read in a bilingual inscription, in hieroglyphic and arrow headed characters, near the ancient Berytus in Syria. The image of the Pharaoh, to whom this so often repeated legend belongs, is sculptured in bas-reliefs representing battles, sieges, military orations and marches, and the passages of rivers; he is the object of the homage of vanquished nations, whose complexion and dress are different from those of the Egyptians figured on the same monuments; he is seen receiving gifts peculiar to the interior of Africa, such as camelopards, ostriches, and different species of apes and antelopes; he lavished his immense power and wealth, apparently the fruit of foreign conquests, in erecting magnificent temples and palaces, adorned with sculptures and inscribed with his name, epithets, and exploits. are informed by Tacitus that when Germanicus ascended the Nile and visited the gigantic remains of the once mighty Thebes, he interrogated the priests upon the meaning of the hieroglyphic inscriptions with which they were covered, by whom he was told that they contained an account of the ancient state of Egypt; its revenues and military forces, and related especially to the conquest of Lybia, Ethiopia, Syria, and a great part of Asia by one of their ancient kings called Rhamses. (Tac. Annal. Lib. 11. c. 60.) But there are several princes of this name mentioned in the Egyptian chronicles and monuments. The first of these is Paurons or Aqueos, Ramses the First (Egyptos), the sixteenth Pharaoh of the eighteenth dynasty, who has sometimes been confounded with Sesostris. But he reigned only five years, and we are expressly told by Diodorus, (what indeed is extremely probable in itself) that the great expedition of Sesostris occupied nine years-συντελέσας τὴν στρατείαν ἐν ἔτεσιν ἐννέα. The next prince of the same name was the son and successor of the last mentioned Pausons-Meάuovr, who reigned sixty-three years; but M. Champollion has shown that his legend is entirely different from that of the warrior-prince now in question. He concludes that it must be referred to Σέθως or Σέθωσις, the first Pharaoh of the nineteenth dynasty, and the son of Amenophis the Third, the last of the eighteenth. In support of this hypothesis, he relies upon the authority of Manetho (apud Josephum contra Apion.), who in relating the second invasion of Egypt by the pastoral tribes during the reign of Amenophis the Third, states that this king, when he set off to encounter the enemy, confided to a faithful friend his son Sethos, who also bore the name of

Ramesses-Τὸν δὲ υἱὸν ΣΕΘΩΝ, τὸν καὶ ῬΑΜΕΣΣΗΝ rouaouέvov; and he also tells how the latter afterwards ascended the throne of Egypt and carried his victorious arms into Asia. From the similarity of the accounts which are given of the character and adventures of Sesostris by the Greek historians, with what is told of Sethos by Manetho, they are identified by M. Champollion as being the same Pharaoh whose name so often occurs in the monumental history of Egypt. Besides several vast temples which still exist in Nubia, he constructed the edifice called the palace of Osymakias, a portion of the immense building of Karnack, and the anterior court, the portal, and the colossal monuments of the palace of Luxor at Thebes. Nor was his munificent patronage confined to these works of art connected with luxury and superstition. He intersected the country with canals, and secured it against inundations by embankments of prodigious magnitude and extent. He also undertook the grand and useful work of excavating a navigable canal between the Nile and the Red Sea, a project which was subsequently resumed by Nekao the Second, and finally carried into effect under the Ptolemies. There are several fine original statutes of this Pharoah in the royal museum at Turin, grouped with the images of the tutelary gods and goddesses of Egypt, and inscribed with legends in the usual style of oriental hyperbole and adulation like the following;

The living God and Lord of the World, RE-SATE, approved by PHRE, the Child of the Sun, the Cherished of AMON,

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RAMSES, vivifier, beloved of AMON-RA, Lord of the three zones of the Universe, presiding in the Regions of Apt, great God, and Lord of the Heavens.'

Thus saith AMON-RA, King of the Gods; We have given long and happy Life, and the Dominion, to Thee, who art Lord of the World, RE-SATE, approved by PHRe.'

One of the most curious monuments of Egyptian antiquity is that called the table of Abydos, discovered in the ruins of the temple at Abydos by M. Calliaud and interpreted by M. Champollion. It is a complete geneological list of the predecessors of Ramses the Great, the Pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty, in phonetic hieroglyphics, corresponding precisely with the list of those monarchs contained in the chronicle of Manetho. The accuracy of this genealogy is again verified by the

