the winter-time; and that there must be very little, or no life in the plant, no circulation in the veffels of it, before a petrefaction, can happen in it: It follows then, that there is not any danger in drinking the most powerfully petrifying waters. It is not from fuch a caufe that the ftone and gravel ever proceed. A grotto fide. The next curious thing I was fhewn in this valley was a repofitory at the end of it, by the fea in a spacious concavity in the cliffs, which the hand of nature had opened here, and by the sweep of a grand arch, exhibited a view of the ocean. The scene is ftriking and fine. Nothing can be more charming than the vast deep, appearing in fuch a way, at the end of the most romantic vale in the world. The black rock-walls of this fpacious chamber, Mrs. Harcourt covered over with the most beautiful fhells and foffils fhe could find in the Western Islands, and the other countrys fhe had been in. She made it the moft glorious apartment upon earth, by a difplay of all the most beautiful conchæ, various marcafites, corals, and foffil gems, which run over the arched roof and the fides and by a collection of the most valuable curiofities and antiquities brought into it, rendered it a treasury fuperior in worth to the mufæum of any prince that I have been in. As her father left her near half a million An account riofities, in million of money, befides a fine estate, she was enabled to purchase what she pleased, and had the heart to pay for any thing her fine tate approved. I was delighted with this grot beyond all things my eyes have seen. It is the finest cell that contemplation has in our hemifphere. One way the fparkling cave takes in the awful, filent, fragrant glin: And before you, in all the majefty of spectacle, old ocean is feen. Many a lone hour did I delight to pass in this room. I have often thought of it, and wifhed myself there, when perplexed with many a comic distress in this roaring town. Were I to defcribe the many fine curiofiof fome cu- ties that were in this repofitory, when Mrs. the repofi- Harcourt paffed fome fummer-months in tory in the the place (a), it would take me up many Green Land. Two Egyp tian Munantes. fheets, and a great deal of time; but I have neither to fpare, I am fure, at present, and therefore I fhall only mention a few, for a fmall gratification to that taste you have for fuch things. Two Egyptian Mummies brought from the (a) Since the death of Mrs. Harcourt, and the focietys no longer making the ifland a fummer-lodge, all the moveable curiofities, and the moft elegant and valuable fhells, corals, marcafites, and foffil gems, were removed to their noble library in Richmondshire, and with others fince collected, there form the fineft grotto in England. But Mr. Hanmer has fince repaired the ifland-grott, and restored it to its former glory. tombs tombs of Thebes, as the feller avowed, were the figures that ftruck me first. One of them was called the body of a princess, the daughter of Pharaoh Afychis, and the other a priestess of the oracle of Thebes. Infcriptions in old Coptic letters on two gold plates, faftened on the breasts of those things, relate this ftory of them; if the Egyptian who fold them to Mrs. Harcourt has explained the legend right. This I know not. I have fome doubt about it: And befide, it may be a forgery to encrease the price. The letters do not resemble the Coptic alphabet now used in Egypt: And the authors of the Univerfal History are pofitive, that the old Egyptian letters which are seen sometimes in Fold infcriptions, are at prefent unintelligible, and cannot be decyphered. On the other hand, the Copt, who fold the Mummies, might be honeft, and it is hard to think, that none of the Egyptians of this time understand the old language of their country, because the tongue now used differs very greatly from it. One may as well fay the Old Irish is not by any one now underftood, because the Irish at present spoken the natives differs intirely from it; yet a few there are who are mafters of it, and underftand the books written in the old language. My friend, John Toland, underftood ftood it well; as did Mac-Curtin, the Irish hiftorian, with whom I was well acquainted; and one old Irish gentleman I have been often in company with. Again, in relation to the Coptic language, the noble Della Valle, (who was fo fond of his wife, that he carryed her corps with him, done up in cotton, as he travelled over the world,) he tells us in his journal, that he met with feveral who understood it: And a gentleman of my acquaintance, who spent many years in travelling over every part of Egypt, affures me, that during his refidence there, he met with fome fages who inftructed him in the old Egyptian language. The legend then may be as explained by the Copt; and for any thing I can fay to the contrary, one of them may be the Cadavre of Chebra, the king of Egypt's daughter. Suppofing this then, she must have been fifler to Solomon's wife: For it was most certainly a daughter of Pharaoh Afychis that Solomon marryed, and for whom the fong called the Canticles, was fung during the marriage-feaft; a fong that exceeds the warmeft things in Catullus; tho our miserable vifionarys find endless myfteries in it. Pharaoh Afychis was the 11th and last king, but one, of the 20th dynafty of the diofpolitan kings of Egypt, and dyed in the year be fore fore Chrift 1003. It was for the daughter of this monarch that this fon of David built a fine house, after an Egyptian model, as we read in the first book of kings. Thefe Mummies are well preferved, have fycomore coffins, and the coffins of fo extraordinary a workmanship, that they fhew the figure of the bodys as perfectly as if there had been no wood about them. They are two-part cafes, and flide into each other in an admirable manner. The top is like a human head, and has the face of the dead well painted upon it. From the fhoulders to the pedestal, on which the coffin ftood in the tomb (according to the custom of the Egyptians) it is filled with hieroglyphics, birds and beafts, and various figures; but what they fignify we know not. If Chebra's face was like that painted on her coffin, it was a vaftly fine one. There is a thing like a long beard projects from the chin, fuch as is generally feen on all the coffins of the Mummies that have not been injured by time, and what to call it we should not know, had it not been for Dr. Middleton. A beard it cannot be, as it is given to the youngest people. Therefore, fays this great' man, it is the leaf of the Perfea tree; a tree peculiar to Egypt, and confecrated to Ifis, as appears from Plutarch, and several Egyptian |
