phis, a monarch whose amiable but unwarlike qualities are ill adapted to the crisis which is secretly but rapidly approaching. The Palli, the warlike possessors of Palestine, had formerly held Egypt by the tenure of conquest; and, although expelled by the skill and valour of preceding monarchs, they were now, with increased resources, collecting, under the command of a brave and experienced commander, on the north-eastern frontier of the Delta, while a considerable number of their countrymen who had been permitted to remain as peaceful sojourners, were ready to co-operate by a general insurrection. In this state of things, the youths introduced in the passage just cited, enter on the scene of action. They · were the two sons of Sosis, the chief general and commander of the Egyptian forces, one of the bulwarks of its monarchy, equally respected by his king, and honoured by his people. Born in the caste of warriors, and descended from names highly distinguished for their devotedness to sacred Egypt, Sosis saw in their achievements an example to emulate, which the trying events of his own career had brightly and nobly accomplished.'

Sabacon, the eldest, is athletic in frame, fierce and aspiring in spirit. The younger brother, though active, brave, and vigorous, is of a more graceful mould. Gentle in disposition, highly intellectual in character and in pursuit, he combined in himself all the qualities which make up the hero, and which enable him to protract the fall, and ultimately to achieve the deliverance of his country.

Circumstances soon offered Rameses an opportunity of distinguishing himself. He quells by his ability and valour a Pallic insurrection in Memphis, and avows his determination to encounter the mysterious terrors which beset the path of initiation into the sacerdotal order. He is prompted to this by his thirst for knowledge and his reverence for the gods. We cannot say that we think the Author quite so successful here as in other parts of his tale. The miserable charlatanism of the whole affair; the squib and cracker system of alternate blaze and darkness, noise and silence, the rosined lightning,' the fac-simile thunders, earthquakes, cataracts, fiery rivers, illuminated goddesses, howling and scowling demons, gorgons and galanty shows-all these are but a Bartholemew-fair business after all, and required a different management from that which we find in the paragraphs before us. We have not now leisure to inquire, whether ancient authorities sanction the general outline of the description or not: if they do, it should have been given with greater simplicity; if it be altogether fictitious, more use should have been made of the palpable

'obscure.' Mrs. Radcliffe's terrible shadows' should have been freely worked into the picture ;-it should have been like the magnificent Angerstein Rembrandt, rich, glowing, mysterious, with an interminable depth of shade around and beyond. Rameses, however, gets through it all with eclât, and thus enters upon public life under the most favourable auspices. In the mean time, the Palli, under the command of Salatis, gather in arms on the frontier. A battle is fought, in which Sabacon, a sort of Egyptian Prince Rupert, is victorious with his division, but entails, by his impetuosity, the defeat of his own countrymen. In a subsequent attempt to force the passage of the Nile, Salatis is baffled by the exertions of Rameses, whose exploits excite his brother's jealousy to such an excess, that, on the eve of the battle which is to decide the fate of Egypt, he is seized by the agents of Sabacon, immured in a sepulchre whence escape is impossible, and left to die. The battle is fought, and, through the absence of Rameses, is lost; Sosis is killed; Sabacon, with a few followers, escapes to the fens of the Delta; Amenophis, completely panic-struck, collects all his remaining troops, and, with his priests and nobles, retires into Ethiopia; and the Palli burst upon the Nilotic provinces in the full tide of successful invasion. At this moment Rameses, released by his friends, whom a wounded slave had directed to his place of confinement, re-appears on the scene, rallies the scattered soldiers whom he finds on his way, and makes a last desperate stand behind the ramparts of Memphis. Besieged by Salatis, after a fierce resistance with inefficient means, the walls are carried by assault, and Rameses falls into the hands of Salatis, but, of course, escapes just at the moment in which he is about to be put to death. And now commençes a complete harlequinade. Fire, earth, and water are made to assist Rameses in the critical minute. An amusing bustle is thus produced, but its effect is rather too pantomimic, and in some degree injurious to the more valuable instruction, of which the narrative is intended to be the vehicle,

