suits; and not only this fond project of the bookseller has been frustrated, but the Bible Society, and the world of letters, have to mourn the early loss of the unwearied and gifted man, who, had his life been spared, bade fair to excel all his contemporaries in philological literature. Of the projected grammars, one only, the Arabic, is in my hands.

To resume the narrative of Mr. Greenfield's labours. In the years 1828-9, he was employed by me in conducting through the press an edition of the Syriac New Testament, for the Polyglott series; and the preface to this publication was furnished by himself, in Syriac. This was not the only occasion on which he followed up his editorial labours, by spontaneously exercising his pen in the language upon which he had been employed. After his death, it was discovered that he had in like manner written his remarks upon the Catalonian Version of the New Testament, in that dialect of the Spanish.

In the year 1830, he undertook to prepare, at my request, a new edition, or, rather a new version of the New Testament, in Hebrew; one of the most valuable of his labours. I have already stated the circumstances under which he acquired a critical familiarity with this language, for which he always retained a strong predilection. In preparing this Version, he was indebted to the Rev. Dr. Henderson, Theological Tutor of Highbury College, for the loan of a valuable MS., and he also was allowed to avail himself not only of the translation issued by the London Society for Promoting Christianity among the Jews, but of all the criticisms thereon, which had been received by the committee of that society. the comparative merits of Mr. Greenfield's edition, I do not feel competent to speak. It may be remarked, however, that it has undergone a searching ordeal of criticism, and that from parties not indisposed to detect any faults or deficiencies; and that it stands at present unrivalled as a faithful exhibition of the Christian Scriptures in the sacred language of the Jews.

Of

Besides these important works, and otner editorial labours of inferior consequence, Mr. Greenfield edited for me the Greek Testament of my "Polymicrian" edition. He also compiled, as a companion volume, the Polymicrian Greek Lexicon of the New Testament, which is spoken of in the Eclectic Review in the following terms: "Of the Polymicrian Lexicon, we cannot but speak with admiration. Elegance and accuracy of typographical execution, and the extreme smallness of the volume, which renders it a curiosity, are but the least of its recommendations. The work has, as a Lexicon, very great merit, and does the highest honour to the editor's fidelity, competent learning, and sound judgment. It is no meagre abridgment. The best Greek lexicons have been laid under contribution. As far as we have examined the definitions, and compared them with those of the larger lexicons, we have been struck with the happy manner in which every real variation of import is succinctly expressed."

This Lexicon, published in 1829, was followed by a corresponding edition of Schmidt's Greek Concordance, likewise edited by Mr. Greenfield, who prefixed to it a Latin preface, explaining the ingenious arrangement by which the ponderous original was compressed into the compass of a

miniature volume.

* For a Translation of this Preface, see Appendix D.

† For an able Critique upon the Hebrew New Testament, see the Eclectic Review, October, 1831. Ibid. February, 1832, p. 160.

It remains for me to speak of that publication, which may be regarded as, in some respects, the most meritorious and valuable of all Mr. Greenfield's labours; which formed, in the first instance, a principal recommendation of its author, as a suitable person to fill the post of "Superintendent of the translating and editing department of the Bible Society."

The Comprehensive Bible was first published in the year 1826. The title was adopted, as explained in the prospectus, on account of the extensive and multifarious nature of the contents; comprising four thousand illustrative and critical notes, and five hundred thousand marginal references, a general introduction to the study of the Scriptures, introductory and concluding remarks to each of the sacred books, and several different tables of contents and indexes. So valuable a mass of biblical information, so admirably condensed and arranged, was never, I may fearlessly assert, brought within the compass of a single volume.

When Mr. Greenfield was selected by the sub-committee of the British and Foreign Bible Society, as an editor of their versions, it was thought that, in the eyes of the religious public, it would form one of the strongest recommendations of the appointment, that he was the author of the Prefaces and Notes to that work. The minute of Mr. Greenfield's appointment is dated March 15, 1830, and published in the twenty-sixth Report of the Bible Society.

