contrary, by facts now brought to light through hieroglyphical discovery to understand those testimonies, to explain and justify them. We do not deny that Clemens might have expressed himself better and more clearly; but it is sufficient to establish any sense for words which otherwise can have none at all.

It is not till after this observation that he proceeds to add something about the secret character, which he had already mentioned by name. It certainly must have been an element in their educational system, and doubtless the last-for every cabala implies a complete knowledge of that character which is to be used for secret purposes. It was the secret character of the priests. At an earlier period, indeed, an enigmatical character may have existed; for example, in the titles of kings. Still the traditional pronunciation of many of these is evidence that the signs employed were pronounced in the usual way. In the choice of homophonous signs, particularly in the foreign names of kings, they may have given a preference to such as contained an allusion to the regal dignity. But the signs of the enigmatical character here treated of by Clemens had likewise another totally different power, quite foreign to their ordinary signification. Both his examples prove this.

The work of Horapollo 220, dating from a comparatively recent age, also clearly proves the existence and nature of this secret character. While few of the explanations it offers are confirmed by the monuments, the greater part are contradicted both by them and by the Book of the Dead. The explanations themselves are little better than arbitrary subtleties, or false, cabalistic mysticism, the simple and historical meaning being palpable and

220 See the learned edition of Leemans, Horapollinis Niloi Hieroglyphica, Amstel. 1835, 8vo; and that illustrated by Cory with very characteristic hieroglyphics: The Hieroglyphics of Horapollo Nilous, by A. T. Cory, London, 1840, 8vo.

obvious, while the very hieroglyphical representations which he describes are chiefly borrowed from that secret character, and consequently do not apply to the monuments and books.

B.

THE EGYPTIAN CHARACTERS.

INTRODUCTION: PLAN OF AN HISTORICAL EXPOSITION OF THE WHOLE SYSTEM OF HIEROGLYPHICAL WRITING.

A LANGUAGE SO perfectly developed in all its parts as was the Egyptian in the state in which we already find it on the contemporaneous monuments of the oldest empire of the Pharaohs, would seem, as remarked in our previous section, but ill adapted to a pure alphabetic character, as containing a great number of homophonous words, with so many different meanings, that each must be regarded as an independent root. But if we could

succeed in obtaining a glance at the foundation of this fabric, in finding the strata from which it has grown up in the course of time, and thereby perhaps approach nearer to the very causes of this high state of cultiva tion, the older language would appear still more difficult to express intelligibly by phonetic signs. It requires a higher and more comprehensive view of the origin of language to prove that what appears to us its most natural, or only natural, manner of writing, was in early times the least congenial, or even most repugnant, to the human understanding. As singing is older than speaking, the solemn dance as a form of social movement older than walking, pantomime older than words, and to adopt an idea and expression of Meyer's 21,

221 See Meyer's articles, quoted above.

as the word itself, in its primitive form, is nothing but an oral and audible gesture, by which man endeavoured to imitate the impression of any phenomena, in the same way as (especially in southern countries) he still tries to imitate them by visible gestures of the body; the oldest writing must likewise have been a representation of objects and not of sound. It will here suffice to call attention to the fact, that even in a system so complete as that of the Egyptians, a system, in which the use of phonetic signs was more frequent than any other, it was impossible entirely to banish pictorial representations, which exists even in the demotic character. At this stage of the language, accordingly, the variety of accents and of gestures may originally have assisted the speaker. The art of writing converted these vague and imperfect signs of speech into a durable image.

It was under this impression that both Champollion and Lepsius considered the phonetic element as the latest. But no one ventured to inquire how a written character could exist without it. We We may suppose, and so perhaps Champollion thought, that the monuments themselves tend to the conclusion, that the first step was pure picture writing, like that of Mexico. This however were a fallacy. For representations of this kind, consisting almost entirely of figures of objects, similar to artistic representations in low relief, are first met with in the New Empire, in the 18th and 19th Dynasties, when the style of hieroglyphic writing became gaudy and artificial. The Old Empire knew nothing of the kind. We cannot therefore expect to authenticate the above assumption by means of the monuments.

We may however hope to substantiate it by adopting the method which, prior to the chronological period, looks neither for years nor monuments of years, but for epochs and monuments of epochs. The success of this attempt is of the utmost importance in our present inquiry. The great facts of the primeval period of Egyp

tian language, writing, and religion, are of universal importance but history will gain nothing by these facts being known, unless they be themselves recognised and represented as history, in their origin and in their connexion with each other. In the present state of the question our simplest mode of arriving at some really historical conclusion will be briefly to pass in review the essential nature and requisites of a figurative character, and then compare them with the individual elements of the system of hieroglyphical writing as known to exist.

The first requisite is the exposition of visible objects. For these we find simple portraits: a man, a woman, a calf, indicating, even when accompanied by phonetic hieroglyphics, nothing more than the objects themselves. The mere representation of such natural objects, as for instance, an antelope, an ass, and the like, does not require any additional feature to explain it. But there are many objects which are more difficult to specify, particularly where only written in linear hieroglyphics. For example, how is a child to be represented in contradistinction to a grown-up man? How is a temple to be made distinguishable from a dwelling-house? or inilk and wine from water? The solution of these, the most simple questions relative to the original pictorial hieroglyphics, requires, as it were, a second stage of that creative power of invention and artistic ingenuity of the human mind, which in its first stage gave birth to language. Every image of a word, as well as every word itself, is an invention and a work of art. The scene is merely changed from the province of sound to that of form, from the musical to the plastic art. Whilst with regard to language we see the Egyptians occupied in developing simultaneously with that of their own ideas, the legacy they received from primeval Asia, in regard to writing we see them occupied in inventing and executing a creation of their own. The pure and

characteristic genius of Egyptian art appears in this, its first and most original creation, no less brilliant than in the architectural monuments of later periods, the pyramids, the labyrinth, and the temples of Thebes. Every conception in this pictorial writing is simple, philosophical, poetical, constructive (as regards the grouping of images), and lastly, practical, in its application to literature. A human figure, holding its finger to its mouth, represents to the Egyptian the sucking child, in a mode as easy to understand as to trace. A man in the sacerdotal garb, looking upwards in the attitude of prayer, towards a sacrificial vase pouring forth libations, at once suggests the character of priest. A square, the lower side of which is open in the middle, conveys the idea of a dwelling-house; when combined with the sign of a god, it denotes a temple (the house of God). In these last two instances we perceive the origin of two very fertile agencies in producing that simplification and concentration of ideas, necessary to the art of writing, namely, abbreviation and composition. A female figure, forming with bent body, and head and hands hanging down, a sort of arch, represents the vault of heaven, in the painted and engraved monuments. In a more abridged form the same object is represented by a horizontal line with a dipping at each end. Milk and wine, two objects which it is impossible to pourtray without colours, and difficult even with them, the Egyptian easily expresses by the vessels in which each of those liquids was usually contained, the thing containing being written by a sort of plastic metonymy, instead of the thing contained. Both vessels exhibit very graceful forms, which show that this branch of the fictile art was highly cultivated among the Egyptians when the signs were invented. A similar vessel preceded by a bee indicates honey. In an equally clear and artistic manner fire is indicated by a flame rising from a censer. In a still more simple way water is represented by three zigzag lines, one above the