repetition of the same names with their appropriate legends upon the various edifices constructed by those sovereigns, and upon statues, bas-reliefs, and other public monuments intended to honor their memory. This native dynasty is the most illustrious in the annals of Egypt, especially if taken in connexion with the succeeding one (the nineteenth), from which it is not easy to say why it should be separated, since the reputed founder of the latter race of kings, Sethos or Ramses the Great, was the son of Amenophis the Third, the last sovereign of the eighteenth dynasty. This race of Pharaohs then swayed the sceptre of Egypt for five centuries and a half in uninterrupted succession; and it was during their reign that Cecrops and Danaus emigrated to Athens and Argos, and established those colonies which had such an important influence on the early civilization of Hellas; it was during the same period that the barbarous yoke of the Hyksos was shaken off, and the tribes of Israel were driven from Egypt, the most splendid monuments of Memphis, Thebes, and Nubia were constructed, and the Egyptian monarchy was raised to the highest pitch of grandeur by the conquests, and what is better, by the splendid and useful works of Ramses the Great. It might fatigue, and would not probably instruct the reader to enumerate all the monuments of sculpture and architecture with which Egypt was embellished during this her golden age. In general it may be observed of the style of ancient Egyptian art, that it seems to partake of the fixed and immutable character of the national civilization. Their temples are beyond those of any other nation (we will not even except the Gothic) adapted to the expression of the simple and sublime ideas of a spiritual religion; but the pose of their statues is little varied, and they preserve a simple and severe attitude. This may be attributed to the fact of these sculptures being intended merely as the architectural ornaments of temples and palaces, and adapted to harmonize with the great masses of these edifices without breaking their grand and majestic lines by too decided movements. Egyptian art was not like that of Greece, an imitation of the beau ideal,-of the forms of eternal beauty; but of their own peculiar national physiognomies, or the fabulous and often fantastic forms which their mythology required to express religious ideas. In short, as M. Champollion has observed, their painting, sculpture, and architecture, were designed for the notation of ideas rather than the representation of external objects.

Their pictures and bas-reliefs, their statues, and even their temples, obelisks, and pyramids were branches of the art of written language. In Greece, art being cultivated for its own sake, the perfection of form was everything; in Egypt, it was a secondary object only; provided the idea was clearly expressed, it was immaterial how careless or even gross was the execution of the symbol. Every accessory ornament of Egyptian architecture, however minute, had its appropriate value and signification, closely connected with the leading idea, with a view to which the edifice itself was constructed. The decorations of the Greek and Roman temples speak to the eye only; to the mind they are silent. The art of writing was separated from the imitative arts at a very early period in Greece by the introduction of the alphabet; in Egypt they continued inseparably blended together as branches of one and the same art. The history of Egypt is recorded upon its public monuments. The language in which it is written is no longer an inscrutable mystery; but the vast outline of the Egyptian annals still remains void of those details which constitute the life and interest of history. Twenty centuries of time are filled with long lists of kings, of whom little more is known than the names, dates, and order of succession. In vain do we attempt to seize their characteristic features, and to trace the effect of their conduct upon the condition and happiness of the people. They may be compared to the interminable line of Banquo's posterity in the vision of Macbeth; each gold-bound brow is like the first.' General results are all that we can yet realize from these scanty materials. The inevitable imperfection of hieroglyphic language seems to render it doubtful whether this want of details can ever be fully supplied, unless the lost work of Manetho, or some other equivalent document should be recovered from oblivion. A mere monumental history must necessarily be very limited. Still we would not chill the enthusiasm of those who expect so rich a harvest of discovery from the researches in which M. Champollion is now engaged in Egypt, and shall rejoice if it exceeds the most sanguine expectations of himself, his patrons, and all the admirers of these studies.

ART. V.-Travels in the North of Germany, in the Years 1825 and 1826. By HENRY E. DWIGHT, A. M. New York. G. & C. & H. Carvill. 1829. 8vo. pp. 450.

FOR the combined advantages of a temperate and healthful climate, richness of soil, extent of territory, grandeur of natural scenery, numerous and noble rivers, and variety of productions, Germany has no occasion to envy the rest of Europe. That beautiful country is inhabited by a hardy, persevering, intelligent, honest, pacific, though martial race, which has received from its climate, religion, and laws, as well as from circumstances, the character it has constantly displayed. Foreign civilization has necessarily caused some modification of the original type; yet, the primitive features pierce strongly through the customs and manners adopted from the Franks, with whom the Germans were united, and from the other nations with whom they afterwards came in contact through commerce, wars, or travel.

The delineation of their moral physiognomy, sketched by Tacitus, will be found even at present far more accurate, than any that has been drawn of the moral condition of the French before their revolution, or of the Spaniards, thirty years ago. Not that from apathy or prejudice, or through the influence of religion or government, the Germans ever were remarkable for that inflexibility, or (to use M. de Châteaubriand's expression) "that stagnation of character," which until recently distinguished the Spaniards; but although an extensive and continual intercourse with other nations, together with a good-natured pliancy to foreign taste and fashions, sometimes modifies the earnest enthusiasm, the spirit of independence, the candor, and the bonhommie deeply impressed in the national character, these rarely become so adulterated, in any individual, as to be mistaken by a competent observer for the ardor of the Italians, the sentiment of political dignity in the British, or the perfect simplicity of heart and mind, which one would rejoice to find elsewhere than in Captain Hall's account of Loo Choo. There is always a good deal of strong sense and perspicacity, mixed up with a degree of shrewdness, in the confidence and placability of a German. The vehemence and depth of his feelings are seldom widely expansive, and are, therefore, when they lead to wo and destruction, fatal only to one or a few individuals, VOL. XXIX.-No. 65.

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