Upon the division of the Persian empire, Egypt fell to Ptolemy Lagus, one of Alexander's generals, who, when he ascended the throne, assumed the cognomen of Soter. Our limits will not permit us to describe at length the character of this prince, nor to set forth the numerous obligations which literature and philosophy continue to bear to his memory. His establishment of the celebrated Alexandrian Library, and his marked encouragement of men of letters, are too well known to require illustration; and perhaps the royal munificence which he displayed in providing so splendid an asylum for learning was more than equalled by the discrimination which he manifested in the choice of individuals to preside over its interests and to promote its progress. While inviting to his court and placing in his schools those characters who were the most distinguished of the age for their scientific acquirements, Ptolemy nevertheless showed himself the greatest philosopher that adorned Alexandria. To the knowledge of books he joined the more valuable knowledge of men and of business; and was thereby qualified to direct the pursuits of science to practicable objects, as well as to withdraw the speculations of the learned from the insane metaphysics in which they were wont to indulge, in order to engage them in the more profitable studies of criticism, history, geometry, and medicine. The countenance shown to Demetrius Phalerius, and the employment to which he turned his accomplished mind, reflect greater honour upon the memory of Soter than all the magnificence of the Serapeion, or even the patriotic object contemplated in the structure of the Pharos.

His son Philadelphus succeeded to an inheritance of great

honour, but of much anxiety; for, being raised to the throne in place of his eldest brother Ceraunus, he was long exposed to the fear of domestic treason and of foreign war. But a reign of thirty-eight years enabled him to consolidate his power, and even to purchase the gratitude of his subjects, by executing many public works of great utility. He conveyed the waters of the Nile into the deserts of Libya, completed the lighthouse at the harbour of Alexandria, and laboured to improve the navigable canals which connected his capital with the Red Sea and the Mediterranean. The only stain upon his administration arose from the pitiful revenge inflicted on the librarian Demetrius, for having advised the former king to allow the succession to proceed in the natural course, and to settle the crown on his first-born son.

The third Ptolemy found it necessary to begin his reign with a Syrian war, which, in his own time, produced no memorable results, though, it would appear, it opened up to his successor a path to renown as a conquerer in the East. The latter is said not only to have chastised the insolence of Scleucus, and extended his conquests beyond the Euphrates, but even to have carried his arms to the confines of Bactria. Among the spoils which Euergetes-the title bestowed upon him by his people-acquired in the course of his victories, was a prodigious number of statues, images of gold and silver, and other instruments of worship, which Cambyses had carried away from the palaces and temples of Egypt.

It was in the year 221 before our era that Ptolemy Philopater mounted the throne of his father in the due course of succession. In his reign the Syrians recovered the provinces which the more fortunate arms of his predecessor had added to the Egyptian territory; the Jews were inhumanly persecuted; and the general affairs of the kingdom fell into confusion and disorder. A slave to his passions, and addicted to cruelty, he sunk under a ruined constitution at the early age of thirty-seven.

The minority which followed was of considerable importance, inasmuch as it proved the occasion of introducing formally into Egypt the powerful influence of the Roman government. As Ptolemy Epiphanes was only five years old at the death of his father, the kings of Syria and Mace

don determined to dismember and divide his dominions; on which account the guardians of the prince applied to the Western Republic to interpose her authority in the cause of justice, and to prevent the undue aggrandizement of two ambitious monarchs.

This request was readily granted; and, that the interests of the Egyptian court might not suffer from delay, Marcus Emilius Lepidus set sail for Alexandria to assume the direction of affairs. Meanwhile ambassadors were despatched to Antiochus and Philip, charged with the determination of the senate, and instructed to make known the line of policy which the Roman government had resolved to pursue. But the peace and happiness which were thus secured to the people ceased almost as soon as this feeble ruler took the sceptre into his own hand. He became corrupt, and they became disaffected. Various conspiracies were formed and defeated; but at length the attempt of an assassin succeeded, and Epiphanes was cut off in the twenty-ninth year of his age.

The government was seized by the queen, a Syrian princess, named Cleopatra, in behalf of her son, who was only six years old. Her partiality for her native court, and the influence of her brother Antiochus, threatened the peace of Egypt and even its independence, when the Romans again interposed to defeat the ambitious schemes of Syria. But the young Ptolemy, distinguished by the title of Philometer, was so completely in the power of his uncle that the inhab itants of Alexandria raised to the throne a younger prince, upon whom they conferred the surname of Euergetes, though, at a later period, he was better known by the epithet Physcon, a term expressive of unwieldy corpulence. The brothers at length divided the kingdom, and exercised a separate and independent sovereignty; Cyrene and Libya being ceded to the younger, while the other retained that original portion of Egypt which was considered as more strictly hereditary.

