fratics. It is now fixed at Turin, and as it bears the denomination of Royal Egyptian Museum, it is to be hoped that his Sardinian Majesty will, with all convenient speed, provide for it a suitable mansion; its present one being by far too small, and so miserably ill-lighted that the most sharp-sighted visiter can scarcely distinguish in it stone from stucco. This we are enabled to state on good authority; and from the same quarter we have information, that, besides the historical monuments, this Museum contains many objects of great rarety and value. Among these, is an ancient cubit measure, made of the wood of Meröe, in texture and colour something between wainscot and mahogany; the divisions and measurements are marked in hieroglyphics: it was found at Memphis. There are also, a small statue of a priest carved in the same wood, having the fragment of a god on each shoulder, and a staff in each hand; many pastophori, and various specimens of gilding on wood and on metal; 3000 Roman-Egyptian coins; one Daric; and many papyri, extending from Amenophis I., who, according to Manetho, reigned thirty-eight years after the expulsion of the Shepherd-kings (1778 B. C.), down to the time of Adrian, of which date there is a well-preserved mummy. One of the papyri is sixty feet long, exceedingly well-preserved, and admirably unrolled: it is said to contain the name of Osymandyas, written Ousimandouei, the first king of the XVIth dynasty, who began his reign 2272 years before the Christian era. addition to these, there is an ancient painter's pallet, with paints, brushes, and paint-box; a granite stone bearing a bilingual inscription in the Demotic and Greek characters; thousands of scarabai; a statue of Memnon, very much like a Tomfool; and one of Sesostris, having the appearance of a young god, and valued at 100,000 francs.

In

M. Champollion, in the Letters before us, does not, however, profess to describe the different kinds of monuments with which this Museum is stored, but only such as are of an historical nature, in continuation of the subject of his Letter to M. Dacier, published in 1822. At that time, the learned Parisian, having expounded to his own satisfaction, the phonetic hieroglyphics of the names of a few Pharoahs, Ptolemies, and Roman prefects, flattered himself that he had mastered all the difficulties of the subject, and, by his discoveries, had shed a flood of light to illuminate the path of every future explorer of Egyptian antiquities; in fact, that hieroglyphic obscurity or Egyptian darkness should henceforth be but a name. He was like the glowworm, glimmering over an inch, and imagining that, as the Sun, it could irradiate the pole. A journey to Turin has

served to moderate his vanity; and, we transcribe with pleasure the following avowal, which does credit to his candour.

It is only in the Royal Museum of Turin, in the midst of that mass of remains so varied of an ancient civilization, that the history of Egyptian Art seemed to me still to remain entirely to be composed (m' a semblé rester encore entiérement à faire). Here, every thing shews that we have been in too great haste to judge of its proceedings, to determine its means, and especially to assign its limits. p. 5.

We speak on good authority in assuring M. Champollion, that when he shall have performed his intended journey through Egypt, he will not only see reason to strike out the only' (seulement) from the above sentence, by which he invidiously exalts the Turin Museum, the second or third that he has ever seen, to the disparagement of all others; but will feel compelled to acknowledge that, up to this time, he had seen very little of Egyptian Art. What should we think of the individual who, on having presented to him a stone taken from every splendid edifice in the world, should pretend to pronounce, from those specimens, on their respective character and appearance, and the comparative grandeur of each? Your Majesty,' said Canova to Napoleon, who had invited him to reside at Paris, and, as an inducement, offered to transport every work of art from Rome to that city, may take away every thing that can 'be removed, and, after that, there will still remain infinitely more at Rome to delight and improve the artist, than all which you have removed.' The observation applies with accumulated force to Egypt. More of art and more of history are contained in the ruins of that country, which it exceeds the power of man to remove, than in the whole world besides.