At a meeting of the general committee, March 22, this recommendation of the sub-committee was read, and the appointment ratified. But, how little could it be foreseen, that this kindly meant, but (to me) most unfortunate specification of Mr. Greenfield's literary performance, would prove the signal for a sudden, unmeasured, and most disingenuous attack upon a publication so long and so highly esteemed, or that an appointment so honourable in itself, and which seemed likely to prove of such important advantage to the interests of the Christian world, would prove fatal to the peace of my gifted and amiable friend, by exposing him to the shafts of calumny, and be the remote cause of shortening his days in the very prime of his intellectual vigour, and the morning of his fame ! Mysterious are the dispensations of Him, in whose hands are the keys of life and of death.

The attack so unexpectedly opened induced more than one spontaneous polemical defence: to those kind friends he deeply felt his great obligagation; but Mr. Greenfield confidently left the work to its own merits, and only confronted calumny with the simple matter of fact by publishing the detached and scattered Notes and Prefaces in a consecutive form, under the following title :

"The Pillar of Divine Truth, immoveably fixed on the Apostles and Prophets, JESUS CHRIST HIMSELF being the chief Corner Stone; shewn by the Genuineness, Preservation, Authenticity, Inspiration, Facts, Doctrines, Miracles, Prophecies, and Precepts of the WORD OF GOD. The whole of the Arguments and Illustrations drawn from the pages of the Comprehensive Bible, by the Editor of that Work." One volume, 8vo. 6s.

In this work the author has not used one expression that alludes to the reason of its publication; under the hope and expectation that the work would be of the highest utility long after the occasion that called it forth had been forgotten. In the Preface he thus writes:

it

"This volume being derived from the pages of the Comprehensive Bible,' may be necessary to state briefly of what that work consists. Besides

the Sacred text, the chronology, the various readings, the contents, in

dexes, and a vast body of parallel passages, it contains (what more particularly demands a distinct specification,) upwards of 4000 Notes, and an ample Introduction.

"The Notes are chiefly selected from the most eminent biblical critics and commentators, both british and foreign; and are designed to improve the Authorized Version, where it has been conceived to be faulty; to explain words which, since the days of our venerable translators, have either become obsolete, changed their signification, or become less comprehensive in their import; to elucidate really difficult passages: to reconcile or account for apparent discrepancies, whether in the history, chronology, or any other department; to illustrate the ideas, images,

and allusions of the Sacred Writers; by a reference to objects, idioms, customs, manners, and laws, which were peculiar to their age or country, or to Oriental nations; to explain, by short notices, the geography, natural history, and antiquities of Judea, and other Eastern countries; and to furnish brief but comprehensive Introductions, embracing a short analysis, to each book.

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'In the General Introduction, the object of the Editor was to supply such information as might be necessary to a correct acquaintance with the Sacred Volume; and it consists of disquisitions on the genuineness, uncorrupted preservation, authenticity, and inspiration of the Sacred Writings; on the divisions and marks of distinction which occur in the Scriptures; on the manuscripts and printed editions; on the Samaritan Pentateuch, ancient versions, and the authorized English version; on the Jewish writings, apostolic and primitive Fathers, and Doctors of the Church; on the Jewish sects, factions, and orders of men : on the Jewish and other coins, weights, and measures; on the Jewish and Roman modes of computing time; and on the geography and history of the nations mentioned in the Sacred Scriptures.

"From this mass of materials, such portions have been selected as comported with the design of this work, merely adding occasionally a few connecting words, or such passages of Scripture as were necessary for the correct apprehension of the subject. A great body of notes, (at least as much as would form a volume of equal dimensions with the present) on the geography, natural history, antiquities, manners, customs, &c., of Judea and other Eastern countries, has necessarily been left untouched, as they were foreign to the object of this work. This object was, generally, to establish the genuineness, uncorrupted preservation, authenticity, and inspiration of the Sacred Volume, and specially, in the illustration of the arguments on these all-important topics, to prove the principal facts, to illustrate the miracles, to shew the fulfilment of the prophecies, to exhibit the harmony, and to display the doctrines and precepts of the WORD OF GOD. In the prosecution of this design, the author has sedulously laboured, he trusts not altogether in vain; and he would earnestly implore the Divine blessing to render the work efficient for the purpose of convincing the unbeliever, of confirming the wavering, of strengthening the weak, of instructing the ignorant, and of building up the believer in his most holy faith, that, being built "on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone," and led by the Holy Spirit, both the writer and reader, through the merits of the atonement of the Son of God, may finally find that, "when heart and flesh fail." God is, "the strength of their heart, and their portion for ever."

