CHAPTER V. The Literature and Science of the Ancient Egyptians. Remains of Egyptian Literature scanty but valuable-Meaning of Hieroglyphics-Picture-writing-Progress towards an Alphabet; Illustrated by the Hebrew and other Oriental Tongues-Different Modes of Writing practised by the Egyptians, Epistolographic, Hieratic, and Hieroglyphic properly so called-Discovery of Rosetta Stone-Researches of Dr. Young and Champollion-The Practice of Chinese in rendering Words Phonetic-The Advantages of the Hieroglyphical Method-Discoveries of Mr. Salt-Anecdote of King Thamus-Works of Thoth or Hermes-Quotation of Clemens Alexandrinus-Greeks learned History from Egypt-The Numerical System of the Ancient Egyptians-The Arabians derived their Arithmetical Signs from Egyptians. THE materials for this section of our work are neither abundant nor various; but they are, nevertheless, extremely satisfactory, and point out, in a manner free from all ambiguity, the first steps taken by man in his attempts to communicate his thoughts through the medium of written language. The literature of ancient Egypt, we must admit, does not, like that of Greece, call forth our admiration by splendid poems and regular histories; nor, like that of the Hebrews, by preserving the events of the primeval world in a record sanctioned by the Spirit of Eternal Wisdom. But, notwithstanding, in the brief notices which have come down to our age of the methods adopted by the early Egyptians for giving permanency to their conceptions, we have a treasure which, to the philosopher, is more valuable than the sublime verses of Homer, and, in a merely grammatical point of view, not inferior to the inspired narrative of Moses itself. We allude to the system of hieroglyphics; the knowledge of which is very important, both as exhibiting authentic specimens of picture-writing-the original expedient of the rude annalist—and also as indicating the path which led to that nobler invention—the use of an alphabet. The term hieroglyphic literally denotes sacred sculpture, and was employed by the Greeks in reference to those figures and inscriptions which they found engraven on the temples, sepulchres, and other public buildings of Egypt. The practice, however, out of which it arose, appears to be common to the whole human race in the first stage of civilization; being dictated to them by necessity, and suggested by the most obvious associations. Man learns to paint before he attempts to write; he draws the outline of a figure long before he is able to describe an event; he confines his representations to the eye during ages in which he can find no more direct means of addressing the understanding, or of amusing the fancy. In the infancy of society, all communication not strictly verbal is carried on through the medium of picture-writing; and this imperfect method continues in all countries until a happy accident, or the visit of a more refined people, makes known the secret of alphabetical notation. When, for example, the Spaniards first landed on the shores of America, the event was announced to the inhabitants of the interior by rough drawings of men, arms, and ships; some specimens of which have been preserved by Purchas, to whose laborious diligence we are indebted for the best account of European discovery and conquest in the western hemisphere. But, generally speaking, the aid of an alphabet so completely supersedes the more primitive usage, that, in most countries, all traces of the latter are speedily forgotten; and it is only by a remote and rather indistinct species of reasoning that the philosophical grammarian endeavours to connect the refined literature of a polished age with the rude efforts of the savage to imbody his thoughts in external signs. The monuments of Egypt, from their extreme durability, supply a history which nowhere else exists of the successive steps which conduct mankind from the first point to the last in the important art now under our consideration. Our limits will not permit us to enter into an investigation which would itself occupy an entire volume; we shall therefore confine ourselves to a general statement of first principles, and to such an illustration of them as may prove intelligible to the young reader, who may not have other opportunities of studying this important subject. The first and simplest expedient, then, is that already mentioned, of attempting to convey and perpetuate the knowledge of an event by forming a rude picture of it. The inconvenience inseparable from such a method would soon suggest the practice of reducing the delineation, and of substituting a sword for an armed man, a flag for an invading host, and a curved line for a ship. In the earlier stages of contraction, the abbreviated forms would still retain a faint resemblance to the original figure; but in process of time, as the number of ideas and relations increased, the signs would deviate farther from the likeness of an object, and assume more and more the character of a conventional mark, expressive of thought as well as of mere existence. At this era, however, which may be regarded as the second in order, every sign would continue to be a separate word, denoting some individual thing, together with all the circumstances and associated reflections which could be conveyed by so imperfect a vehicle. It is worthy of notice that the language of China retains the aspect now described at the present day. Attached to old habits, or repelled from imitation by the contempt which usually attaches to ignorance, the people of that vast empire refuse to adopt the grammatical improvements of Europe, which would lead them to analyze their written speech into its alphabetical elements. Their composition, accordingly, still consists of a set of words or marks expressive of certain