arate, and to form a just view of, the claims of the original promoters. Without waiting further to follow the various steps whereby our acquaintance with the Egyptian language has been advanced, and the method of hieroglyphic analysis improved upon, we shall at once direct the attention of our readers to the historical framework by which, as already intimated, the phonetic system has been mainly rendered available to the purposes of history, through the chronological reference of the monuments and of the sculptured representations of different ages. It is now just twenty years since the first discovery by Mr. Bankes of the most remarkable and important of all the known hieroglyphic records -the chronological succession of the Pharaohs, recorded on portions of a wall in a ruined palace at Abydos. The original fragments, in common with the fundamental record of Rosetta, are now the property of our National Museum-an acquisition which, for antiquity and historical interest and importance, may be almost ranked with an original autograph of the Pentateuch, or the Book of Judges. It was immediately obvious that the former (the Tablet of Abydos) consisted of series of royal names or titles enclosed in elliptical scrolls, like the Ptolemaic names and titles on the pillar of Rosetta, and other monuments; and Dr. Young fell into the mistake of connecting the termination of those lists with the time of Psammetichus and his successors, who preceded the Persian conquests in the sixth century before the Christian era, because the prenominal shield of the Soane sarcophagus, and of the tomb whence it was derived (that opened by Belzoni), which Dr. Young had erroneously referred to Psammis, the successor of Pharaoh Necho, occupied the third place from the conclusion of the middle line of the Tablet. The improved principles of Champollion, however, soon corrected this mistake; and that scholar ascertained that, instead of a series of phonetic names, as Dr. Young had conjectured, the Tablet of Abydos represented a succession of royal titles or prefixes, the same which appeared connected with the respective phonetic names of their possessors, on separate monuments; and which are by this most remarkable record referred to the same order of succession in which they are found in history. The termination of the Tablet was by this discovery, at once raised from the close of the monarchy to that of the great eighteenth dynasty of Theban kings; and, as the shields which appear on most of the principal monuments were found registered on this record, the probable antiquity and the relative ages of those monuments, and consequently the progress of Egyptian art, soon became settled questions. The general principles of the hieroglyphic chronological records were ascertained, and the second grand step, not less important than that which proved a hieroglyphic alphabetic system, was taken. And although in Champollion's reference of the catalogued monumental series to history, he committed some mistakes and oversights not less glaring than those of Dr. Young, the fact was indisputable, that we had before us a contemporary hieroglyphic index to the chronology of the monuments, which belonged to that remote age to which the voice of history refers the glory of ancient Egypt. The discovery of other contemporary hieroglyphic lists, by Mr. Wilkinson and Mr. Burton, (in the temple of Karnak, the palaces of the Memnonium and Medinet Abon, and the tombs at Benihassan), although not so methodically disposed as that of Abydos, soon abundantly authenticated the latter; and, moreover, extended the existing portion of it both in ascent and descent; and the partial errors of Champollion were rectified by our countrymen. The original scope of the Tablet of Abydos, and the number of royal shields that it contained, were manifest, notwithstanding the obliteration of the commencement; and the deficient portion was supplied from the other lists, in the copy published in the second part of the second volume of the Transactions of the Royal Society of Literature, by Mr. Cullimore. It was found, that in this Tablet, and the supplemental record of Medinet Abon, we possess an original chronological series, ascending thirteen reigns above the accession of Amos and the eighteenth dynasty, and descending nineteen reigns below that of Amos-being seven reigns below the point at which the Tablet of Abydos terminates. In other the Greek versions of these royal words, we have before us the sculptured names, which, by connecting themoriginal of the succession, descending selves with a series of titular Indices, to the close of the nineteenth dynasty in the order in which these appear in of Diospolites*, which Josephus has the tablets, give us historical combinatranscribed from Manetho, the Egyptian tions of words whereby to test the historian, in his first book against alphabetical; and hence supply us in a Apion; and which Josephus, in com- limited, but, for the purposes of history, mon with all original authorities, refers most effectual manner, with the lanto the thousand years which separated guage to which the phonetic principles the ages of Abraham and Solomon,† are applicable; and thus elicit new including the founders of all the great proofs of the authenticity of these prinsculptured monuments. Such were ciples, and of the integrity of ancient the sources whence Manetho declares historians, as