The whole series of transactions is, in fact, made subservient to the object which we have before adverted to. The sepulchres, labyrinths, temples, and excavations, with their various decorations, are incidentally described; the habits and feelings of the people are worked into the adventures of the hero with much skill; and, with the abatements we have already suggested, the volumes may be considered as giving a well executed popular view of ancient Egypt. Labour has not been spared, nor has ability been wanting, in its production. We have already given a specimen of the Author's talents for general painting. We shall now cite an example of more

specific delineation, in the description of the palace of Medinet Habû.

• Placed on the left bank of the Nile, a mound reaches to the very Libyan chain of mountains, from which elevation the palace commands the whole plain. Its battlements crown the walls towards the Nile; and approaching it from royal Thebes, appears a gateway of colossal proportions, its cornice and facia sloping outward. A small gallery in front has its deities adorned with entwining leaves of vines and the appropriate ornaments of great Bacchus, highly revered in Egypt as in India and the countries of the East. An immense gateway, 80 cubits in length, displays its front portal sculptured with the winged globe and serpents, shining in brightest colours. Standing by it is the small and solemn temple, its walls marked with the initiatory rites and sacred mysteries: also fronting it is a rectangular basin, typical of the lake of the mysteries, containing the limpid waters, a type of renewed purity, and having at each corner the lion-headed statues of black basalt. These superb buildings all precede the magnificent pavilion of the king, which, rising on two stages, crowns the immense elevation, while two gateways, sculptured within and without, correspond with two pyramidal towers; and all alike shine in hieroglyphic symbols, boldly etched, and strikingly graven on these ponderous walls. The blank windows have console frames, supported on two human figures pressed down and prostrate as captives, while the vacant space or niche above them displays warlike trophies of bronze and gold. In one compartment is portrayed a brilliant youthful form, as a winged genius, led by a conducting star to glory. The halls adjacent have their ceilings of the lozenge form, enriched with every dye of colour. An enormous gateway leads to a truly royal court, surrounded by colonnades, each pillar distinguished with the statue of Horus the solar god. His countenance, so austere, yet mild, graven upon the caryatide forms, exhibits an impressive and monumental character, rendering this court most striking and sublime. The dress and vestments of the sculptured figures, bearing on their heads the ceilings of the lengthened porticoes, are singularly rich. The architrave is highly elevated, and shows a series of basso-relievos most admirable, deeply cut in stone, indelible and unhurt by time; above which is a noble cornice of the sacred scarabeus. Such was the entrance hall. Beyond it, through a gateway, a perystile spread its lengthening pillars in dimensions so extensive and spacious, as to exceed any single feature of the great proportions even of Thebes. It had been from times remote, under the royal Pharoahs, the great audience-court of Egypt's sovereigns. Even in this land of wonders, its vastness and its grandeur must surprise. Caryatide columns of stupendous size, with ceilings representing the celestial firmament of a deep blue tinge and studded with stars; soffits of the hawk with wide extended wings; the walls covered with sculptured paintings, displaying the initiatory pomp, numerous offerings to the gods, and victorious triumphs adorned with captives, chariots, and attendants; all shine in wondrous sculptures, deeply

graven on the walls. The lower walls display a row of gigantic deities, forming a scene altogether splendid and magnificent. Numerous apartments closed in imperviously and appropriated to the monarch's private residence, concluded the line of building. Nothing can exceed the view which from these walls presents itself on every side. On the east, the mountains of Arabia bound the horizon; on the north-west, the Libyan chain of hills, wherein are excavated, with incredible labour, the royal tombs and caverns of the Thebaide; to the east spreads a wide plain, enamelled with the brightest verdure, green and refreshing to the eye; and the glittering spires and obelisks of Luxor and Karnak appear within its range. If the scenery without combines such interesting features, all within the courts is solemn, striking, and of singular grandeur, impressing admiration, from the magnificent scale on which the whole is planned."

