BOOKS.
THE CHEVALIER BUNSEN ON EGYPT'S PLACE IN UNIVERSAL HISTORY.* US first volume of this elaborate work was chiefly occupied in chalking out the plan and purpose of the whole undertaking, as well as in critically estimating the nature and value of the authorities that remain to us for arriving at a knowledge of Egyptian history. The present volume exhibits the Chevalier Bunsen's idea of that his- tory, "restored," as the architects express it, from the fragments of ancient writers, the monuments, which in some degree tell their own story, and the interpretations that learned Egyptologists have put upon the inscriptions. The place of Egypt in universal his- tory,—that is, its influence on the religion, arts, mind, of the Jewish and classical nations, with the bearing which Egyptian story has on received conclusions as to chronology and postdiluvian history,— will hereafter be exhibited. So likewise will the Egyptian princi- palities, the heptarchy in fact, which in Chevalier Bunsen's opinion constituted the germ of the nation, before Menes gave Egypt a national existence by constituting the parts into a whole. The still earlier time, when the race which subsequently became the Egyp- tians were indeed men, but men without the religion, institu- tions, government, and arts, that constitute the Egypt of history, is also in reserve. A task which may produce ingenious specula- tions based on curious learning, but which, in the absence of con- clusive and well-established facts, can, we conceive, get no further than conjecture. It is said that when a gallant General was appointed Governor to a West India colony, where, among other incongruous functions, the veteran had to discharge the office of Chancellor, he applied to Lord Mansfield for advice. The great jurist answered, "Decide according to what you think is right, but never give any reasons for your decision : from what I know of you, your judg- ment will be sound, but YOU will expose that judgment to endless question if you attempt to assign legal reasons for it." We are not quite sure but that the Chevalier Bunsen might have produced a better, as he would most assuredly have made a shorter book, had he acted in the spirit of Lord Mansfield's advice. A dogmatic statement of his views might have carried acquiescence where the elaborate exhibition of the modes by which he supports his views may induce doubt. When to a logic which is more satis- factory to the Chevalier than to his readers, and to a courage that seems to cut a knot it cannot untie, are added a very diffuse style and a tendency to wander into extraneous matters, it will readily be understood that the volume is not of a popular cha- racter. In a scholastic sense, the material might have been ex- hibited more briefly and more clearly. It seems to be often as- sumed that the reader is not only familiar with the subject of Egyptian antiquities, but with the mooted views of the author and other Egyptologists; so that, though not unintelligible, the meaning is not grasped without a patient consideration, which the reader of an historical dissertation does not expect to be called upon to give.
Of the national life of ancient Egypt, as exhibited in opinions, institutions, and historical actions, our main reliance must still be upon the ancient classical authors, for the paintings rather relate to customs and private or domestic life : chronology, however, is wanting in the classical accounts, so that, whatever value they may possess as narratives or expositions, they do not give us a continued list of monarchs or of dates. These two desiderata are found in the remains of Eratosthenes and Manetho ; but, though their dynastic periods or divisions in the main nearly correspond, the persons or years contained in the subdivisions seem irre- concileable. To the first or dynasty of Menes, for example, Era- tosthenes assigns five monarchs, and a period of 190 years; iane- tho, eight monarchs, and periods of upwards of 250 years, varying according to three of Manetho's copyists or compilers. To recon- cile these differences is the Chevalier Bunsen's first object, and his main principle of proceeding is this. He considers the list of Era- tosthenes to be strictly chronological, exhibiting the name and reign of the principal monarch only. The object of Manetho was different. In Egypt there were joint but subordinate kings, or regents, or mere provincial potentates, claiming regal title. The names of these kings were inserted by Manetho in his lists, with the length of their respective reigns ; just as if the compiler of a list of Roman Emperors should exhibit the joint reigns of Diocletian and Maxi- mianus, with the periods each reigned, as separate instead of con- joint events; thus—
Diocletian 22 years. Maximianus 20 years.
A person whose regard was confined to the list would naturally reckon forty-two • whereas when the fact is understood, we see that the time really occupied by the (joint) reign was only twenty- two years. By means of this principle, much ingenuity, some assumption, and a great deal, we cannot help thinking, of arbitrary power, the author reconciles Manetho with Eratosthenes, in whose accuracy and critical sagacity Chevalier Bunsen has the most un- bounded faith. He thus contrives to present a continuous regnal history of Egypt from Menes the founder of the kingdom to the historical age. If we rightly understand the Chevalier, he carries his chronology back 2500 years before the building of Solomon's Temple. We should hardly reckon it so far; but there is no doubt that he goes back far enough, for he goes beyond the Deluge.