well as materials for that his history of the dynasties, rectifying their oversights. founded on the records of the Egyptian Temples, was originally derived: so that a more complete corroboration of ancient history than that which has been so wonderfully restored to us, cannot well be imagined. Had not the statements of Manetho, Josephus, and similar passages of primitive history descended to us, these extraordinary monumental records, which, as already noticed, have no parallel for antiquity and importance, except in the contemporary sacred annals of the Jews, would necessarily have remained forever an insoluble, or, perhaps, unnoticed mystery, and phonetic discovery been useless for probing the history of remote ages. Such statements prepare us for the previous question, without which no discovery was ever matured-what it is that we expect to what definite end are our inquiries directed? The expectation of a phonetic system of hieroglyphics was natural. Its existence was even asserted by ancient writers, although hardly suspected by the moderns, till the Egyptian and Greek texts of the pillar of Rosetta were seen in juxtaposition. The expectation that the same hieroglyphics contained records important to history, was also natural; and that such was the fact was equally asserted by the ancients-Egyptian, Greek, and Roman. But in the absence of the histotorical counterparts, this expectation would have been vague and useless. With the Greek version of the pillar of Rosetta before them, the ingenuity of decipherers replaced the wanting phonetic powers of the characters; but no ingenuity could have replaced In effect, the hieroglyphic and Greek versions of the succession, provide us with means for testing and proving the phonetic system, not obtainable from any other source. We have, on the one hand, an original series of words, and, on the other, the same series written out in Greek characters, with probably few variations beyond those arising from the pronunciation of the scribes. Every word, or at least its place, is identified. This could alone result from corresponding tables of proper names. No accumulation of versions of common language--of words and phrases which change their order in the hands of every translator, could be in the least degree so effectual; and we are accordingly far more certain of the corresponding words of the hieroglyphic and Greek lists of succession, than we are, or perhaps ever can be, of the corresponding words of any two of the three versions of the fundamental record of Rosetta, however certain of the general identity in substance. We are now arrived at the work which has given occasion for the present article. Mr. Cory's "Ancient Fragments," already often referred to, consist of a collection of those statements from primitive writers, on which the expectations of the historical discoverer are based-equally those of the decipherer of the brick tablets of Babylon and Nineveh, and the sculptured records of Persepolis, as those of the hieroglyphic decipherer, and which shed reciprocal light on each other. This collection, moreover, contains the several versions and varied readings of such statements, which, although not unattended by omissions and imperfec * Ancient Fragments, pp. 130 and 172, &c. + Jos. Antiq. 1. viii. c. 6. Contra Apion, lib. 1. Anc. Frag. pp. 159, 169, et seq. tions, from which no compilation of so much difficulty and research can be exempt, are brought together in a far more accessible, digested, and useful form, than any in which they have heretofore appeared. The Egyptian department is, under present circumstances, the most attractive. The dynasties of Manetho, of which we now possess many in the texts of the original contemporary sculptures, appear in all the forms in which they are found scattered in ancient writers, disposed in parallel columns; so that the opening of an octavo page stands in the place of the folios of Josephus, Eusebius, Syncellus, and Scaliger, which are inaccessible to all but the slaves of literature at home, and altogether so to travellers abroad. To these are added the collateral statements of Sanchoniatho, Herodotus, Diodorus, Eratosthenes, and the old Egyptian chronicle, Chæremon, Artapanus, and Apion of Alexandria; together with the historical and scientific fragments relating to Egypt, which are to be found in other Greek and Roman authorities. By a fortunate coincidence of circumstances, the labours of Mr. Cory were directed to this collection soon after those of the hieroglyphic decipherers originated, and were brought to partial maturity nearly in time to meet the historical wants of the latter; for, previously to the appearance of the first edition in 1828, although the general principles of the hieroglyphic records of succession had been ascertained by Champollion, the method of applying these principles was still in its infancy, nor had the collateral and connecting records of Karnak, Benihassan, and Medinet Abon, brought to light through the zeal of our antiquarians resident in Egypt, been at that period discovered. An authentic copy of the dynasties according to Africanus, was by this useful volume placed in the hands of inquirers and travellers; and this was accompanied by the fragments of Manetho from Josephus, the remains of the Theban chronicle of Eratosthenes, of the old Egyptian chronicle, and of the correlative Phoenician