prospects, by a wise, learned, and patriotic man, who looked earnestly at the busy world from his loophole of retreat,' and whose opinions may not perhaps be the less worthy of consideration because they were not influenced by the crowded and therefore, in too many cases, fanatical atmosphere of clubs and meetings. They agree very much with the general results of our own observation and reflection. Yet we cannot permit ourselves to give up for lost a cause in defence of which some of the best and greatest of our countrymen have once more undertaken to assume the responsibility of office. The symptoms of a re-action among that class of the community in whom the main and ultimate direction of public affairs is now de facto vested, may have been unconsciously exaggerated on this occasion-but that such a re-action has been for some time going on, and is still in progress, there can be no doubt in any sincere mind; and based, as it must necessarily have been in its origin, not on passion but reflection, that it should not continue more and more to develope itself we can hardly prevail on ourselves to think at all probable. Had Mr. Coleridge been alive now, we are inclined to believe he could not have failed to admit that there had opened upon us some glimpses at least of a better destiny than he ventured to anticipate in March and April last,

• When death was with him dealing.'

We ourselves happened to have several long conversations with him on these momentous subjects, not many months before his illness confined him to his chamber; and then, in the open air, walking by the sea-side, his tone of prediction was undoubtedly more hopeful than the reader of his sick-bed Talk might be likely to conjecture. We think it right to record that he more than once expressed his belief that, under the circumstances in which the Reform Bill had placed the country, there was much more likelihood of good than of evil results from extending still further the electoral suffrage. The great mischief, he always said, had been placing too much power in one particular class of the population the class above and below which attachment to our old institutions in Church and State is most prevalent.

1835.

ART. V.-1. Topography of Thebes and General View of Egypt. By I. G. Wilkinson, Esq. London. 2. I Monumenti dell' Egitto e della Nubia, disegnati dalla Spedizione Scientifico-Literaria Toscana in Egitto. Dal Dottore Ippolito Rosellini. Pisa. Vols. i. iii. 1832-4.

3. Lettres

3. Lettres écrites d'Egypte et de Nubie, en 1828, 1829. Par Champollion le Jeune. Paris. 1833.

A. Materia Hieroglyphica. 4 Parts. By I. G. Wilkinson, Esq. Malta. 1828.

5. Examen Critique des Travaux de feu M. Champollion sur les Hieroglyphes. Par M. J. Klaproth. Paris. 1832.

6. Des principales Expressions qui servent à la Notation des Dates sur les Monumens de l'Ancienne Egypte d'après l'Inscription de Rosette. Par François Salvolini. Paris. 1833.

WE

E contemplate the two works at the head of our list with mingled feelings, among which pride in the literary glory of our country does not predominate. We do not mean that the work of Mr. Wilkinson is not at least as creditable to its author as that of the Italian scholar; but we cannot look without some jealousy on the more costly form and the more splendid engravings of the Tuscan publication. This is no fault of the author, who, no doubt, would feel an honest pride in seeing the laborious collections of many years brought before the public in a complete and imposing shape, and his own claim as a discoverer in that region of antiquarian research, to which he has devoted a considerable period of his life, placed upon a durable record. Still less blame can attach to the publisher, who would soon cease to publish, if he were to embark in splendid and expensive works without a fair expectation of profitable return.

The state of the case is this. No sooner is a new impulse given to the study of Egyptian antiquities than an expedition is fitted out at the expense of the French and of the Tuscan governments. The persons appointed on this literary mission are absent about a year and a half, make a rapid survey of the splendid objects of their inquiry, employ regular draughtsmen, who are placed at their service, and return home (not, we lament to say, in Champollion's case) to enjoy the well-earned rewards of their labours. In the meantime some English gentlemen, animated solely by an ardent thirst for knowledge, and a lively interest in the antiquities of the ancient and mysterious parent of Western civilization, devote their own time, at their own cost, to the same objects of research. One of these, Mr. Wilkinson, in his undivided devotion to this absorbing study, resides for twelve years in the country, acquaints himself with the language and habits of the people, takes up his dwelling for a considerable time in one of the tombs at Thebes, makes the most accurate surveys of the district, copies, with the minutest accuracy, all the wonders of the monuments, and brings back to England the accumulated treasures of all his years of travel. On the return of the French and Tuscan expedition, the publication of their respective works is undertaken

by

by the government of either country. It appears, indeed, that a joint publication was originally intended, but whether the death of Champollion, or the change in the state of affairs in France threw impediments in the way, Signor Rosellini has commenced alone, and has carried to a third volume the Italian work. That of Champollion has not yet appeared: we trust that it is not delayed by the liberalized government of Louis Philippe. Among its republican virtues, we would willingly hope that the kingdom of the French has not assumed that of economy in the patronage of literary and scientific undertakings. Having succeeded to the splendid Egyptian Museum of Charles X., the present king will hardly shrink from the not less noble inheritance -the munificence of his predecessor in the encouragement of such studies. But while the mighty dukedom of Tuscany and the wealthy kingdom of France can assist in the prosecution of literary and of scientific objects, humble and impoverished England cannot afford to consider them as matters of public concern. scientific researches this country is sometimes more favourably inclined, because such researches are fortunately connected with the prospect of commercial advantage. But for literature, what encouragement is afforded by the English nation, as represented by its government?

