happy position as a slave-holder had robbed him of his reason, as well as blunted his moral sense.

In this country no power but that of the slave-holding States can remove the evil, and none of us are anxious to take the office from their hands. They alone can do it safely. They alone can determine and apply the true and sure means of emancipation. That such means exist I cannot doubt; for emancipation has already been carried through successfully in other countries; and even were there no precedent, I should be sure, that, under God's benevolent and righteous government, there could not be a necessity for holding human beings in perpetual bondage. This faith, however, is not universal. Many, when they hear of the evils of slavery, say, 'It is bad, but remediless. There are no means of relief.' They say, in a despairing tore, 'Give us your plan;' and justify their indifference to emancipation, by what they call its hopelessness. This state of mind has induced me to offer a few remarks on the means of removing slavery; not that I suppose, that an individual so distant can do the work to which the whole intellect and benevolence of the South should be summoned, but that I may suggest a few principles, which I think would insure a happy result to the benevolent enterprise, and that I may remove the incredulity of which I have complained."—pp. 69, 70.

We have above alluded, with approbation, to the author's system of means of removing slavery. Our great objection to his means, respects the parties who are to set them in motion. Will the slave-holders do it? Did their brethren in the West Indies do it? What but agitation, and the vehemence of aroused natures in Britain, brought about the abolition of the slave-trade, and the emancipation of our slaves? We do not believe that slave-holders, as a body, can ever be effectually moved, even by such terrific representations and high-souled sentiments as the author has put forth, voluntarily to abolish slavery. They who are callous to the reality of slavery, are not likely to be melted by a picture of it. We, therefore, think, that external agitation can alone force them to do their duty. When this is to be found strong enough in America, and what is to be the consequence of its application, are distinct questions. Upon the whole, Dr. Channing's essay seems to us unsurpassed on the subject of slavery generally. It abounds, too, in many sage aphorisms, and deeply-considered doctrines, which admit of a wide application to other subjects and other countries. A great and luminous mind is always grasping broad truths, and sending light over other regions than the one it professes to traverse. But we also think, that the removal of slavery from the Southern States of America is a task, which even the author's abilities have not been able to embrace, either as respects the means, or the relative condition of the two sections of his native country.

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ART. III.-The Early History of Egypt, from the Old Testament, Herodotus, Manetho, and the Hieroglyphical Inscriptions. By SAMUEL SHARPE. London: Moxon.

1836.

THERE are two classes of persons whose boldness of enterprise, and whose perseverance of conduct, particularly strike us as exhibiting human nature in a character that is heroic. They have both of late years been numerous beyond precedent. One of these classes we include under the name of voyagers and travellers, to distant, unknown, and savage lands, encountering dangers of the most formidable character, and often submitting to toils and privations, which, unless the adventurers had been sustained by the noblest purposes and ambition, must have prostrated both mind and body, without a record being left of their exertions, conquests, or perhaps death. There is not a motive which these men can be supposed to yield to in such enterprises, that is not commendable and lofty. Is it a mere love of excitement-is it curiosity which moves them? In this case there are proofs of those ardent, as well as sensitive feelings, which cannot be disjoined from ingenuous character, and which, being susceptible of the finest and noblest impressions, are sure to gather, wherever their possessors go, an amount of facts, which, set off with a congenial keeping, never fail to interest and improve less adventurous spirits. Is it a devotion to science which arms the traveller for inhospitable and barbarous climes? Then it is to bring home new lights, and to enlarge the boundaries of the soundest knowledge, that he labours. Or is it the enlightenment and eternal salvation of those who dwell in the dark places of the earth, and whose habitations are full of cruelty? Then he is one of the champions of philanthropy, who not merely strives to sow seed which will bear blossoms in the wilderness, to the end of time, and flourish for ever, but his career and his achievements become a happy theme for thousands of the purest and tenderest minds at home to think of, with unfailing and sweetest gratulation. Yea, is it the love of gold, the hope of opening a new channel for his merchandize? Then the adventurer must be a good as well as a bold man; for he knows that one of the surest vehicles of civilization is that intercourse between nations placed in perfectly opposite conditions, which honest traffic creates and cherishes; he feels that the love of gain is consistent with the best feelings of humanity; nay, that it is essential to the welfare and prosperity of mankind; and thus upheld, pursues his bold career.

There is another class of men, whose labours have contributed immensely to the entertainment, instruction, and satisfaction of their fellow-creatures, and whose moral courage seems not to be surpassed by that of any adventurers, not even in degree, by their

own ingenuity and intelligence. We mean antiquarians-those persons who have extracted riches of the most curious kind, from heaps and from depths, which ordinary minds characterize as rubbish, and as places containing nothing but darkness. It is a narrow and erroneous idea which some entertain, that those who spend their days and nights in such pursuits, when the objects sought have not an intrinsic value of their own, are triflers. How is the ore to be found, without many vain and uncertain efforts? Nay, how is the workman to become able to distinguish what is gold from what is dross, without a long apprenticeship in similar researches? Let us take an example of what such explorers have discovered, and turned to incalculable advantage for the benefit of the world.

