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which great numbers of the officers and seamen of the several fleets ascended; and the whole transaction passed in general concord.

After having inflicted the reader with these lengthy strictures, we will now return to the Hartwell Museum, and snatch a hasty glance at the Egyptian vestigia therein contained; but in so doing it may be well to mention, that all the mummied animals will not be enumerated-nor the whole of the little icons or votive figures in stone, porcelain, glass, bronze, or wood; and still less the numerous scarabei, beads, bugles, nilometers, and signet-rings-or the variety of ancient cakes, wheat, dates, nuts, and other fruits found in the tombs at Thebes. Where an antiquary has largely collected, purchased, and received presents for many years, as Dr. Lee has done, the specimens become too numerous for a detailed description in the pages here projected. As the collection, however, is rich in the sepulchral tablets called stelæ, they deserve particular notice; especially since the learned Dr. Leemans, of Leyden, took the pains to examine some of them minutely, and to explain part of their inscriptions, which he did in my presence. The first in the order of the Hartwell Catalogue notation is No. 1273. (See Plate VII.) This is a beautiful funereal tablet of limestone, bearing indications of being from the neighbourhood of Thebes. It is in the form of a door, with eight lines of inscription; a dedication to Osiris, as the sovereign, powerful, and eternal God, by son of Subsjoug. Under the hieroglyphics, the deceased appears, with a lotus in his hand, before an offering bench, on which are sacred cates: by the side of it is a standing figure, carrying incense. The next tablet, No. 1274, is also of compact Theban limestone, and of very superior workmanship, twenty-three inches long by fourteen broad. It represents a deceased female, Petisis, elegantly attired, and with a singular radiated headdress, making an offering of cakes and other articles surmounted by a lotus, to three deities-Osiris, Isis, and the hawk-headed Pitempam-enti Horus; under whom are seven lines of hieroglyphics carefully carved. The summit bears the winged globe, emblem of the Omnipotent, over two jackals, with various

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symbols. These two stela were purchased from the sale of Consul-General Salt's museum, on the 14th of May, 1833.

At that great sale, wherein Mr. Sotheby disposed of the choicest rarities in the respective collections of Messrs. Salt and Burton, there were many papyri, both hieroglyphical and Coptic. Of several of these, also, Dr. Lee became the purchaser; and one proves to be a valuable historical relic.

The Papyrus Nilotica has proved itself, to the moral world, one of the most wonderful of plants, in having preserved the expressions of thought with such extraordinary permanence, that the ideas written thousands of years ago are directly read from the writer's autograph at the present day. This must be even more than the most zealous paper-maker among the Mizraimites could have anticipated, for the vegetable tissue is not indicative of such long duration. In Isaiah's prophecy on the "Confusion of Egypt" (chap. xix. verse 7), the papyrus was of sufficient importance to bear a distinct denunciation—“The PAPER-REEDS by the brooks, by the mouth of the brooks, and everything sown by the brooks, shall wither, be driven away, and be no more." Frequent allusions to it are made by the classical ancients; and both Pliny and Strabo describe the Byblus, or Papyrus Hieraticus.

Good old Gerarde, the excellent Master in Chirurgerie, at page 37 of his well-known Herbal, honours it with a set mention, and a very fair illustrative wood-cut. "The paper reede," he says, "hath many large flaggie leaves, rough in handling, and likewise tough, rising immediately from a tuft of rootes compact of many strings, among the which shooteth up naked stalks, square and rough at the top whereof doth stand a tufte or bundle of chaffie threds set in comly order, resembling a tuft of flowers, but barren and void of seede. This kinde of reede doth growe in the borders of rivers about Babylon, near the citie of Alcaire, in the borders of the river Nilus, and such other places of those countries. The time of springing and flourishing answereth that of the common reede. This kinde of reede, which I have Englished paper-reede, or paper-plant, is the same (as I do reade) that paper was made of in Egypt before the invention of paper made of linen clouts was found out. It is thought

by men of great learning and understanding in the Scriptures, and set downe by them for truth, that this plant is the same reede mentioned in the second chapter of Exodus: whereof was made that basket or cradle which was dawbed within and without with slime of that country, called bitumen Judaicum, wherein Moses was put, being committed to the water, when Pharoah gave commandment that all the male children of the Hebrews should be drowned."