• Egypt's Place in Universal History : an Historical Investigation, in Five Books. By Christian C. J. Bunsen, D. Ph. and D.C.L. Translated from the German by Charles H. Cottrell, Esq., M.A. Volume II. Published by Longman and Co. There is still to be added Egypt under its heptarchy, and the pri- mal state which formed the charaderistics of the future Egyptian nation. Well might the Chevalier in his first voldme hint at the propriety of agreeing " not to dispute about a few thousand years." Although the reconciliation of Eratosthenes and Manetho is the first and indeed the main object of the work, M. Bunsen has brought various other sources of information to illustrate as well as to reconcile those annalists. The monuments, the papyri, an- cient authors, and modern Egyptologists, are all pressed into his service. The plan is to take the lists of a dynasty, and after dis- cussing them, to proceed to the materials that have been collected or copied from the monuments and papyri bearing upon that rem. The monarchs and their reigns being settled, reference is had to the classical writers, or to such buildings as the pyramids, for the events of the reign which are told in the words of the au- thorities and expanded by dissertation or comment. A tabular view of the names of the kings, and the length and events of the reigns, is then presented, arranged under columns with the au- thorities at the head of each.
Faults of composition and of logic have been already indicated. The merit of the book consists in its wide range of view, the variety of its research, the quickness with which the author sees what bears upon his object, the readiness always, the dexterity some- times, with which he applies it. The work is less valuable, we conceive, for what it does, than for what it indicates may be done hereafter in researches into Egyptian antiquity. Not only does the Chevalier seem to us too sanguine in the estimation of his proofs, and too disposed to bend everything to his opinions, but he attributes a greater certainty to his conclusions than such in- quiries can reach to, at all events as yet. There must be a more extensive examination of Egyptian remains, and a more critical and orderly arrangement of the authorities—a greater agreement as to several matters must be come to amongst Egyptologists, possibly greater certainty as to interpretation must be arrived at— before we can venture to restore Egyptian history in its monarch; its chronology, and its events. The Chevalier Bunsen, we conceive, has opened up a way rather than reached the goal. Each point is discussed as it comes on, and various incidental topics are handled : the title "historical dissertation" is therefore properly applied to the work. Generally these discussions are dry enough, but curious points turn up. Such is this to explain dis- crepancies touching the names of the kings; though a sceptic may wonder how we are so glib about the pronunciation of the old Egyptians, when it baffled an ancient Greek trained to elocution and hearing it spoken. " The names of the Kings have, as might be expected, been misplaced in the Lists, owing to errors of transcript of more or less serious character. The discrepancy between the Lists also frequently originates merely from their giving a different version of them. Whether in any particular case the dis- crepancy be owing to textual blunders, or a different, perhaps equally cor- rect, conception of the Egyptian pronunciation, the monuments alone can dee Bide. It must be the aim of this inquiry to ascertain in each particular in- stance which of the two is to be adopted on the ground of probability. In so doing, it will be necessary to take into consideration the obvious difficulty the Greeks experienced in rendering Egyptian names. Alphabets were un- known, and the Egyptian pronunciation made it difficult to discover of what elements a word was composed. The orator Aristides informs us, for in- stance, that he requested a learned priest to pronounce the Egyptian name of the god Canopus, but that he found it impossible to express what he heard in Greek letters, as the sound of the word turned round, as it were, in a circle. We now know from other sources than the Greek orator's ex- planation of it, that the word was written in hieroglyphics rib, and doubtless pronounced nub. It signifies gold, and is evidently the root of Nubia, the land of gold. The god himself, here spoken of, is called in the hieroglyphics Nubei, the golden ; of which the Greeks and Romans made Canopus. Ia Scripture Nubia is generally called Nub, but Ezekiel seems to have written it Gnub. The Egyptians therefore pronounced the initial n always, or at least sometimes, with a strong nasal sound, or nasal breathing, which foreign- ers either could not imitate, or, in doing so, were obliged to employ one of their own aspirated letters. '
