found a monarch, a court, princes and servants, and where he found also those supplies of food which the well-known fertility of the country had led him to seek there; for it is expressly stated that the favour which his wife had won in the reigning Pharaoh's eyes procured him sheep and oxen, as well as he-asses, and men-servants, and maid-servants, and she-asses and camels. In Gen. xxi. 9, mention is made in the case of Ishmael, the son of Hagar the Egyptian, whose mother took him a wife out of the land of Egypt, of a mixed race between the Egyptians and the Chaldæans, a race which in after times became a great nation. From this mixture of races it has been supposed the Arabs (7, mixed people') ad their name (Sharpe's Early Hist. of Egypt, . 11). In Gen. xxxix. begins the interesting story of Joseph's being carried down to Egypt, with all its important consequences for the great grandchildren of Abraham. The productiveness of the country is the allurement, famine the impulse. Attendant circumstances show that Egypt was then famous also for its commercial pursuits; and the entire narrative gives the idea of a complex system of society (about B.C. 1720), and a well-constituted yet arbitrary form of government. As in eastern courts at later periods of history, elevation to high offices was marked and sudden. The slave Joseph is taken from prison and from impending death, and raised to the dignity of prime vizier, and is entrusted with making provision for an approaching dearth of food, which he had himself foretold, during which he effects in favour of the ruling sovereign one of the greatest revolutions of property which history has recorded. The high consideration in which the priestly caste was held is apparent. Joseph himself marries a daughter of the priest of On. Out of respect towards, as well as by the direct influence of, Joseph, the Hebrews were well treated. The Scriptural record, however, distinctly states (xlvi. 34) that before the descent of Israel and his sons 'every shepherd' was an abomination unto the Egyptians. The Hebrews, whose 'trade had been about cattle,' must have been odious in the eyes of the Egyptians, yet are they expressly permitted to dwell in the best of the land' (xlvii. 6), which is identified with the land of Goshen, the place which the Israelites had prayed might be assigned to them, and which they obviously desired on account of the adaptation of its soil to their way of life as herdsmen. Having settled his father and family satisfactorily in the land, Joseph proceeded to supply the urgent wants of a hungry nation, and at the same time converted the tenure of all property from freehold into tenancy-at-will, with a rent charge of one-fifth of the produce, leaving their lands, however, in the hands of the priests; and thus he gave another evidence of the greatness of their power.

The richness of Goshen was favourable, and the Israelites 'grew and multiplied exceedingly,' so that the land was filled with them. But Joseph was now dead; time had passed on, and there rose up a new king (probably one of a new dynasty) which knew (Exod. i. 8) not Joseph, having no personal knowledge, and it may be no definite information of his services: who, becoming jealous of the increase of the Hebrews, set about persecuting them with the avowed intention of diminishing their numbers and crippling their

power. Severe task-masters are therefore set over them; heavy tasks are imposed; the Hebrews are compelled to build treasure cities, Pithom and Raamses. It is found, however, that they only increase the more. In consequence, their burdens are doubled and their lives made bitter with hard bondage (Exod. i. 14), in morter and in brick, and in all manner of service in the field.' Their first-born males, moreover, are doomed to destruction the moment they come into being. The deepest heart-burnings ensue; hatred arises between the oppressor and the oppressed; the Israelites seek revenge in private and by stealth (Exod. ii. 12). At last a higher power interferes, and the afflicted race is permitted to quit Egypt. At this time Egypt appears to have been a wellpeopled and well-cultivated country, with numerous cities, under a despotic monarch, surrounded by officers of his court and a life-guard. There was a ceremonial at audience, a distinction of ranks, a state-prison, and a prime minister. Great buildings were carried on. There was set apart from the rest of the people an order of priests who probably filled offices in the civil government; the priest of Midian and the priest of On seem to have ruled over the cities so named. There was in the general class of priests an order -wise men, sorcerers, and magicians-who had charge of a certain secret knowledge; there were physicians or embalmers of the dead; the royal army contained chosen captains and horsemen and chariots. The attention which the people at large paid to agriculture, and the fixed notions of property which they in consequence had, made them hold the shepherd or nomade tribes in abhorrence, as freebooters only less dangerous than hunting tribes.