record of Sanchoniatho. The mutilated and corrupted transcripts of chronologers were thus far replaced by genuine data, and the labours of inquirers into hiero glyphic history, both at home and abroad, promoted by easy access to the originals, unembarrassed by speculations. In 1832 appeared the enlarged second edition of the collection; and, although a lustrum has now passed over our heads since this work has been in the hands of the learned world, and been silently and effectively promoting the labours of the historical student, we are not aware that it has hitherto been made known to the general reader as such a work deserves; but it is never too late to do justice to a treaties of the first literary necessity. The present edition came out after the sun of the two original hieroglyphic discoverers had set for ever, but at the height of the Egyptian race; and it has contributed more than any other work of the times to render that a useful race for the purposes of history, by presenting the written versions of the recovered hieroglyphic records in all the forms in which history has transmitted them. The first edition has been augmented fourfold, and the versions and authorties which we have already mentioned, together with many others relating to Egyptian and contemporary history, have been added to its contents. Nor ought we to omit noticing the scientific fragments from Ptolemy, Censorinus, Theon, Berossus, and other writers, all bearing on the same historical system. But a few observations on Egyptian history in general, its claims, nature, and principles, and the results to which these will conduct us, may best illus trate our subject and serve the cause of inquiry, besides practically demonstrating the value and utility of the work before us, and eliciting data for a probable restoration of the original text of Manetho's history, from the various mutilated and conflicting versions extant in Mr. Cory's compilation; an object which the hieroglyphic verifications of Manetho have rendered of ex'reme importance to history. Egyptian history, as set forth in the remains of Manetho, the only writer who has left a complete outline of the subject, is distributed into thirty-one dynasties, concluding with the Macedonian conquest. It clearly distinguishes itself into two portions, each of which possess equal, although very differently grounded claims to credibi- ments; and here, accordingly, the lity, derived from wholly distinct criteria and evidences. The first of these portions, of which we have already in some measure treated, is the most obscure and unmanageable. From its remoteness in time, from its want of connexion with known synchronous history, and inasmuch as it can be tested only by the contemporary monumental tablets, it is the most obnoxious to hypothesis and theory. It is not, however, the less authentic, and is the most import ant part of the annals of Egypt, being the great age of the arts and empire of the Pharaohs, and that which, consequently, has received the most illustration and proof from hieroglyphic discovery. Hieroglyphic discovery has thus replaced the contemporary witnesses which the records of other nations supply to authenticate the second portion of the history, to which, in a more particular manner, we shall presently advert. The portion of which we are now speaking subdivides itself into two parts-the first consisting of the first thirteen dynasties, which are excluded from Manetho's chronological canon, by the consent of ancient writers, as well as from the primary succession of the monuments; but which occupy a collateral place in both. The se cond part comprises the dynasties of Manetho's canon from the fourteenth to the twentieth, including the great Diospolite family. It is, as already stated, connected with that period of sacred history which separates the ages of Abraham and Solomon, and in the annals of which, the Kings of Egypt are mentioned only under the general title of Pharaoh, as in the days of Abraham, of Jacob and Joseph, of Moses, David, and Solomon. It comprehends, as above, the early dynasties from the fourteenth down to the close of the nineteenth of Diospolites; and these are, accordingly, the limits which the Jewish annalist assigns to the time of the Pharaohs properly so called. To this period, and no lower, we have the unbroken tabulated succession of the monu connected succession of Manetho, who concludes the second book of his annals with the nineteenth dynasty, breaks off. He, however, acquaints us that the next, or twentieth dynasty, consisted of Diospolites, as well as the eighteenth and nineteenth, and was the last family of that line: and we, accordingly, find the tombs of a number of uncatalogued Ramses, successors of those of the Tablets, in the Necropolis of Thebes, where the last ten of the catalogued kings, the line of Ramses I., are found entombed. The former have no place in the subsequent dynasties of Manetho, of which we possess nearly all the names, and therefore belong to the nameless twentieth dynasty.. Again, as the Diospolites end with this dynasty, the records of the Necropolis of Thebes also finish with the above-mentioned kings, none of those of the dynasties after the twentieth being buried there. Thus far we have a wonderfully authenticated portion of history, not only as to the succession, but the years of the reigns, which, so far as dates appear in isolated