Philometer, at his death, left an infant son, who has been denominated Ptolemy the Seventh, but who never attained to the possession of power. To secure the tranquillity of the nation, a union between the widow of the late king and Euergetes the Second was recommended by the Romans, and immediately adopted; the right of succession, on the

demise of his uncle, being reserved to the young prince. But the jealousy of the cruel monarch soon put an end to his life, with the view, it might be presumed, of clearing the way for the accession of one of his own sons. He next repudiated his queen, whom he subsequently drove into Syria, and thereby involved his country in the hazard of a war with Demetrius, the rival and enemy of Egypt. Science and learning, intimidated by the horrors which oppressed the kingdom, were observed to take flight from their ancient seat, and to seek an asylum in other lands. The seminaries of Alexandria were deserted by the most distinguished professors, who, together with the principal inhabitants of the maritime district, found themselves menaced with imprisonment or death. Nor was it until after the lapse of twenty-nine years that Physcon, detested for his crimes and feared for his sanguinary disposition, finished his earthly career, leaving his crown to be disputed by three sons, Appion, Lathyrus, and Alexander. This reign will appear interesting in the eye of the philosophical historian, from the fact, which the Egyptians could no longer conceal from themselves, that the influence of Rome was daily gaining ground in their councils, and already securing the foundations of that dominion which she afterward formally usurped.

Through the influence of Cleopatra, who had returned from her Syrian exile, Alexander was preferred to the throne. But as the claims of Lathyrus were acknowledged by a majority of the people, he was encouraged to assert his right by force of arms; and having succeeded in driving his younger brother into a foreign country, he inflicted a severe punishment upon the insurgents of Upper Egypt, who had, during the political dissensions of the new capital, endeavoured to establish their independence. The inhabitants of the Thebaid had long felt themselves overlooked. The rising glory of Memphis had first obscured the splendour of the ancient metropolis; while, more recently, the importance of Alexandria, both as a place of learning and of commerce, had attracted to a still greater extent the wealth and population of the kingdom. It is not surprising, therefore, that the citizens of Thebes should have entertained the desire of recovering some share of the distinction of which they had been gradually deprived, and, at the same

time, of securing to the Egyptians a seat of government at a greater distance from the arms and intrigues of their warlike neighbours. In suppressing this spirit of disaffection, Lathyrus is accused of an excessive severity, in which he emulated the destructive policy of Cambyses, and reduced the remains of the venerable city to a heap of ruins.

His death, in the year eighty-one before Christ, relieved the apprehensions of the people, and opened a path for the accession of Cleopatra, his only child, whose gentle sex and manners gave the promise of a happy reign. This cheering anticipation might have been realized, had there not existed another claimant for the same honour in the person of Alexander, the son of her father's brother. Cleopatra was, without doubt, the legitimate sovereign, and was acknowledged as such by nearly all her subjects; but the councils which now directed the affairs of Egypt emanated from the shores of the Tiber. The Romans, who at first acted only as umpires, had already begun to enlarge their views, and to claim a right to interpose with their advice, and even with their arms. Sylla at this period discharged the office of dictator, and, in virtue of his high prerogative as master of the commonwealth, prescribed an arrangement to the competitors for the Egyptian crown. Cleopatra became the wife of her cousin Ptolemy, Alexander the Second, and thereby, it was hoped, had finally united the rival interests of the two branches of the royal family. But this measure produced not the auspicious results which were expected to arise from it. The ambitious youth, impatient of an equal, murdered his young wife, and seized the undivided Sovereignty, which he appears to have occupied several years. At length he was compelled to flee from the indignation of his subjects to the coast of Tyre; where, just before his death, he made a will, by which he bequeathed Egypt to the Roman senate and people.

The next who assumed and disgraced the title of Ptolemy, was a son of Lathyrus, who, from the excellence of his performances on the flute, was surnamed Auletes. This weak prince proved a tool in the hands of the Romans, and evidently lent himself to accomplish their favourite design of reducing Egypt to the condition of a province dependent on the republic. The leading men at court, who had no difficulty in penetrating his intentions, expelled him