This is a pretty fair description, if we except the square stems; still I will annex my own account of the same plant, published in my account of Sicily twenty-six years ago. It should moreover be observed, that this plant used to abound in the waters of Lower Egypt, whence it has long disappeared: it is now to be gathered growing spontaneously only at one place in Europe, namely, near the spring or fountain of Cyane, on the river Anapus, near Syracuse. In reference to the locality, my statement runs-"This spring is now called the Pisma, and is a circular basin of the purest water, though, from its muddy bottom, it has a black appearance; it is about sixty or seventy feet in diameter, and twenty-six deep, well stocked with fine fish, and the banks are covered with a luxurious profusion of aquatic plants. From thence to the river, it flows in a narrow, limpid, and quiet but deep stream; on the sides of which the cyperus papyrus is found, floating as it grows, in such abundance, that it is used as withes for binding corn and other articles. The principal root runs horizontally near the surface of the water, throwing out long filaments, which descend perpendicularly down, while numerous triangular green stems shoot up to the height of eight or ten feet, crowned on the summit by a fibrous tuft of fine filaments, which, near their extremities, are again subdivided into others bearing small seedy flowerets. It is supposed the papyrus was sent from Egypt by Ptolemy Philadelphus, among other presents, to Hiero, with whom he was on most amicable terms; indeed his estimation in Sicily may be perceived in the panegyrical idyllia of Theocritus, particularly in the seventeenth, and at the close of the fourteenth. Paper, some assert, was made of the yellow pellicle that surrounds the stem near the root; but I have been more successful, by following the directions of Pliny, with the cellular

substance of the whole stem cut thin, the slices laid over each other transversely at right angles, and well pressed. Besides making paper of this plant, the ancients are said to have extracted sugar from it, and to have made cordage and canvass of its fibres." In further illustration of so interesting a vegetable production, I was at some pains in making a correct drawing of it, a reduction of which-engraved by the late William Daniell, Royal Academician-appears in that volume: and here it is still further reduced.

Dr. Lee, feeling at once the interest and importance of this plant, was at the pains of giving two elaborate lectures upon it, in which he detailed all that can be gleaned of its history; and I was gratified on finding that my

drawing was produced in illustration, since he, having himself visited the Fountain of Cyane, was an authority for its fidelity. One of these lectures was delivered at the Mechanics' Institute at Aylesbury, on the 16th of January, 1849; and the other at the Public Library at Bedford, in the following month of April. On the last occasion, after some remarks on certain moral and physical revolutions which the story of the papyrus involved, he made this peroration" These facts shew that, under the guidance of Divine Providence, as great changes have and do take place, from time to time, in the botanical or mineral kingdoms of nature, as in the political world, in the destruction of empires and kingdoms. And, although the use or causes of these changes may be beyond our conception, still we may in all humility and admiration of the works of the Almighty ruler of the universe, presume that they are so ordained for the wisest of purposes. Still this ignorance of ours should not dishearten us from constantly pursuing our investigation of the works of Nature: and, as we now know many arts and sciences which were unknown to our forefathers, so we have the satisfaction and encouraging hope to support us in our labours, that what we now do and investigate may be of use and a blessing also to those who may succeed us. The more a person learns of the wonderful works of Nature, the more he will find that his mind and thoughts direct him, from day to day, to ascribe glory to God the Creator, and to pray for peace upon earth, and for universal good-will amongst all his fellow creatures."

Every age-whether we search into particulars respecting the armour of Glaucus, the false denarii of Severus, the lime in Falstaff's sack, or the late Railway bubbles-yields strong proofs that man is not ethnically pure. So even among the Egyptian papyri, where none of us would have expected it, has fraud of the grossest description been practised. Dr. Lee was justified in assuming that every one of the papyri in his collection was of equal integrity with the rest; but the fact proved to be otherwise. As the collection promised a fair harvest of information, Dr. Tattam, the late Professor Schwartz of Berlin, and other eminent Coptic scholars, were desirous of availing themselves of the

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