Every schoolboy who has read the Old Testament, knows that Egypt was among the first of the mighty and civilized nations upon earth; and from certain notices found in the sacred record concerning that land, he entertains some of the most engaging and affecting sentiments. But a little more inquiry will let him know, that primitive Egypt, as a nation or an empire, was extinct, and her history buried in oblivion, even before many other nations, which are now considered very ancient, were founded; excepting, in so far as a very few scattered and disjointed notices go, some of them derived from hearsay far descended. The various recorders of these traditions, too, adopted different modes of announcing what they heard, as to the computations of time, the pronunciation or spelling of proper names, and a number of other particulars. Had the most ancient Egyptians consigned their history to writing in an alphabetical form, and had a few such records been transmitted to us, scholars and antiquarians, no doubt, would have found out some method by which to decipher them, and would have published their contents in the language of every civilized country. But the tyro knows that the Egyptians of old used hieroglyphical signs; that few of these symbols, compared with the importance and extent of time embraced, have been discovered by the moderns; and that those which have been found, are of such a character as to seem to defy human ingenuity to discover a key for their interpretation. Let any one unacquainted with what such men as our author can do, but glance at one of the hieroglyphical plates in the work before us, and he will assuredly think, that no man less gifted than Joseph of old, who unriddled dreams, could possibly gather a single idea from the whole display. What, then, can antiquarians know of the condition of Egypt as it was thirty centuries ago, while the Jews, the earliest nation that has handed down to us the history of their own rise and civilization, were yet a tribe of wandering shepherds under Abraham? What can be known beyond the few bald and scattered statements to be met with in the Old Testament-statements properly confined to what immediately concerned the Jews alone? Our answer

is, or rather Mr. Sharpe's work proves, that much besides is known' which never could be gathered from the Old Testament or any historian. Much more may yet be discovered, all by the perseverance and skill of antiquarians.

It is not only pretty accurately ascertained what dynasties, and what kings reigned during the remote centuries above alluded to, but the state of the arts and sciences as they then existed, the civilization of the people, their mythology, their domestic habits, their political institutions, nay, their physical character, are all so far known, as to enable us to reason upon them to our great advantage. To our great advantage! How this, from a period so obscure, and a people so remote? so remote? The reply may with better right be given interrogatively.-Is it of no moment to learn what the architecture, the geometry, the agriculture, the letters of such a people were, from which the Greeks borrowed so much? Is it of no importance to know what was the form of government of a people who have bequeathed to posterity the most splendid monuments of art?

"The inquiry into the political condition of any people who have left behind them works worthy of admiration, is of the highest moral importance. The pyramids of Lower Egypt, requiring for their erection the least quantity of architectural knowledge, no elegance of design, no taste in the detail, might possibly have been the work of men driven by taskmasters to their daily labour; but that the palaces, tombs, and temples of Upper Egypt, which present to us the earliest known instances of architecture, sculpture, and painting; the colossal statues of Amenothph and Rameses, requiring considerable anatomical knowledge for the original design, and a mechanical skill in transferring that design from the model to the block of stone, exceeding perhaps even that of the Greeks themselves; the vast works for irrigation; and the correct division of the calendar, requiring great knowledge of mathematics, and this at a time when no other nation, certainly none with whom they were connected, was in an equally cultivated state;-that these should have been the works of a people suffering under political disadvantages would contradict all our observations on the human mind and its powers."-p. 7.

Are researches into the early history of Egypt of no value, when we find that every new and well-authenticated fact serves, as in all other cases, to confirm the sacred record, in so far as its testimony upon the point at issue is concerned? If the questions we put be answered in the affirmative, then the studies of our author have not been idle or trifling; then the researches of such laborious and persevering heroes and adventurers as Champollion, Wilkinson, and Young, into the history and condition of ancient Egypt, ought to be held in the highest estimation.

The principal features and value of the present work consist in its giving a concise enumeration of the great sources from which any important knowledge has yet been derived regarding the early

history of Egypt, that is, of its history before its conquest by the Persians, five hundred and twenty-five years before the commencement of the Christian era, together with a masterly collection and arrangement of every important particular thus derived, whether from the writings of ancient authorities, from hieroglyphical inscriptions, architectural remains, statues, and other relics of Egyp→ tian power and ingenuity. The author has also given essays on the dates of the Trojan War, and the Jewish Exodus. We quote what he says in his preface regarding these periods.

"There are two epochs in the history of the Jews, and two in the history of Greece, upon which the chronology of Egypt principally rests: these are the times of Moses, Solomon, Cambyses, and the Trojan War. The accession of Cambyses is as well known, by means of the eclipses of the moon observed at Babylon, as is the accession of George III.; the time of Solomon's reign is nearly as well known; but considerable doubt hangs over the other epochs, which the Author is not so presumptuous as to suppose that he has in any degree dispelled; but he thought it desirable to state the grounds upon which he had assigned dates to those events. The time of the Trojan War is perhaps the least uncertain of the two, but then it is the least important, because the inquiry in strictness ought to be, not when that war took place, but when did Manetho, who dates from it as an epoch, suppose that it took place. But however antiquarians may differ about a few minor points, the agreement between the various authorities will be seen to be in the highest degree satisfactory. The fragments of Manetho, which are quoted by Josephus as a valuable testimony to the truth of the Jewish history, are confirmed by the list of kings contained in the Tablet of Abydus in particular, and by every historical inscription which can be compared with them: Herodotus and the later books of the Old Testament strongly illustrate one another, and further light is thrown upon both of them by several passages in later historians and though we have no contemporary authority early enough to be compared with the account of Egypt in the Old Testament before the Jewish Exodus, yet the splendid buildings which were erected in the centuries immediately following satisfactorily confirm the account of the high state of civilization observed there by Abraham and Joseph."—pp. v, vi.

The high state of civilization of the ancient Egyptians may also be incontrovertibly ascertained, from the amount and nature of mathematical knowledge required to make the waters of the Nile serviceable to the enriching of the soil, the productions of which must have been immense, to feed a population necessary to raise the enormous monuments that still remain. The quantity of this knowledge, as the author says, may be best judged of, when we consider that these waters were brought over such an extent of country as that from the highest nilometer at Elephantine, to that great reservoir the lake of Mæris; and again, over the alluvial plain of the Delta; and then, considering the number of publications on hydrostatics, and on the force of running water, that have been brought into existence by the rise in the bed of the Po, and by the