The ill feelings which the peculiar circumstances connected with the exode from Egypt had occasioned served to keep the Israelites and the Egyptians strangers, if not enemies, one to another during the lapse of centuries, till the days of David and Solomon, when (1 Kings iii., vii., ix., xi.) friendly relations again spring up between the two countries. Solomon marries the daughter of a Pharaoh, who burns the city of Gezer, and who in consequence must have been master of Lower Egypt. 'And Solomon had horses brought out of Egypt, and linen yarn:" six hundred shekels of silver was the price of a chariot, and one hundred and fifty the price of a horse. Jeroboam, however, who had lifted up his hand against the king,' and become subsequently monarch of the revolted ten tribes, found refuge and protection in Egypt, which was then (about B.c. 975) governed by Shishak. From 2 Chron. xii. it appears that in the fifth year of Solomon's successor, Rehoboam, this same Shishak 'came against Jerusalem' with a very large army, consisting of chariots, horse and foot soldiers, besides auxiliary foreigners, and having captured the fortified cities which lay on his march, he entered and plundered the metropolis. The language which is employed in Joel (iii. 19) shows that, in the ninth century before Christ, Egypt had, in conjunction with Edom, displayed both its power and its cruelty towards the kingdom of Judah. The rise and oppressiveness of the Assyrian power soon, however, inclined the Egyptians and the Israelites, from a sense of common danger, to cultivate friendly relations with one another. In

2 Kings xvii. we find that in the twelfth year of Ahaz king of Judah (B.c. 730) Hoshea king of Israel desisted from paying his usual tribute to the king of Assyria, and courted the alliance of So, king of Egypt, who must have been a very powerful monarch to have been thought able to give assistance in opposition to Assyria. Against this mere human resource the prophet Isaiah (xxxi.) warmly protested, declaring its utter in efficiency, and striving to lead his countrymen to the practice of that righteousness and piety by neglecting which they had been forsaken of God. Upon this act of king Hoshea, however, the Assyrians overran Samaria and carried (2 Kings xvii. 6) Israel away into Assyria. In the reign of Hezekiah (B.c. 726) it appears (2 Kings xviii. 21) that the kingdom of Judah still trusted upon the staff of this bruised reed, even Egypt, on which if a man lean, it will go into his hand and pierce it: so is Pharaoh king of Egypt unto all that trust on him.' In the last year of the reign of Josiah (B.c. 609) Egypt seems to have attempted to increase its influence in Palestine, when Pharaoh-Nechoh (2 Kings xxiii. 29) 'went up against the king of Assyria to the river Euphrates, and Josiah going against him was slain in battle. His successor, Jehoabaz, was dethroned after a brief reign of three months, and imprisoned at Riblah by the Egyptian monarch, who imposed on the country a heavy tribute. Pharaoh-Nechoh then made his elder brother jakim king, having changed his name to Jehoiakim. Jehoahaz afterwards died in Egypt. But the Egyptian influence over Judah soon ended; for in the fourth year of Jehoiakim (B.c. 604) Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon marched against (Jer. xlvi., 2 Kings xxiv.) Judæa and its allies, defeated Pharaoh-Nechoh, and retook from the Egyptians Arabia Petræa and all that belonged to them between the Euphrates and the Nile. Zedekiah, the next king of Judah, rebelling against Nebuchadnezzar, made an alliance with Pharaoh-Hophra (Jer. xliv.); and when Nebuchadnezzar besieged Jerusalem, on the march of the Egyptian army, the Chaldees raised the siege (Jer. xxxvii. 5) and withdrew the army. But this was the last time that the Egyptian power was able to serve the Jews. The Assyrian party in the state, indeed, was in the minority, though assisted by the influence of Jeremiah and Ezekiel (Ezek. xxix., Jer. xxv.): yet it predominated; the Jews were carried captive to Babylon, and in less than a century afterwards Egypt was made a province of the same empire.

After the time of the exile the Egyptian Ptolemies were for a long while (from B.c. 301 to about 180) masters of Palestine, and during this period Egypt became as of old a place of refuge to the Jews, to whom many favours and privileges were conceded. This shelter seems not to have been for ages withdrawn (Matt. ii. 13). Yet it cannot be said that the Jews were held in esteem by the Egyptians (Philo, c. Apion. ii. p. 521). Indeed it was from an Egyptian, Manetho (B.c. 300), that the most defamatory misrepresentations of Jewish history were given to the world; and, in the days of Augustus, Chæremon took special pains to make the Jewish people appear despicable (Joseph. c. Apion. i. 32; comp. Creuzer, Com. Herod. i. 270).