(To be continued and concluded in our next Number.)

17

ON THE EXTENT AND NATURE OF THE SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE POSSESSED BY THE ANCIENT EGYPTIANS PRIOR TO THE TIME OF THE PTOLEMIES.

By E. W. BRAYLEY, Jun. Esq.

I HAVE had occasion, in the prosecution of various objects of scientific and archæological inquiry, to review, in a summary manner, the information which we possess respecting the culture of the ancient Egyptians. In the course of this review, I have been led to form the opinion, that what has sometimes been termed the scientific knowledge of that people, was almost confined, prior to the era of the Ptolemies, to an empirical practical acquaintance with the properties of the natural objects employed by them. The following statement and illustrations of this opinion were first made public about four years since, in a work entitled, "The Utility of the Knowledge of Nature considered." That work, having been composed for a particular object, connected with a private establishment, was necessarily of confined circulation. Some of the views which I have suggested, respecting the institutions of ancient Egypt, having acquired, by the reference made to them in certain investigations of the history of Egypt, and other countries, which are now in progress, a degree of importance which I did not originally attach to them; I have been induced, on account of the limited circulation of the work in which they were first promulgated, to adopt the present mode of giving increased publicity to them, in a slightly modified and improved form.

It has been shown, by many writers, that the ancient inhabitants of Egypt possessed a high degree of Mathematical Knowledge, especially in geometry; and some of the most important propositions in the collection known to us by the name of "Euclid's Elements," a work equally honourable to that illustrious geometer, as an editor, and as an original author and inventor in this science, have been traced to certain philosophers of Greece, especially Pythagoras, Thales, and Plato, who received them from the Egyptian priests, while pursuing their studies in the colleges of Heliopolis and Thebes.

But of the Physical Sciences, as branches of knowledge (existing abstractedly from a mere practical acquaintance with the properties of natural substances employed in the arts which they practised, &c.) with the exception, perhaps, of some degree of acquaintance with physical astronomy, there is much reason to believe, on the other hand, that the ancient Egyptians were almost entirely ignorant. Possessing, as is evident from their works, gigantic conceptions and unwearied industry, and induced, by their peculiar mythological tenets, to exert them in perpetuating to the remotest ages, (they hoped for ever, though it should be but an eternity of the grave,) the actually existing state of things,—to perpetuate themselves, and, as it were, the very time-being in which they lived,—they laid all nature under contribution, to promote their singular designs. They acquired and exercised a most precise and accurate knowledge of the properties of all the objects of nature afforded by their country, or employed in their rites and processes. They knew, for example, that the desiccation of the bodies of animals, tended greatly to withdraw them from the operation of those laws of decomposition to which dead organized matter is amenable. They knew, further, that the impregnation of the body with bituminous and saline materials, and the filling of its cavities with aromatics, would prevent its destruction by insects and animalcula. They knew, also, that the exclusion of the air, and the preservation of a uniform temperature, were necessary for the continu. ance, in its original form, of even the dried and prepared body; and, agreeably to this knowledge, they invested the body in many successive wrappers of linen and cotton cloth, which had been steeped in antiseptic solutions, and placed it, thus secluded from the air, and surrounded with bad conductors of heat, in a double case of wood, afterwards deposited in a catacomb excavated in the unchangeable rock.

