only present the most varied devices on the exterior, but the same hue and the same device pass, in right lines, directly through the substance; so that in whatever part it is broken, or wherever a section may chance to be made of it, the same appearance, the same colors, and the same device, present themselves, without any deviation from the direction of a straight line-a mode of workmanship, which Europeans are still unable to imitate. "It is not from the Scriptures alone that the skill of the Egyp tian goldsmiths may be inferred; the sculptures of Thebes and Beni Hassan afford their additional testimony; and the numerous gold and silver vases, inlaid-work and jewelry, represented in common use, show the great advancement they had already made, at a remote period, in this branch of art. The engraving of gold, the mode of casting it, and inlaying it with stones, were evidently known at the same time; numerous specimens of this kind of work have been found in Egypt." "2 The ornaments in gold, found in that country, consist of rings, bracelets, armlets, necklaces, earrings, and numerous trinkets belonging to the toilet; many of which are of the early times of Osirtasen L. and Thothmes III., the contemporaries of Joseph and of Moses. Gold and silver vases, statues, and other objects of gold and silver, of silver inlaid with gold, and of bronze inlaid with the precious metals, were also common at the same time.. Substances of various kinds were overlaid with fine gold leaf, at the earliest periods of which the monuments remain, even in the time of Osirtasen 13 Silver rings have been found of the age of Thothmes III The paintings of Thebes frequently represent persons in the act of weighing gold on the purchase of articles in the market. The arch of brick existed as early as the reign of Amunoph L., 1540 B. C. It would appear from the paintings at Beni Hassan, that vaulted buildings were constructed as early as the time of Joseph. Harps of fourteen and lyres of seventeen strings, are found to have been used by the ordinary Egyptian musicians, in the reign of Amosis, about 1500 B. C. Stoue-workers were accustomed," says Rosellini, "to engrave upon each square block an inscription in hieroglyphics; an impression was made upon the bricks, which besides, very frequently, bore inscriptions; even "Aaron fashioned it with a graving tool, after he had made it a molten calf." Ex. 32: 4. 2 Wilkinson, III. 223. The ark of acacia wood, made by Moses, was overlaid with pure gold. Ex. 25: 11, 12. 1845.] Papyrus used for Paper in Egypt. 379 oxen were represented; the steward of the house kept a written register. They probably wrote more in ancient Egypt, and on more ordinary occasions, than among us." "The Egyptians," says the same author, "differ specially from all other people, in that they constantly cover the interior and exterior of their houses, and the walls of all the innumerable apartments of their subterranean burial-places, with images and writing." In the infancy of society, various materials were employed for writing, as stones, bricks, tiles, plates of bronze, lead and other metals, wooden tablets, the leaves and bark of trees, and the shoulder-bones of animals.2 The Egyptians were not less celebrated for their manufacture of paper, than for the delicate texture of their linen. The plant from which it was made, the papyrus, mostly grew in Lower Egypt. "Pliny is greatly in error," says Wilkinson, "when he supposes that the papyrus was not used for making paper before the time of Alexander the Great, since we meet with papyri of the most remote Pharaonic periods; and the same mode of writing on them is shown, from the sculptures, to have been common in the age of Suphis or Cheops, the builder of the great pyramid, more than 2000 years before our era."3 From the facts above quoted, and which might be greatly enlarged, all antecedent improbability in respect to the discovery of the art of writing is taken away. Rather, the contemporaneous existence of an art so necessary is strongly presupposed.4 P. 89. Robbins's Translation of Hengstenberg's Egypt and the Books of Moses, The Koran, which much exceeds the Pentateuch in extent, was first inscribed on the most inconvenient materials. Fragments of it, written in the time of Mohammed, and subsequently incorporated into the work, were written not only on pieces of skin or parchment, but to a greater extent, on leaves of the palm, on white and flat stones, on bones, such as shoulder-blades and ribs. 3 Wilkinson, III. 149, 150. The question may possibly be asked, How can the very early existence of the arts in Egypt be asserted so positively? On what grounds can the exact period of the existence of a particular art be assumed? In other words, on what do the hieroglyphical discoveries rest? One answer is, that all who have examined the monuments, in accordance with the method of deciphering the hieroglyphics discovered by Young and Champollion, are substantially agreed. Coincidence of views in men, differing in many respects so widely as is the case with Young, Champollion, Salvolini, Gesenius, Rosellini, Lepsius, Prudhoe, Wilkinson, Letronne, Leemans and many others, is satisfactory proof of the correctness of the results to which they have arrived. Examinations so thorough and long-continued, by men so competent, taken in connection with the almost perfect preservation of many of the paintings and monuments, justify the confi 5. Letters were introduced into Greece from Phoenicia, and at a very early period. In respect to the first of these positions, there is no longer any doubt. The claims of the Phoenicians rest, not only on historical notices, but on the essential unity which appears in the names and forms of the oriental and Greek letters. "That the Greeks," says Professor Boeckh, "received their alphabetic writing from the Phoenicians, is an undeniable fact."1 In proof of the very early existence of alphabetic writing among the Greeks, the following considerations may be adduced. Even those who deny that Homer practised the art of writing, allow that it was introduced into Greece at an early time. F. A. Wolf even remarks, that the introduction of the art of writing at a very early period may be safely concluded from the testimony of Herodotus.2 O. Müller says, that the art was practised several hundred years before Solon. The oldest inscriptions reach back between 600 and 700 B. C. But these inscriptions imply a previous knowledge of reading somewhat extended; and it may be that letters and the materials of writing were in the hands of a caste long before the earliest inscriptions which have come down to us. The existence of such a learned caste in