In the reign of Ptolemy Philometor, Onias,

whose father, the third high-priest of that name, had been murdered, fled into Egypt, and rose inte high favour with the king and Cleopatra his queen. The high-priesthood of the temple of Jerusalem, which belonged of right to his family, having passed from it to the family of the Maccabees, by the nomination of Jonathan to this office (B.c. 153), Onias used his influence with the court to procure the establishment of a teumple and ritual in Egypt which should detach the Jews who lived there from their connection with the temple at Jerusalem. The king complied with the request. To reconcile the Egyptian Jews to a second temple, Onias alleged Isa. xix. 18, 19. He chose for the purpose a ruined temple of Bubastis, at Leontopolis, in the Heliopolitan nome, one hundred and fifty stadia from Memphis, which place he converted into a sort of miniature Jerusalem (Joseph. De Bell. Jud. i. 1), erecting an altar in imitation of that in the temple, and constituting himself high-priest. The king granted a tract of land around the temple for the maintenance of the worship, and it remained in existence till destroyed by Vespasian (Joseph. Antiq. xiii.3; xx. 9; De Bell. Jud. vii. 11). The district in which this temple stood appears to have beep. after Alexandria, the chief seat of the Jews in Egypt, and which from the name of its founder was called 'Oviv xúpa (Joseph. Antiq. xiv. Helon's Pilgrim. p. 328).

If, instead of taking the sacred volume for our guide, we consult profane authors, only a few general conclusions can be given with any degree of historical truth and well-grounded confidence. The earliest history,' says Winer, (Bib. Realwörterb. in loc.) of Egypt is altogether legendary till we come to the age of Sesostris. Wit this monarch, who was also named Rameses, begins the half-mythical half-historical period of great revolutions and august edifices (Heeren, Ideen), and lasts till the time of Psammeticus, about 700 years before Christ. Then, and not before, credible history begins. Originally several sacerdotal governments appear to have co-existed, among which that of Memphis was, though not the oldest, yet the most influential. Then Lower Egypt was invaded by certain nomade hordes from the east, who spread as far as Memphis, of which city they became masters, and founded a dynasty of shepherd kings (Hyksos). The states of Upper Egypt succeeded in driving these foreigners out of the land; that of Diospolis gained the ascendancy, whose king was the celebrated Sesostris-probably B.C. 1500-1400. In the eighth century before Christ the Ethiopians invaded Upper Egypt, and ruled there with mildness and wisdom, whilst two other dynasties, a Saitic and a Tanatic, flourished in Lower Egypt. A civil war converted Egypt into a state under twelve princes. Psammieticus, one of these twelve, supported by foreign mercenaries, succeeded in making himself sole monarch, and opened to strangers the hitherto closed country. The history now becomes clear. From 526 before our Lord Egypt became a Persian province, fell (B.c. 332) into the hands of Alexander the Great, and after his death (B.c. 323) the dynasty of the Ptolemies established itself, which (A.U.c. 723) came to a termination at the battle of Actium."

The ascertained correspondencies in respect of monarchs found alike in sacred and profane his

toty are not numerous. The following monarchs have been identified (Sharpe's Early Egypt, p. 26), Shishak (2 Chron. xii.) with Sesostris (B.c. 983); Pharaoh-Nechoh (2 Kings xxiii.) with Necho II. (B.C. 616); and Pharaoh-Hophra (Jer. xliv.) with Apries (B.c. 594).

On few historical points have more various or conflicting opinions been held than respecting the Hyksos or shepherd kings. Who were they? When did they rule? When were they expelled? Were they the same as the Israelites? are questions which have received at the hands even of profoundly learned men very different answers. Nor in so debated a case should we here venture an opinion did we not feel that the view we take has an important bearing on the origin of some part of the religion of the Egyptians.

