28 APRIL 1900, Page 11

Of the "Books on Egypt and Chaldaea" (Kagan Paul, Trench.

and Co., 3s. 6d. net), the third volume is Easy Lessons in Egyptian Hieroglyphics, by E. A. Wallis Budge, Litt.D. Dr. Wallis Budge is an expert in all Egyptian matters, and this little volume, of about two hundred and fifty pages, is a serviceable guide to the very interesting subject with which it deals. The first chapter describes the varieties of Egyptian writing from the oldest form of hieroglyphic down to the Demotic style. Chap. 2 is given to the processes by which the decipherment of hieroglyphics was worked out. Then we get to the Egyptian alphabet. An illus- trative extract is given from "The Tale of the Two Brothers." Then comes what we may call a vocabulary, arranged in the way

that the system makes necessary, not alphabetically, but under subjects. "Man " comes first, with as many as one hundred and thirty-seven modifications, all of them ideas which the figure of a man is capable of expressing.