A

temple,' it has been remarked by one of the most intelligent of our modern Travellers who has explored this wonderful country, is the pride of Athens; an amphitheatre the boast of Rome; but Egypt, from end to end, and from side to side, from the mouth of the Nile to the second Cataract, is a field ⚫ of inexhaustible wonder and delight to the traveller.'* Yet, Egypt is not, as M. Champollion represents, the first link in the chain of ancient Art, but Babylon; of which, to our shame as a nation be it spoken, we know nothing compared with what ought to be known, considering our means and opportunities of exploring its ruins. Not a brick exists within the bounds of ancient Babylon, but ought to be interrogated, as our primeval parent questioned Nature respecting his own origin, how' it came thus, how here.'

But to return to M. Champollion. The Royal Museum at Turin, he informs us, contains statues or pillars (stéles) bearing the royal legends, more or less perfect, of about thirty monarchs of the Egyptian race. The cartouches of twenty-one of these are given in his First Letter, accompanied with the intimation, that the number is probably much more considerable. This conjecture is amply verified by the Second Letter, in which are exhibited nine and twenty additional cartouches. These, however, are not all different, as we shall presently shew, although the greater part have received confirmation by reference to the Table of Abydos; a copy of which was brought to this country by Mr. W. Bankes, and published by him in Mr. Salt's Essay on the Phonetic System of Hieroglyphics, much about the same time that another copy was published by M. Cailliaud in France about twelve months ago. This genealogical tablet of Abydos, executed in the time of Sesostris at latest,' has sculptured on it, forty royal prenoms or titles, classed chronologically; which, so far as they have been deciphered, correspond to the names of Egyptian kings in the extract from Manetho preserved by Josephus in his work against Apion; and by a comparison of the two, we obtain the names, dates, and order of the reign of several kings whose existence has been called in question and blended with fable. These, M. Champollion has thought proper to publish in the order in which he deciphered them; but we shall notice them in the chronological order. We must premise, however, that the early chronology of Egypt is involved in the greatest obscurity, owing to the loss of the old Egyptian Chronicle, framed from ancient records by the Persians after their conquest of the country, and which, it appears from a fragment preserved by Syncellus, recorded thirty dynasties, extending during 113 generations for 36,525 years! The first dynasty is that of the Aurita; a word supposed to be derived from the Hebrew Aur, light or fire, and referring to the primitive theology of the Chaldeans. The first name in this dynasty is Phtha, the supreme God, or Hephaistos—Ἡφαισιος ὁ των Θεων Παλης He shines night and day, and his reign is without beginning of days or end of years. Helius, the Sun, the son of Phtha, reigned 30,000 years. Twelve gods reigned 3984 years; eight demigods, 217 years. This brings us down to 2674, B.C., when the fifteenth dynasty begins, about 326 years before the Deluge it consisted of Mesraites or heroes, who reigned 443 years. The sixteenth dynasty is that of Egyptians or mortals, which began 2231 B.C., or 117 years after the Deluge.

Another valuable document now lost, (at least, the greater part of it,) is the Chronological Canon which Manetho of Se

bennytus, high-priest and sacred scribe, compiled, by order of Ptolemy Philadelphus, from the archives of the temples, ancient records, and written pillars of Thoth, 258, B.C. This loss is much to be lamented, as the Author, who is stated to have been σοφίας εις άκρον ελαληκοία ανδρα, had given a consecutive list of thirty-one Egyptian dynasties from King Menes, who succeeded the demigods, down to Alexander the Great, the head of the XXXIInd or Macedonian dynasty. The first fifteen dynasties of this Annalist are lost; and we owe the preservation of what is extant of the rest to Josephus, Africanus, Eusebius, and Syncellus. On a comparison, however, of the Old Chronicle with the date assigned to Menes, there appears to be but a few years difference between the era of his reign (2412 B.C.), and the beginning of the sixteenth dynasty of the Old Chronicle, 2348 B. C. And no document has been discovered by M. Champollion, that carries us up to this period. Menes is mentioned by Syncellus as a monarch of the sixteenth dynasty: he probably succeeded the Mesraites, the descendants of Ham.

