preliminary labours. They would indeed have been incompatible with the practical importance of his undertaking, and the views and wishes of a benevolent government for the immediate publication of his great work. When therefore we express our conviction that his chronological system is essentially as groundless as the one adopted by Champollion as the basis of his labours, we have still detracted but little from the intrinsic value of that excellent work. Every critical reader must indeed readily perceive that this system was but a temporary framework for his proposed chronological and historical arrangement of the Egyptian monuments, and that it never can be satisfactory as a permanent one. We can imagine the possibility of the Lists of Manetho often giving a name, which is not that of the monuments; and of this we shall have to cite examples in the course of our inquiry. They may perhaps occasionally introduce a surname instead of the monumental name, or even a Greek or Hellenised name which does not belong to the monuments, and yet be at the same time in harmony with them. But we cannot suppose this possible if an equally well known monumental name, but that of another King, is made to correspond in the lists to the name of the monuments; if, for example, Amos is made to correspond with Amenōphis, and Amenōphis with Tuthmosis. Either all hope of a critical solution of the difficulty must here be abandoned, or some error or falsification of the lists is to be assumed.

The path therefore pursued by the English travellers is apparently the surer one; but even it is by no means satisfactory. In the first place, the succession of Kings on the monuments still extant only reaches from Amos, the chief of the 18th, to Ramesses, the most prominent point in the 19th Dynasty. With regard therefore to the time prior to that epoch, those inquirers stand on the same rough and unsafe ground as Champollion and Rosellini. But in the second place, even as regards the period where they wholly or chiefly follow the old series

of royal succession, they have plainly abandoned, together with the order and number of the Kings, the dates also of the individual reigns. Hence they became involved in still grosser self-contradiction than the French and Italian critics, wherever they are under the necessity, in spite of their own system, of availing themselves of these same dates and lists. The necessity of any preparatory criticism or study of the Lists or Manetho had as little occurred to them as to the others; nor were the professional men of learning among their countrymen at pains to make good the deficiency.

Up to the present moment, then, no one has proposed to himself the preliminary questions, which it has been our object to answer in the previous investigation: How did these Lists originate? How were they transmitted to us? What connexion may there be between the Dynasties and Eratosthenes-between them both and the actual succession of Kings? What is a Dynasty in Manetho's sense? Do the sums total belong to Manetho, Africanus, or Syncellus? While in the researches of those English critics the Kings mentioned by Eratosthenes and Apollodorus are not deemed worthy of the slightest notice, the miserable trash of the old Chronicle and the anonymous Lists of Syncellus has been treated even treated even with deference. While therefore in the classical works of Sir Gardner Wilkinson 174 we possess perhaps a more extensive and accurate insight into the social, civil, and domestic habits of the Egyptians, than in the case even of the parallel branches of classical archæology; while the full development of the history of Egyptian fine art, and the settlement of its various epochs, also await but the establishment of a consistent system of chrono

174 Topography of Thebes, London, 1835. Manners and Customs of the ancient Egyptians, 3 vols. 8vo. London, 1837. Second Series, 2 vols. and a vol. of plates. London, 1841. The chronological notices contained in these works are repeated in the more recent publication of the author, Modern Egypt and Thebes, 2 vols. 8vo.

logy it is precisely this latter important head of the subject that remains involved in obscurity, beyond the period where light is thrown upon it by the Jewish annals.

The dates suggested for the Dynasty, under which the Exodus took place, vary by three centuries; nor has so much as an attempt been made to investigate the period of the Hyksos; so that the Old Empire is separated from the New by an immeasurable chasm. The fundamental views of Champollion as to the tripartite division of Egyptian history, and his faithful adherence to the high and demonstrable antiquity of the Egyptian empire and Egyptian writing, are and will remain the most important results derived during the last 20 years from the researches of Egyptologers in the historical department of their subject.

WE have endeavoured to point out the sources of Egyptian chronology, and to illustrate the historical and chronological contents of the existing Records, which derive from them. We have considered the Lists of Manetho as extracts from his historical work, although without the chronological key or canon. The criticism of Eratosthenes furnished such a key for the Old Empire, that of Apollodorus for the Middle. We have attempted in our historical survey, and in connexion. with the data of Scripture, to explain why all efforts to restore the chronology have hitherto failed, and we have analysed in connexion with the Scriptural dates and epochs the labours of previous inquirers devoted to that object. The path therefore to be pursued in the examination of the monuments and other records, is clearly marked out for us; and the Egyptian chronology itself must be restored before we can venture to deal with the Synchronisms. But before embarking upon this part of our subject, our attention is called to the primeval period and sources of Egyptian civilisation.

SECTION IV.

ON EGYPTIAN GRAMMAR.

INTRODUCTION.

THE GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE PRIMEVAL PERIOD.

WE have endeavoured in the first three sections of this book to determine approximatively the extent of the historical period of Egypt from Menes to Alexander, during which it possessed a fixed, connected chronology. The high antiquity and importance of that chronology in its bearing on Universal History have been shown, in so far as proof was competent, apart from a critical analysis of its details, or of the monuments on which it rests. The ravages to which it has been exposed during so many thousand years have been demonstrated; while the results accruing from the laudable exertions of the Greeks, as well as of the Christians of the Eastern and Western Churches, towards its restoration, with the value of that portion which they have succeeded in rescuing, have been elucidated. Lastly, the method has been pointed out by which, since the discovery of the hieroglyphic art, our own and all future researches must be guided towards the acquisition of that treasure which has now been so long and so vainly sought for.

It has also, we trust, been made evident in the course of this preliminary view of our subject, that it is not, as usually supposed, a mere dry chronology that has been preserved, while all real historical substance has perished. Did history take no account of intellectual culture, in art, sciences, and customs were it limited to a mere pragmatical exposition of wars and

conquests, or, in a general sense, of the external life of a nation, the historical materials for filling up the outline of the Egyptian annals during so many centuries would certainly fall most lamentably short. A large portion of the detail of what is called the historical tradition of the Egyptians, must be referred to the province of legend and popular tale; and the frail edifice raised partly upon these, and partly upon a misunderstanding of the Bible narratives, which has been dignified with the title of Egyptian chronology and history prior to Psammetichus, thus falls entirely to the ground. The residue of historical reality reduces itself to little more than what we learn incidentally from the monuments; which, however, certainly is considerably more than the scoffers at hieroglyphical research have supposed. But we have already, in the Introduction, discarded the above pitiable view of history as unworthy of our age, and of the object of this work; it were, therefore, but a waste of time further to allude to it.

While treading the sacred ground of the primeval period that is, of the times anterior to Egyptian, and, therefore, to all chronology - we have a strong temptation to overstep the limits of our present inquiry, and to soar to a height from which the importance of that period may be discerned, and the way to its complete elucidation, that is, its connexion with universal history, may be pointed out. But the plan of our work constrains us to abide within the immediate province of Egyptian history. The Egyptian primeval period can be elucidated but in one way-by connecting its monuments with the development of universal history: but this view of the subject is postponed to the fifth book. We shall here be contented with a few words of introduction to the following practical exposition of the Egyptian records of that primitive epoch.

The life of all those nations who form a part of history oscillates, during the primeval period, between