Manetho makes his fifteenth dynasty to consist of the Phoenician shepherd kings. In the reign of King Timeus,' he says, there came up from the east men of an ignoble race, who had the confidence to invade our country, and easily subdued it without a battle, burning the cities, demolishing the temples, slaying the men, and reducing the women and children to slavery.' They made Salatis, one of themselves, king: he reigned at Memphis, and made the upper and lower region tributary. Of his seventeenth dynasty also were forty-three shepherd kings, called Hycsos, who reigned, perhaps contemporaneously with the preceding, at Diospolis. In the eighteenth dynasty of Diospolis a rising took place, and the shepherd kings were expelled out of the other parts of Egypt into the district of Abaris, which they fortified. Amosis besieged and compelled them to capitulate; on which they left Egypt, in number 240,000, and marched through the desert towards Syria, and built the city of Jerusalem.' The last few words seem to render it probable that Manetho confounded the Hyksos with the Israelites, which is the less surprising since the Hyksos were, as he rightly calls them, Phoenicians, of the ancient, if not original, race which inhabited Phoenicia, or Palestine (taken in its widest sense), before the conquest of the country by the Hebrews. Chronological considerations seem to refer the time of the dominion of the Hyksos to the period of Abraham and Joseph (say from B.c. 2000 to 1600). When Joseph went into the land he found the name of shepherd odious-which agrees with the hypothesis that places the irruption of the shepherd kings anterior to his time; and possibly both the ease with which he rose to power, and the fact that Jacob turned towards Egypt for a supply of food when urged by want, may be readily accounted for, on the supposition that a kindred race held dominion in the land, which, though hated by the people, as being foreign in its origin and oppressive in its character, would not be indisposed to show favour to members of the great Shemitic family to which they themselves be longed. The irruption into Egypt, and the conquest of the country on the part of the Phoenician shepherds, seems to have been a consequence of the general pressure of population, from the northeast towards the south-west, which led the nomade Shemitic tribes first to overcome the original inhabitants of Palestine, and, continuing in the same line of advance, then to enter and subdue Egypt. The invasion of the Hyksos is indeed to be regarded as one result of the movement from

the Euphrates westward of the most powerful and (comparatively) most civilized people then found in Western Asia, who in their progress subdued or expelled in the countries through which they not improbably were urged by a pressure from other advancing tribes, nation and tribe one after another, driving them down toward the sea, and compelling those who dwelt along the shores of the Mediterranean, to seek shelter and safety in the islands of that sea and other distant parts. To conquerors and aggressors of the character of these shepherd hordes Egypt would offer special attractions. They continued sweeping onwards, and at last entered and conquered Egypt, establishing there a new dynasty, which was hateful, because foreign, and because of a lower degree of culture than the Egyptians themselves had reached. Nor would these shepherds be less odious because, coming from the east and immediately from the deserts of Arabia, they came from the quaiter whence the mild and cultivated Egyptians had long been wont to suffer from the predatory incursions of the wild nomade tribes (Die Phonizier, von Movers, Bonn, 1841; Zur Geschichte der Israeliten, von E. Bertheau, Gottingen, 1842), between whom and the agricultural natives of the country different pursuits, habits, and tastes would naturally engender animosities. This feeling of alienation exists at the present day. The Arab is still a depressed and despised being in Egypt. Bowring, in his valuable Report on the country, remarks, 'It is scarcely allowable even to send a message to a person in authority by an Arab servant.' (p. 7.)

The expulsion of the shepherds was strangely confounded by Josephus or Manetho with the Exodus of the Israelites. The shepherds were conquerors, rulers, and oppressors; the Israelites guests and slaves. The shepherds were expelled, the Israelites were delivered. Josephus (c. Apion. i.), however, gives from Manetho a narrative of an event which wears a much nearer likeness to the Exodus, in the case of a King Amenophis, who was ordered by the gods to cleanse Egypt of a multitude of lepers and other unclean persons; many of whom were drowned, and others sent in great numbers to work in the quarries which are on the east side of the Nile. After a time they were permitted to establish themselves in Avaris, which had been abandoned by the shepherds. They then elected a ruler, Osarsiph, whose name was afterwards changed to that of Moses. This chief made this law for them, that they should not worship the Egyptian gods, but should kill the animals held sacred by the Egyptians; nor were they to have intercourse with any but such as were members of their own body-in all respects aiming to oppose the customs and influence of the nations. These, sending for aid to the shepherds who had settled in Jerusalem, and having received troops to the number of 200,000 men, were met by Amenophis, the king, with a yet larger force, but not attacked. On a subsequent occasion, however, they were assailed by the Egyptians, beaten, and driven to the confines of Syria.' Lysimachus gives an account not dissimilar to this, adding, that under the leadership of Moses these mixed hordes settled in Judæa (Cory's Ancient Fragments). The account which Diodorus gives of the migration of the Israelites from Egypt to Palestine is

