by the rays of the morning sun, harmonious sounds were reported to have issued. Cambyses, suspecting that the music proceeded from magic, ordered this statue to be broken up, from the head to the middle of the body; and its prodigious fragments now lie buried amid the ruins of the Memnonium.— Strabo, who states himself to have been a witness of the miracle, attributes it either to the quality of the stone, or to some deception of the priests; while Pausanias suspects that some musical instrument was concealed within, whose strings, relaxed by the moisture of the night, resumed their tension from the heat of the sun, and broke with a sonorous sound. Ancient writers vary so much, not only as to the cause of this mysterious music, but even as to the existence of the fact itself, that we should hardly know what to believe, were it not for the authority of Strabo, a grave geographer, and an eye-witness, who, without any apparent wish to impose upon his readers, declares that he stood beside the statue, and heard the sounds which proceeded from it:-" Standing," he says, "with Elius Gallus, and a party of friends, examining the colossus, we heard a certain sound, without being exactly able to determine whether it proceeded from the statue itself, or its base; or whether it had been occasioned by any of the assistants, for I would rather believe any thing than imagine that stones, arranged in any particular manner, could elicit similar noises." Pausanias, in his Egyptian travels, saw the ruins of the statue, after it had been demolished by Cambyses, when the pedestal of the colossus remained standing; the rest of the body, prostrated upon the ground, still continued at sun-rise, to emit its unaccountable melody. Pliny and Tacitus, without having been eye-witnesses, report the same fact; and Lucian informs us, that Demetrius went to Egypt, for the sole purpose of seeing the Pyramids, and the statue of Memnon, from which a voice always issued at sun-rise. What the same author adds, in his Dialogue of the False Prophet, appears to be only raillery: "When (he writes) I went in VOL. III.

M

my youth to Egypt, I was anxious to witness the miracle attributed to Memnon's statue, and I heard this sound, not like others who distinguish only a vain noise; but Memnon himself uttered an oracle, which I could relate, if I thought it worth while."-Most of the moderns affect to discredit this relation altogether, but I cannot enrol myself among them; for, if properties, even more marvellous, can be proved to exist in the head of the young Memnon, it would be pushing scepticism too far, to deny that there was any thing supernatural in the larger and more celebrated statue. Unless I have been grossly deceived by imagination, I have good grounds for maintaining, that the Head, now in the British Museum, is endued with qualities quite as inexplicable, as any that have been attributed to its more enormous namesake.—I had taken my seat before it yesterday afternoon, for the purpose of drawing a sketch, occasionally pursuing my work, and occasionally lost in reveries upon the vicissitudes of fate this mighty monument had experienced, until I became unconscious of the lapse of time, and, just as the shades of evening began to gather round the room, I discovered that every visitor had retired, and that I was left quite alone with the gigantic Head! There was something awful, if not alarming, in the first surprise excited by this discovery; and I must confess, that I felt a slight inclination to quicken my steps to the door. Shame, however, withheld me;-and as I made a point of proving to myself, that I was superior to such childish impressions, I resumed my seat, and examined my sketch, with an affectation of nonchalance. On again looking up to the Bust, it appeared to me that an air of living animation had spread over its Nubian features, which had obviously arranged themselves into a smile. Belzoni says, that it seemed to smile on him, when he first discovered it amid the ruins; and I was endeavouring to persuade myself, that I had been deceived by the recollection of this assertion, when I saw its broad granite eyelids slowly descend over its eyes, and again deliberately lift themselves up, as if the Giant were striving to awaken himself from his long sleep!-I rubbed my own eyes, and, again fixing them, with a sort of desperate incredulity, upon the figure before me, I clearly beheld its lips moving in silence, as if making faint efforts to speak,-and, after several ineffectual endeavours, a low whispering voice, of melancholy tone, but sweet withal, distinctly uttered the following

STANZAS.

In Egypt's centre, when the world was young,
My statue soar'd aloft,—a man-shaped tower,
O'er hundred-gated Thebes, by Homer sung,
And built by Apis' and Osiris' power.

When the sun's infant eye more brightly blazed,
I mark'd the labours of unwearied time;
And saw, by patient centuries up-raised,
Stupendous temples, obelisks sublime.

Hewn from the rooted rock, some mightier mound,
Some new colossus more enormous springs,

So vast, so firm, that, as I gazed around,
I thought them, like myself, eternal things.

Then did I mark in sacerdotal state,

Psammis the king, whose alabaster tomb, (Such the inscrutable decrees of fate,)

Now floats athwart the sea to share my doom.