ideas; becoming, of course, more complicated as the thoughts to be conveyed are more numerous or subtile, and requiring, at length, a great degree of very painful and unprofitable study to comprehend their full import. The third and most valuable movement in the progress of grammatical invention is that which provides a sign for expressing a sound instead of denoting a thing, and dissects human speech into letters instead of stopping at words. The apparatus for accomplishing this object appears to have been at the first sufficiently awkward and inconvenient. In order to write the name of a man, for example, the ingenuity of the Egyptian philologist could suggest nothing more suitable than to arrange, in a given space, a certain number of objects, the initial letters of which, when pronounced, would furnish the sounds required. For instance, if a person following that scheme of notation wished to record that Pompey had landed in Egypt, he would describe the action by the wonted signs employed in picture-writing; but to express the appellation of the general, he would find it necessary to draw as many objects as would supply in the first letters of their names, P, o, m, p, e, y. In writing the word London, on this principle, we might take the figures of a lion, of an oak, of a net, of a door, of an oval, and of a nail; the initial sounds or first letters of which words would give the name of the British capital. ! After a certain period there arose, from this modified hieroglyphic, a regular alphabet constructed so as to represent and express the various sounds uttered by the human voice. This invention, being subsequently communicated to the Greeks, contributed in a great measure to their improvement, and laid the foundation of their literary fame. The gift of Cadmus, who conveyed sixteen letters across the Mediterranean, is celebrated in the traditional history of the nation upon whom it was conferred; and hence the arrival of that renowned adventurer from the coast of Egypt continues to be mentioned as the epoch when civilization and a knowledge of the fine arts were first received by the barbarians of eastern Europe. The trading communities which had already stationed themselves on the shores of Syria were probably, as we have elsewhere suggested, the medium of intercourse between Egypt and Greece-a supposition which enables us to account for the similarity observed by every scholar in the more ancient form of their alphabetical characters. But, whatever ground there may be for this conjecture, there is no doubt that the process detected in the Egyptian monuments reveals the important secret which the philosophical grammarian has so long laboured to discover. As a proof, and at the same time an illustration of the argument now advanced, we may recall to the mind of the oriental student that the alphabet of the Hebrew, as well as of the other cognate tongues, is in fact a list of names, and that the original form of the letters bore a resemblance to the objects which they were used to express. Aleph, Beth, Gimel, which in the common language of the country denoted an ox, a horse, a camel, were at first pictures or rude likenesses of a dwelling and of the two animals just specified; proceeding on the very familiar system, not yet exploded in books for children, where an ass, a bull, and a cat are associated with the first three letters of the Roman alphabet. The process of abbreviation, which is rapidly applied by an improving people to all the technical properties of language, soon substituted an arbitrary sign for the complete portrait, and restricted the use of the alphabetical symbol to the representation of an elementary sound. But in Egypt the use of the hieroglyph was not entirely superseded by the invention of an alphabet. For many purposes connected with religion, and even with the more solemn occupations of civil life, the emblematical style of composition continued to enjoy a preference; on a principle similar to that which disposes the Jew to perform his worship in Hebrew, and the Roman Catholic in Latin. There appears also to have been a mixed language used by the priests, partaking at once of hieroglyphics and of alphabetical characters; which, in allusion to the class of men by whom it was employed, was denominated hieratic. Hence, in process of time, the Egyptians found themselves in possession of three different modes of communication— the hieroglyphic, properly so called, the hieratic, and the demotic or common. This distinction is clearly recognised in the following well-known passage extracted from the works of Clemens Alexandrinus. Those who are educated among the Egyptians, says he, learn first of all the method of writing called the epistolographic; secondly, the hieratic, which the sacred scribes employ; and, lastly, the most mysterious description, the hieroglyphic, of which there are two kinds,-the one denoting objects, in a direct manner, by means of the initial sounds of words; the other is symbolical. Of the symbolical signs one class represents objects by exhibiting a likeness or picture; another, by a metaphorical or less complete resemblance; and a third, by means of certain allegorical enigmas. Thus, to give an example of the three methods in the symbolical division,--when they wish to represent an object by the first, they fix upon a distinct resemblance; such as a circle, when they want to indicate the sun, and a crescent when their purpose is to denote the moon. The second, or metaphorical, allows a considerable freedom in selecting the emblem, and may be such as only suggests the object by analogous qualities. For instance, when they record the praises of kings in their theological fables, they exhibit them in connexion with figurative allusions which shadow forth their good actions and benign M |