Both M. Champollion and his Brother have worked hard to find one of the most famous heroes of Egyptian history a cartouche in the fifteenth or sixteenth dynasty; namely, Ösymandyas, a hero whom any dynasty might be proud to claim, if but the five-hundredth part were true of what antiquity has reported concerning him. Their induction is as follows. M. Huyot, one of the architects who accompanied the Expedition to Egypt, copied from the granite sanctuary in the great temple' of Karnak, a royal legend, containing a title or prenom, com-' posed of eight symbols, and signifying, Sun-guardian-of-theworlds-friend-of-Ammon. On referring to the Table of Abydos, M. Champollion finds a series of prenoms in the second line, which have certain characters in common with it; he therefore infers that it is one of those that have perished with the wall. But this prenom, he says, could not have belonged to any sovereign of either the 17th, 18th, or 19th dynasty, and consequently must have belonged to an anterior one. In the cartouche which accompanies this prenom, he finds the figurative mark or symbol of the god Mendou, followed by the diphthong ei, in combination with the title, Established by Phtha, or Servant of Phtha.' The whole legend, as read by M. C., is, The King of the Obedient People, the Lord of the Universe, (Sun Guardian of the worlds friend of Ammon), The Son of the Sun, MANDOUEI servant of Phtha.' This same cartouche, M. C. finds on the vesture or buckle of the belt of a statue 15 feet high, in the Museum at Turin; and also on the left arm of the same statue, with the additional

title, Beloved of Mendou the Great and of the God Phré ⚫ ever living (or making alive.)' Something more, however, is still wanting to make out the name of Osymandyas; and this is attempted to be supplied by M. Champollion's Brother, who writes the historical notice appended to the Letters. It appears from Diodorus Siculus, that King Uchoreus was the eighth in descent or succession from Osymandyas, and that Moeris ascended the throne twelve generations after Uchoreus; which, allowing 27 years for a generation, makes 540 years for the twenty generations intervening between Moeris and Osymandyas. The former began his reign about 1736 B. C., and this fixes the reign of the latter, therefore, at 2276 B. C.; which nearly agrees with Manetho, placing it prior to the reign of the five kings of the sixteenth dynasty preserved by what remains of his Chronicle. In further confirmation of this view of the subject, M. Champollion-Figeac, finding the name Ousi occupying the same place in the fragment of Syncellus, which the name of Osymandyas ought to do according to the above calculation, and taking into account the fact, that the Egyptian sovereigns frequently had two or more names, concludes, not very unwarrantably, that, out of these two names, the Greeks formed their Osymandyas. He places him, therefore, at the end of the fifteenth, or at the beginning of the sixteenth dynasty, viz. according to Manetho, 2272 B. Č.

We recollect to have seen a work entitled, "A sober Guess at the Prophecies contained in the Revelation.' Some such title as this, we should deem not inapplicable to M. Champollion's efforts at discovering the name of Osymandyas. For, granting that Ousi and Mendouei are the names of the same personage, we are not quite satisfied with the manner in which Mendouei is made out. We should like to hear the learned Antiquary explain why, in many of the cartouches, he takes no notice at all of the squat hawk-headed human figure which he in the present instance calls Mandou. As for the statue itself, it has much more of the austerity of a priest, than of the dignity of a king, and seems to have formed a pillar of a temple; not a very likely place to be assigned to the statue of the 'king of kings." But no mention is made of the place from which it was taken, which is a serious omission, and one, we regret to perceive, that the Author has been guilty of in reference to almost every object described in the Two Letters. We should find it much easier to concede, that the extraordinary ingenuity of the two brothers had ascertained the name and the true era of Osymandyas, than that the statue so inscribed is his representative.

The last king of the sixteenth dynasty, named Timaus or VOL. XXVII. Ñ.S.

M