precepts, so varied are the chapters, and their subjects and
style, that one cannot help wishing that, instead of being neatly got up in approved English style, the book were put loosely together in foreign guise, so as to admit of the dividing process followed by some readers of such litera- ture. For interesting as the chapters are in themselves, and suited as the style is to each subject, there is somehow, as a whole, a certain sense of want of congruity and, in the his- torical parts, a degree of reiteration and obscurity. Yet we feel almost ungrateful in making this remark, so charming are some of the descriptions, foremost among them being that of the visit to Mr. Flinders Petrie at the MedAm pyramid. In the first chapter "On Tombs," Mr. Rawnsley teaches in a very lucid manner the use of the richly-decorated guest-chamber, which is above the real tomb, and has been sometimes mistaken for it. Readers of the novelist Ebers' wonderful tales of Old Egyptian life will be specially interested in the "Heroic Poem of Pentaus," of which there is a very spirited metrical rendering, not translated from the original poem, but from a portion of Brugsch Bey's prose version of it. The Hittite side of the battle recorded in it has, too, an interest for most readers which it could not have possessed before the discovery of the records of that long-hidden kingdom. It is too long to quote, and would be spoilt by an extract. This does not apply to the precepts of Ptah-liot6p, whom Mr. Rawnsley happily characterises as " this old-world Lord Chesterfield," so we will close with one of them :-
"ON LAW AND ORDEN.
It, as a leader, thou Mt 001011 to give Judgment on others, see thou take event care
Bo that thy conduct be esteemed fair, And strive without reproach, thyself to live.
Who hinders law, for violence makes way;
No mob the upper hand can ever gain,
If justice on the judgment-seat remain, And Right.is-might, not Might-is-right, bath sway. The ends of justice change not, ever one In scope, so loth the father teach the son."
It might be as well, in another edition, to avoid what we conclude is a printer's error,—" Ramses I.," on p. 146, instead of II. ; and also one on p. 14, where " Sir John Sioane's " museum is referred to.
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