Accordingly, the mummies of their royal personages and priests exist to the present day, and frequently in a state as perfect as that in which they were received from the embalmers by the relations of the deceased. A few years since, I had an opportunity f examining the mummy of an Egyptian female of rank, contemporary, it is probable. 2D. SERIES, NO. 37.-VOL. III. 181.-VOL. XV:

C

with Sesostris, which had been opened by Dr. Granville, and found to be in the highest state of preservation.' Still more recently, a mummy in the possession of the Philosophical Society of Leeds, has been unwrapped, and discovered in an equally perfect condition, not only with the limbs and flesh perfectly retaining their form and texture, but with the features uninjured; whilst the hieroglyphic inscriptions on the case, manifestly coeval with the embalming, declare the body to be that of a priest, who must have been contemporary with Moses, and who might, therefore, have witnessed the departure of the Israelites from Egypt, about three thousand three hundred years ago.†

Debased and ignoble must have been the ambition which could thus have devoted so much labour and ingenuity, to so worthless an object as the body which the life has abandoned; false and irrational must have been the dogmas which could have impelled the Egyptians to bestow, on insensate matter, a degree of laborious solicitude and misapplied knowledge, which, directed to worthy objects, might have refined and exalted the minds of the living.

It may be supposed, however, from the almost wonderful accomplishment of this ambition by the Egyptians, that they were profoundly skilled in many branches of physical science; and that, without such skill, they could not have effected results so perfect and so extraordinary. Such, however, was not the fact there is no evidence whatever of their possessing any philosophical knowledge of the substances and principles they employed; -any acquaintance with the causes of the effects, produced by those means, in their operations. In a case of this description, the absence of evidence is equivalent to express information. From all that we know of the Egyptians, whether as derived from the Greek authors, or from modern discoveries in the antiquities of Egypt, it would appear, that, as regarded the cultivation of the arts and the physical sciences, they were a nation of practised manipulators, mechanics, and workmen : experienced in the sensible effects upon each other, of the materials with which they operated, and empirically acquainted with their properties; but being, at the same time, entirely ignorant of their intimate nature and relations. In other words, that the Science of nature was unknown to them. They knew, for example, pursuing the illustration just given, that a corpse became putrid unless its moisture was expelled; but they were ignorant that the cause which rendered this precaution necessary, was the tendency of water to promote the chemical action of the constituents of the body upon each other, by favouring their assumption of the liquid form, and also by suffering decomposition, and yielding one of its constituents, (the oxygen) to them. They had found that the exclusion of the atmosphere was necessary, to effect the long-continued preservation of organic bodies; but they did not know the ground of this necessity, in the circumstance, that the atmosphere, by the oxygen it contains, and the water which is diffused through it, is the great natural agent of decomposition. They knew that variations of temperature were unfavourable to the preser

* See Dr. Granville's Paper on Egyptian Mummies in the Philosophical Transactions for 1825.

+ See Mr. Osburn's Account of an Egyptian Mummy, presented to the Museum of the Leeds Philosophical and Literary Society. Leeds, 1828.-The dates assigned to these mummies are in conformity with the views of Egyptian chronology and history, which were prevalent when the above remarks were first made public, and which, substantially, continue still to be entertained. Recent inquiries, however, have shewn, that the era of Sesostris, in the reign of whose immediate predecessor, according to Mr. Osburn, the priest must have lived, has been antedated by about four hundred years; and the new investigations alluded to at the commencement of the present article, with the results of which, as yet unpublished, I have been favoured by their author, lead very strongly to the conclusion, that the age of these mummies, at whatever date the reign of Sesostris may be fixed, may probably be less by as many as ten centuries, than that which has hitherto been attributed to them.

It was requisite to add the foregoing explanation, lest I should appear to continue the promulgation of error: the circumstances just stated are important, in an historical point of view, but the argument in the text is not affected by the amount of the diminution in antiquity of the mummies ; for the pretervation of a corpse for 2500 years, is as extraordinary an effect of skill, as its concontinuance for 1000 years longer would be; the process by which the former result could be attained would as perfectly secure the latter; in fact, could the operation of external agents be altogeher excluded, such a mummy would remain unchanged for an indefinite period of time.