of a similar tenor. The deviations from the sacred narrative may be easily accounted for by Egyptian ignorance, vanity, and pride. Wathen, following his own chronology, refers the great works existing in Egypt to three periods, separated by intervals of several centuries. The first includes the two great dynasties of Theban princes who governed Egypt during her "most high and palmy state," when Thebes sent forth her armies to distant conquests. In the second period is comprised the erection of the pyramids. The third includes the reigns of the Ptolemies and earlier Cæsars, under whom Egyptian architecture flourished in a second youth, and almost attained its original splendour." On the chronology, however, of the fine arts in Egypt, as well as on so many other points, different, not to say opposite, opinions are held; for instance, the erection of the pyramids, which Wathen thus brings down into his second period, others refer back to the early lawn of its history. This is not the place to state, much less discuss, the diversities which present themselves to the student; our purpose will be answered by some general details as to the extent and character of the sublime creations of art in Egypt- of that wonderful country, the most wonderful monuments.

In regard to style, that remained essentially the same, in principles and character, from its first appearance (in the seventeenth century before our era-Wathen) to its final downfall, on the introduction of Christianity; though ornamental members were in later times modified, elaborated, and improved, and some entirely new added. Many of its peculiarities may have been borrowed from large architectural excavations. One of the most striking peculiarities of the style is the pyramidal character of the ascending lines. The type of the architecture was the primitive dwelling formed of reeds, which abounded on the banks of the Nile. In one of the orders of the Pharaonic

276.

columns, the original post of reeds may be said to have been translated into stone. If the constructions were of any great height, their stability, as being originally built of reeds, would, it is evident, require them to incline one to the other, sloping inwards, thus forming the pyramidal outline to which reference has been made. The plan of the Egyptian temple appears to have

originated in the practice of extending the struc ture by successive additions till the original form became the mere nucleus of the whole. First, a large pylon, consisting of two broad towering masses of masonry, with a doorway in the middle, was erected in advance to give greater dignity to the approach. This was united to the original building by lateral walls, fronted internally by colonnades; and thus the intermediate space was converted into a cloistered court, solemn and secluded, well agreeing with the dark and mysterious character of the national religion. A succeeding monarch would add a grand hall of columns in advance of, and attached to, this court; and a third, not less anxious to honour the gods and immortalize his name, erected a second quadrangle before the hall, terminating the whole range of buildings with a stupendous pylon which bore his inscriptions; and, if he were a warrior, offered a grand field for the sculptured display of his achievements.

The most brilliant periods of Egyptian art were the reigns of the second and third Rameses. Most of the obelisks and colossal statues were wrought before or during the reign of Rameses II., the Sesostris of the Greek writers. Under this enterprising monarch, the ancient Theban empire attained its highest pinnacle of prosperity and power. Rameses III. undertook distant military expeditions, roused the energies of the country, encouraged art, and erected the splendid temple of Medinet Abu. At a later age the sceptre of Egypt was swayed by powerful monarchs, who built on a grand scale; but the seat of the government was then in the Delta, and there remain only a few obelisks.

The valley of the Nile is all along at intervals strewed with wrecks of ancient monumental grandeur; at Thebes, however, they are found on both sides of the river in greatest profusion. Next to the pyramids, the most wonderful relic of Egyptian art is the great hall of the temple of Carnak, on the east bank of the Nile. Its superficial area is 314 feet by 164. The massive stone roof is supported by 134 columns ranged in sixteen rows, most of which are 9 feet in diame ter, and nearly 43 feet high: those of the central avenue are not less than 11 feet 6 inches in diameter, and 72 feet high; the diameter of their capitals at their widest spread is 22 feet. The walls, columns, architraves, ceilings, every surface exposed to the eye, is overspread with intaglio sculptures-gods, heroes, and hieroglyphics, painted in once vivid colours. But the hall of columns was but a part of this wonderful fabric. Immense pylons, half-buried quadrangles and halls, granite obelisks, and tremendous piles of fallen masonry once formed a range of buildings upwards of 1200 feet in length. An avenue of colossal sphinxes led from the temple to Luxor, forming a vista which extended nearly a mile and a half, and was admirably adapted for the pageantry of religious processions. All these buildings formed parts of one magnificent whole; all were constructed of gigantic blocks, and most were covered with sculpture. Such was the imperial palace of the Pharaohs when Europe was yet in primeval barbarism, ages before Romulus took his omen on the Palatine hill.' Now the ruins are strewed in chaotic confusion over a sandy plain, broken into shapeless mounds.