To

The public, it may be said, is, after all, the best and most intelligent patron, and it would be an idle waste of any public funds, or even of royal munificence, to encourage a national work in which the public in general would feel no interest. It must, however, be conceded to us that there are works of which the sole value consists in the magnificence with which, in the current phrase, they are got up; and that in many instances it is not the public taste which demands the work, but the work which must create the public taste. Nor can that taste be created without that costliness of execution, that splendour of embellishment, which can only be bestowed on publications of a very large size, with engravings in the older and far more expensive style, and requiring at times very rich and beautiful colouring. Works of this class, which can alone do full justice to certain subjects, must cease to be published in this country without some support besides that of the ordinary purchaser.*

* It is but justice to two learned societies to state, that they have in some degree assisted Mr. Wilkinson in the publication of his labours. That very useful institution, the Geographical Society, has taken under its protection' his minute and accurate survey of the Topography of Thebes and of the Pyramids; and the Hieroglyphics published by the Royal Society of Literature were likewise from the collections of Mr. Wilkinson. Mr. Burton, the fellow-labourer of Mr. Wilkinson, has printed some numbers of Excerpta Hieroglyphica, which he has distributed with generous liberality among those persons who take an interest in the study,

It must not, however, be disguised, that to a great work on Egyptian antiquities, a specific and peculiar objection may be made. The system of hieroglyphic interpretation is by no means completely established with the consent of the learned world. Many withhold their adhesion; some, with Klaproth, openly impugn the whole theory, or at least confine its success within very narrow limits. But this is precisely the point to which we are anxious to direct the public attention. Though a great impulse has undoubtedly been given to the study of Egyptian antiquities by this real or supposed discovery of Dr. Young and of Champollion, yet the value and importance of the study by no means depend upon that hypothesis. Without at present expressing our opinion on the controversy, we enter our strongest protest against thus involving the extraordinary interest which the Egyptian monuments ought to command, as vestiges of the earliest civilization of mankind, in the fate of this collateral question, however curious and most attractive that question may be. Though its ancient gloom should again settle over the religious and civil history of Egypt, yet the progress of this extraordinary people in architecture,* in sculpture, in painting, and in all the arts of life, recorded in the immeasurable grandeur of their ruined edifices, and traced in the walls of their sepulchral chambers, is still the most remarkable phenomenon in the annals of mankind. Though even the names of their kings, now thought to be rescued from ages of oblivion, should be cast back into their old obscurity; though we should be forced to surrender to triumphant scepticism the legends of all those ancient Pharaohs, who founded the palaces and temples of Thebes, and whose military prowess is celebrated in the vast sculptured battle-pieces; though we should be reduced again to the scanty and once-suspected records of history, and only connect the Sesostris of Herodotus and the Rhamses of Tacitus, with the colossal edifices and statues of Diospolis by uncertain conjecture, not by the undoubted authority of legends and inscriptions; still the buildings themselves, with all their secret treasures, the tombs, and the quarries, ought to be preserved, as they exist at present, in engravings of a very large size, and therefore of expensive form. Notwithstanding the great French work, of which the accuracy not above suspicion, and the publication of Messrs. Huyot and Gau, on the Temples of Nubia, the architectural remains are very far from exhausted. Every great edifice, from the farthest southern

is

Among the most remarkable of these tombs is one whose crude brick roof and niche, bearing the name of the same Pharaoh, proves the existence of the arch at the remote period of 1540 B. c.'-Wilkinson, p. 80. The Doric pillars at the entrance to the caves of Beni-Hassan are very curious; they are rudely engraved in the Lettres de l'Egypte.'

·

point to which Egyptian architecture extended, down to the few shapeless ruins of Memphis and Heliopolis, ought to be drawn and planned with that taste, and still more with that truth by which British artists are distinguished. Mr. Hamilton's very valuable work, the Ægyptiaca,' was the first to enable his countrymen to appreciate the extraordinary Homeric sculptures on the walls of the Egyptian temples; but this work, excellent as far as it goes, does not comprehend a hundredth part of the interminable designs which line the walls of the temples and the tombs. Nor is it the conquests of the kings alone, or the public civil and religious ceremonies of ancient Egypt which command our interest. The whole country, with all its natural productions, its animals, birds, fishes, vegetables; the people, with all their private and domestic occupations, are still traced in drawings, if not in the first style of art, with that which renders them still more curious, an apparent Chinese fidelity of outline, and an extraordinary richness of colouring. This part of Signor Rosellini's publication is the most curious and valuable, and before we close our article we shall enter into some details on the subject. There is no time to be lost in perpetuating, by means of the European arts of design, many of these monuments, which, though they have survived to our day, are in a gradual, though we trust tardy, process of decay. Even the solid temples' are not secure; several majestic remains, which had been seen by former travellers, were sought in vain by M. Champollion. The river, by a change in its course, had swept some away; others had been destroyed by the barbarism of the inhabitants, in defiance it is said of strict prohibitions from Mohammed Ali. The Appendix to Champollion's Letters contains a memorial to the Pasha on the subject, which gives a melancholy list of thirteen or fourteen buildings recently demolished:

1. All the monuments at Cheik-Abade-only a few granite columns are left standing.

2. The Temple of Aschmouneïn, one of the most beautiful monuments in Egypt.

3. The Temple of Kaou-el-Kebir. Here the Nile has been as destructive as man.

4. The Temple to the north of the city of Esnè.

5. A Temple opposite to Esne, on the right bank of the river. 6. Three Temples at El-Kab, or El-Eitz.

7. Two Temples in the island opposite to the city of Osouan, Geziret Osouan.-Lettres écrites d'Egypte et de Nubie, p. 436. The encroachment of the sand, though not equally destructive, still requires great labour to dig it out; and sometimes effaces all vestiges of buildings, which may never again be brought to light.