other countries renders this probable. And it ought ever to be remembered, that there is not one chance in a hundred that our earliest inscriptions are actually the earliest. It would not be relevant to go at large into the question, whether the author of the Homeric poems made use of writing, yet it may be well to advert to it briefly. We have names and some fragments of epic poets who go back as far as to the commencement of the Olympiads, about 780 or 800 B. C., and who, it was never pretended, delivered their poems orally. Why should Homer be torn from their company, if it can be shown that he did dence which is now universally accorded. Another answer is, that the results of the deciphering agree substantially with the notices respecting the subject in Diodorus, Herodotus, Manetho, Clement, etc. The monuments, in many essential points, confirm the historians. There is often a circumstantial agreement in a number of independent witnesses. Between the Bible and the monuments no instance of contradiction has yet been found. Among the biblical proper names or מף, נא־אָמוֹן, תִּרְהַקָה, כּוּשׁ, פול, לוּדִים found on the monuments, are etc. See Halle, נִינְוֵה, פָרַס בֵּית חֹרוֹן, מַחֲנַיִם, נַהֲרַיִם, שִׁיעַק, מִגְדּוֹ, נֹף Lit. Zeit. May, 1839, p. 21. 1 Metrologische Untersuchungen, 1838, p. 41. * Wolf maintains that it was impossible, even for the poets themselves, without the aid of writing, to project and retain in their memory, poems of such an extent as the Iliad. 1845.] Homer acquainted with the Art of Writing. 381 not live more than a century, or a century and a half before them? Again there are two or three allusions in the Iliad itself, which, to say the least, are most naturally interpreted by supposing the contemporaneous use of writing. In lines 166-170 of Book VI., it is related, that Bellerophon was sent by the king of Argos to a Lycian king, with a closed tablet, in which the former had traced many deadly signs, onuara λvygά, that is, had given secret instructions to the Lycian king to destroy the bearer. Did this tablet contain alphabetical characters or mere pictures? The former is certainly the most simple and reasonable interpretation. But if they were hieroglyphics, it would be evident, as Thirlwall remarks,' that the want of alphabetic writing, which was so felt, and which had been partially supplied by drawing, would soon be met by adopting the Phoenician characters. If the Greeks had no proper alphabet, still this narrative shows that they were fully prepared for it, as they had the idea of communicating intelligence to a distant place by signs. Again, we learn from innumerable passages in the Homeric Poems, that the Phoenicians at that time carried on an active commerce with the Greeks. Homer was himself an Asiatic Greek, or a native of an island near the Asiatic shore. As we know that the Phoenicians practised writing before his time, is it conceivable, that the inquisitive Greeks would remain in ignorance of a discovery so useful, or that Homer's universal genius would not obtain a hint of an art from innumerable voyagers and travellers, whom he must have seen, whom he well knew, and who practised an art which was in general use two or three hundred miles from his own home, probably on the same coast? There are many things in these poems, which, to say the least, it would be nearly impracticable to hand down through successive generations by the memory in its utmost perfection. A catalogue of ships occupies half of the second book of the Iliad. Supposing that parts of it are interpolated, yet it is still a catalogue, a lexicon of countries, cities, towns, nearly all the geography and topography of Greece. There are the names of leaders, often with their genealogies, wives, children, and finally a list of more than thirteen hundred ships. To this is to be added all the commanders and allies of Troy, and a geographical summary of their native countries and cities. Could such things be safely trusted Thirlwall's Greece, I. p. 108, Harpers' ed. 33 VOL. II. No. 6. to the memory? Is the memory tenacions of long lists of dry names and facts?! Again, notwithstanding all which has been ingeniously urged on the opposite side, there is a manifest unity of plan and a higher unity of feeling and action in the Iliad. If this is the case, then, the Iliad must have come down to us in its most essential parts, as it proceeded from the soul of the author. It is hardly conceivable that a series of later poets could have so entered into the mind of the author as to develop that inward, living germ which the poem certainly possesses. There is a bare possibility that portions of the Paradise Lost were not from the pen of Milton. Yet it would require some degree of hardihood positively to affirm what is directly in face of the unity of the poem. The products of a great genius are not of that loose and uncertain character. The original, organic connection must be destroyed by later interpolating poets. In the case of Homer too, it must be supposed that these later poets were men of equal genius, which would certainly be a most extraordinary phenomenon. Here then are two poems, containing, after all interpolations are removed, twenty-five or thirty thousand lines, exhibiting a symmetry of parts, a unity of plan more or less developed, and all animated by the spirit of sweet simplicity, genuine nature, and also by the highest sublimity. Is it reasonable to suppose that there were a number of authors? Is it reasonable to imagine, is it not rather incredible, that the author could have transmitted these poems without the aid of writing materials? We may conceive, possibly, that they could be transmitted from the second person or generation to the third, and so on, without such aid. But in the first instance, they must have been committed to something more firm than man's treacherous memory. The process of composing a poem of fifteen thousand or of ten thousand lines, according to a regular plan, the various parts more or less cohering together, with thousands of proper names, and all without the aid of writing materials, would seem to involve an impossibility on the very face of it. At all events, it is far less simple and is encompassed with much more formidable difficulties than the old and common theory.3 1 Hug Erfindung d. Buchstabenschrift, p. 90. O. Müller rejects the opinion of those, who would separate the Iliad and Odyssey into parts, as altogether antiquated. 3 The same course of argument may be applied to the Pentateuch. There are various passages in it, as the exact census Num. ii., and the itinerary, Num. xxxiii., for which the memory would be a very unsafe depository. There |