tablets, critically agree with Manetho. Thus, we find a tablet of the twenty-second of Amos, who reigned twenty-five years, according to that historian; one of the twenty-eighth of Thothmos III., answering to the Thmosis of Manetho, who reigned thirty-nine years; one of the thirty-sixth of Amenoph III. or Rathek, and Rathotis reigned thirtynine years: one of the sixty-second of Ramses II., or Amon me Ramses, the constructor of the tablet of Abydoseth and the Rameses Meiamoun of Mantheo, whose reign was sixty-six years. Still, from the want of synchronous history, and from the absence of the proper names of the early Scriptural Pharaohs, the place of this great line in time is far from agreed to: and, whether the Exodus of the Jews be referable to the beginning, middle, or end of the eighteenth dynasty, are questions on which the ingenuity of writers has not yet tried itself, notwithstanding the evidence Collate Joseph. Antiq. viii. 6, with Lib. contra Apion. i. This important tablet enriches our National Museum. It is from the last collection of Mr. Salt. of Josephus and all the oldest ecclesiastical authorities in favour of the first of these opinions. We shall for the present pass over the thirteen carly contemporary dynasties, and devote the remainder of this article to the second portion of the annals, as of more immediate importance to general history. To it belong the dynasties named from the cities of Lower Egypt, from the twenty-first downwards-Tanites, Bubastites, Saites, Sebennytes, and Mendesians; besides the foreign Ethiopian and Persian dynasties. Of these, the historical names of nearly all the princes (those of the first of them, the twenty-first dynasty, excepted), have also been identified on their monumental remains, with sufficient difference in style to mark their relative ages compared with the remains of the great Diospolite age; whereas, the monumental records of the general succession of this period are wanting, and we are in a great degree dependent on written history for the order of the reigns, confirmed, however, in a variety of instances by the hieroglyphic genealogical Tablets. The synchronous records of the Hebrew and Greek writers are, however, so complete, during the greatest part of this interval, that we are in no want of monuments to verify Egyptian history, although evidence from that source is in many cases most complete. The sacred writers begin to give the names of the kings of Egypt with Shishak, who was reigning in the last years of Solomon, and took Jerusalem in the fifth year of Rehoboam; and he, accordingly, appears as Sesonchis, the first king of Manetho's twentysecond dynasty of Bubastites, while his monumental counterpart, Sheshonk, is found on the sculptures of the temple of Karnak, with the King of Judah (having the title of Jouda Melek) among his captives. The So and Tirhakah of Scripture appear in the Sevechus and Taracus of the twenty-fifth dynasty, and the Necho and Hophra of the former, in the Neco and Va phres or Apries of the twenty-sixth dynasty, and of the Greek historians; while all these, and the rest of their respective lines, have left monumental remains. Of the twenty-first dynasty of Tanites we have no synchronous, or rather connected history; but we have hieroglyphic tablets of Mandouphth, which can only be referred to Mendes, Amendes, or Smendes, its founder; and the chronological place of this family is sufficiently determined by those of the twenty-second and succeeding dynasties, all of Lower Egypt, as well as the twenty-first. The synchronous history of this period affords us every facility for collating the various Egyptian statements, and more particularly the copies of Manetho's history, and of hence determining which of the latter affords the original and uncorrupted account, to the exclusion of those which exhibit not merely the errors of transcribers, but the systematic corruptions of theorists, who admitted original evidence only so far as it harmonized with their particular views on ecclesiastical history. And this being ascertained, it may direct us to the true versions and principles of the annals with reference to those portions which are not obnoxious to the test of contemporary history. By this process we shall also arrive at hitherto unnoticed proofs of the high place in which Manetho should be ranked as an historian, independently of the recent monumental verifications, and which ought at all times to have protected him from the doubts and freedoms of past and present criticism. This portion of history ascends four centuries above the Ethiopian conquest and dynasty, B. c. 732, to the age of Samuel, Judge of Israel, and descends an equal period below the same epoch, to the overthrow of the Persian empire and invasion of Egypt by Alexander. It involves, as above, the scriptural landmarks of the reigns of Shishak, So, Tirhakah, Necho, and Hophra, and the reigns of the Persian monarchs from Cambyses to Alexander, which the researches of the Greek astronomers have fixed with mathematical certainty; so that we have every oportunity of investigating it. The dynasties of this period may be stated as follows, according to the data which contemporary Jewish and Grecian history supplies for determining the correct Egyptian version f om among the copies of Manetho given by Africanus, Eusebius, and Syncellus, and brought together in the work before us: |