This is another example of incidental disquisition, which suc- cinctly exhibits the author's views of early Egyptian history. "The historical age of Egypt, then, which begins with Menes, undoubt- edly rests, like that of every other nation, on an earlier, ante-historical, aboriginal history, the commencement of which again is lost in the mythic period. This ante-historical epoch of the Egyptian empire is the primeval history of the separate provinces of the valley of the Nile, especially of the Thebaid. The general character of the oldest national histories, and some vestiges, already alluded to in this inquiry, of what must henceforth be called the primeval time of history and the mythic olden time of Egypt, lead to this assumption. From the tenacity with which the Egyptiape adhered to old manners and customs, and the provincial varieties in the con- stituent elements out of which the historic life of the Egyptian nation sprung, the two periods prior to Menes cannot have been of very brief dura- tion. When, therefore, we enter upon the Menes mra, we obviously leave two epochs behind us ; and it is of decided importance for understanding the period of which we are treating, to keep this steadily in view. In spite of all the scholarship that has been expended upon limes = Menu Minos = Minyas = Mannus = Mens = Man, e. the first man, there is no- thing mythic about him but this comparison of names, somewhat hastily adopted in the early stages of critical inquiry, has been mythicized through- out. Our information as to his personal life is more meagre than about Hermann and Marbod, but it is equally historical. There is no monument extant of these ancestors of the German nation; whereas the works of Menes had endured prior to Hermann for a longer period than the one which in- tervenes between Hermann and our own day. At this epoch of the world and of Egypt, personal biography was neglected ; but historical personality, un- less we are wholly in error, is the vehicle through which all our knowledge of it has been conveyed. No wonder, indeed; for although it is the com- mencement of the Egyptian empire, the times of the Egyptian Charle- magne, it is long subsequent to the dawn of civilization in the Egyptian provinces."
The cynical couplet,
" Let not a monument give you or me hopes,
Since not a pinch of dust remains of Cheops," however true -in fact; is hardly so in the illustration. Owing to the this he inspired, Cheops, as some think, was privately buried, lest his remains should have been violently destroyed by the people. lie amiable suocessor's monument, at least his mummy, still survives.
"The misery of the people, already grievously oppressed, was aggravated by the construction of this gigantic building [the pyramid] With King Mmoheres came the deliverance. The worship of the gods had even been neglected, and their customary festivals discontinued. Mencheres restored the religious ceremonies, and gave them repose. Compulsory labour was abolished ; the building ceased. This second portion of the section com- prises two reigns in the List of Eratosthenes and the Tablet of Abydos. It was the time of the restoration. Mykerinus I. is the hero of the popular traditions repeated to Herodotus, and the same Mencheree who is mentioned in the Book of the Dead.' It is therefore a happy fatality that, after the mysterious pyramids have been so frequently ransacked and mutilated, the coffin-lid of this very monarch, or that of his successor with the same name, and the mummy beneath it, and it only, should have been preserved. The bones of the oppressors of the people, who for two whole generations amassed hundreds of thousands from day to day, have been torn from those sepulchral chambers which they fondly hoped would have preserved their remains for ever from the annihilation they apprehended, and have bid de- fiance to all search and all demolition. Diodorua, indeed, mentions an Egyptian tradition, according to which neither of the two Kings was buried in his own pyramid, for fear of a popular outbreak, but in a secluded
t, as privately as possible. The good and humane King, however, who lashed the inhuman soccage, and who on that account was immortalized in ballads and in hymns as the favourite of the nation, although his coffin was broken open, has remained down to our days in his own pyramid, rescued from the desolation of ages, and has met with a resting-place worthy of his fame. His fate may furnish matter for reflection and for thought. The empire of the Pharaohs, of which he was the eighteenth ruler, has perished. Two other empires of Pharaohs have succeeded it ; and those who destroyed the last of them have likewise vanished from the stage of history. The gods of Egypt have sunk in the dust; 'son of Pha- raoh' has become a reproach and a by-word in the land of the Pharaohs ; even the language is mute among the people, and threatens to disappear from the altar, where, though but partially understood, it still is retained. But the corpse of Mencherea reposes at this hour in greater security than it did almost five thousand years ago, in the inland, the mistress of the world, whose freedom and free institutions are stronger bulwarks than the ocean which encircles her, among the treasures of all the realms of nature and the most exalted remains of human art. May its rest never be disturbed so long as the stream of history shall roll on !"
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