The denouement is prosperous. Amenophis, roused to a sense of his duties, advances with his army from Ethiopia; Sabacon takes the command, and a fierce conflict commences, which terminates in the complete rout of the Egyptians. At this decisive minute, Rameses, who has been sojourning in the Oasis of Jupiter Ammon, making friends and allies among the neighbouring tribes, appears on the field at the head of a Libyan army and restores the day: he kills Salatis, under whose sword Sabacon has just fallen, embraces his dying brother, and is ultimately raised to the summit of happiness, in the possession of Nitocris-a little love-making is indispensible in a hero's career-in the unbounded favour of his sovereign, and the love and admiration of his countrymen.

Art. VIII. 1. For Missionaries after the Apostolic School, a Series of Orations. In Four Parts. By the Rev. Edward Irving, A.M. Part I. 8vo. pp. 132. Price 4s. London. 1825.

2. An Expostulatory Letter to the Rev. Edward Irving, A.M. Occasioned by his Orations for Missionaries after the Apostolical School. By William Orme. 8vo. pp. 76. London. 1825.

WHEN our Lord first sent forth his twelve apostles "to

the lost sheep of the house of Israel," he bade them "beware of men ;" and, as indispensible qualifications for their arduous enterprise, he exhorted them to unite the wisdom (that is the caution and sagacity) of the serpent with the inoffensiveness of the dove. Though invested with miraculous credentials, and sent forth under the immediate authority of their Lord, they were thus taught that nothing could supersede the necessity of prudence in the discharge of their high commission. They were in the first instance to confine their

mission to their own countrymen, and not even to enter a Samaritan city. Among other directions given, therefore, they are enjoined not to provide themselves with either money or change of raiment, but to avail themselves of the hospitality which, as Jews, they were secure of meeting in every part of their own country, and which is still a feature of the customs of the East. Yet, even under such circumstances, placed as they would be like sheep in the midst of wolves, sheep trusted for the first time too from under the shepherd's eye, they would stand in need of prudence as one prime requisite.

A Christian Missionary entering a foreign, perhaps an uncivilized country in the present day, although he may be of the Apostolic school, must be admitted to be not precisely in the predicament of the twelve Apostles. Waiving his not being indued with the power to heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, and cast out devils,-endowments which would still ensure for their possessor, not merely the rites of hospitality, but the highest honours all over the East,-the very circumstance of his being a foreigner among men of a strange tongue, must make an incalculable difference. Instead of Jews travelling among Jews in their own land and under the protection of the civil government, we have an English Protestant, for instance, entering a Mohammedan country like Persia, encountering a nation of idolatrous barbarians, as in the islands of the South Seas, or trusting himself in the interior of a savage continent among brutal hordes of Africans. In either of these cases, it would be hard to say what is the first qualification for a Missionary; but prudence, the prudence of the serpent, would seem at all events not to be the last. Not so thinks the Rev. Edward Irving.

I remember, in this metropolis, to have heard it uttered with great applause in a public meeting, where the heads and leaders of the religious world were present, "If I were asked what was the first qualification for a Missionary, I would say prudence; and what the second? prudence; and what the third? still I would answer prudence." I trembled while I heard, not with indignation, but with horror and apprehension, what the end would be of a spirit which I have since found to be the presiding genius of our activity, the ruler of our ascendant. Now, if I read the eleventh chapter of St. Paul's Epistle to the Hebrews, I find that from the time of Abel to the time of Christ, it was by faith that the cloud of witnesses witnessed their good confession and so mightily prevailed; which faith is there defined the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen; whereas prudence or expediency is the substance of things present, the evidence of things seen. So that faith and prudence are opposite poles in the soul, the one attracting to it all things spiritual and divine, the other all things sensual and earthly.'