classical. Not only had the Egyptians the loom, and wove delicately in linen, cotton and woollen, but made paper for literary use. They framed gold and silver into rings, to serve as money. Their gilding, their glass making and porcelain were as good as ours. Their weapons of war and armour were also very perfect; so that it is hard to say that the restrictions of Caste were practically damaging to Art; nay, we must ascribe their successes to something in their institutions. Shall we say, simply to long peace, long security, and long industry?

The land of Egypt is remarkably defended by nature. A ribbon of land, as the ancients call it, a thin line of seabanks, masks the mouths of the Nile, which are the northern or sea-front of Egypt. On the West it was screened by the African desart, on the East by the desart of Syria and by the Red Sea. From Ethiopia the From Ethiopia the "Cataracts," which we should call the rapids, of the Nile were a considerable defence; so that, in general, invasion was difficult, and an invader who failed to be the superior from the first was in danger of total destruction. These advantages, it is probable, kept Egypt for many ages in perfect security at home, and allowed her institutions to grow up slowly and continuously. The country in general consists of four portions. Northern-most is the Delta of the Nile, a large part of which was called the Marshes. The Valley of the Nile is the back bone of the country. On each side of this run the Eastern and Western desarts, whose mountains abound in useful common stone, (limestone and sandstone), also in valuable granite and porphyry; those on the eastern side in gold, copper, iron or lead. In the Western mountains they built the tombs, or rather cities of the dead, which in many ages became of a magnitude oppressive to the spirit of living. But no fertile land was devoted to this. All the inhabited district was divided into organic parishes, Nomes, as the Greeks termed them, that is, portions,—which had special differences of religion,-for instance, different sacred animals. This, like difference of local dialect, must have

flowed out of a very ancient source, and strikingly marks that the religion was strictly home-grown. In effect it must have acted like a law of settlement, confining the people of each parish to its own soil. The whole religion may be described as the embodying of noble and mystical ideas in grotesque and degrading emblems, borrowed almost entirely from the forms of brute animals; and inasmuch as the vulgar learnt the outward symbols well, but their inward meaning ill, it became in fact a regulated beast worship, scarcely higher than African Fetichism. Its very fixed character and elaborate completeness assures us that it had taken long ages to crystallize into that wonderful state. Whole troops of beasts had priests to watch over them. Animals and insects innumerable were enbalmed and entombed with scrupulous care. The life of a cat might in some parishes be esteemed more highly than that of many men. The Persian king CAMBYSES, the first invader of Egypt known to us, is said to have put cats and other sacred animals in front of his ranks to deter the Egyptians from casting their missiles. Whether to accept this as true, or as an ingenious fiction of a Greek storyteller, I do not know.

We cannot doubt that the industry of the whole nation went on by routine, like that of bees and ants. No thought of anything beyond his immediate sphere was likely to enter the mind of artizan or peasant; nor can we in England boast of much variety or activity of intellect in our own peasants. But all the professions were elaborately cultivated. Physicians were broken up into special classes, who are said to have devoted themselves to separate members of the body. Perhaps this only meant that they had, as we, besides Surgeons who treat Wounds, Oculists, Aurists, Dentists, and Corn Cutters. But all are said to have been hereditary. This would tend to manual dexterity, but not to truth of theory or wisdom of treatment.

As to foreign traffic, the lightest articles, as fine linen, best bore land carriage. But beside this, they manufactured for

the foreigner furniture and weapons in wood, copper and iron; musical instruments, paper, and probably an abundance of tools. They hunted in Africa for horses and slaves, and exported both articles. Their horse is judged to have been substantially of the same breed as that which we call Arab. From want of the coach spring, no ancient vehicles could compare with ours; but among the ancients, the Egyptian car and the great Egyptian bow, (six feet long, like that of old England,) were unsurpassed. On the Nile, they used boats of bulrush, and other light materials; but, apparently from a religious scruple, they long kept aloof from the sea. Egypt also was deficient in ship timber; and until a late period, they used Phoenicians as their shipmasters. The slaves were perhaps coveted and hunted only for exportation or for service in the mines. The wicked trade is said to have been very active: yet the children of a slave woman by a free father were free, which is better than can be said of English or American law.

The king, on ascending the throne, was adopted into the priestly order. When he died, the priests decided whether he had been faithful to his duties and deserved burial in the royal sepulchres.* In general, we must believe, a constitutional superintendence of the kingly power was not forgotten, in life or death. The Priesthood, like that of the Middle Ages, had earned (as we may infer) the reverence of the common people by being the champion of the weak against the armed, of the cultivator against the baron. Such a priesthood is, in its own day, the embodiment of intellect, right and law against brute force. Since only after a long struggle do such checks on tyranny become consolidated, we have here a new indication (beside that of the local religions) of the long infancy, and, so to say, apprenticeship which the Egyptian constitution must have undergone, earlier than its earliest existing monuments. It must be added, while the splendid, highly artificial, and well-preserved temples of Egyptian Thebes carry

*

These (at least with many dynasties) were at Thebes, not in the mountains. Also certain kings had Pyramids for their tombs.

the mind back two millenniums earlier than Pericles, the pyramids of Memphis point to a still more remote era, since which the soil of the whole country has risen immensely by the deposits of the Nile, the huge Sphinx is well nigh buried, the granite has mouldered. Art was then far inferior, taste was undeveloped; no hieroglyphics were inscribed yet a peculiar astronomy and geometry dictated and aided the builder's work, testifying that Science was already born in that remote age, among men of thick lips, negro eyes, dark skin and often curly hair. Thus the great priestly kingdom, ever wonderful, ever venerable, however trite its theories and despicable its emblems at last seem,-still looms on us through the haze of ages, suggesting how many other strange and floundering steps mankind in its slippery ascent may once have had to make in India and in China.

END OF SECOND LECTURE.

THIRD LECTURE.

ON THE COMMERCIAL STATES OF ANTIQUITY;

ESPECIALLY PHOENICIAN.

No nation becomes highly commercial, until it is highly industrious. Such industry pre-supposes much security of property as well as of life, and generally decays if this security be impaired. All commerce either is, or at least is believed to be, a benefit on each side; for no one is compelled to buy or sell. The commerce in things essentially noxious is not largely carried on between nations. On the African continent, commerce in slaves has from the earliest time been a desolating curse. Yet, to speak in general, commercial States are universal benefactors and the great multipliers of peaceful relations among mankind. Nevertheless, the idle and violent, who misunderstand and envy the prosperity which industry brings, naturally dislike and generally slander them, supposing that the essence of commerce is fraud. Thus an old Persian king described a Greek market-place, as a square plot in which people met to tell lies and cheat one another.

The most energetic cities of the Greeks became in their prime eminently commercial; yet the Greeks are known to us in their origin as military and piratical, in their higher development as literary and critical, the great originators of science to Europe. Their literature, art and science to us are of more importance than their commercial character. Accordingly, I decline in this lecture to dwell upon Greece. The race of mankind of which I have now chiefly to speak, has Syria for its centre and head-quarters, and may con