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1. The Pyramid belonged to Mycerinus, her and her pyramid back to the ancient era? as stated by Herodotus; and, 2. Whatever The process was certainly "unhistoric," but Cheops might be, Mycerinus was clearly an if George Syncellus may be trusted, Manetho Egyptian idolater. His name is compounded was exactly the man to do it. of the god Ra, and was translated by Eratosthenes "gifted of the Sun; " moreover, he is mentioned in the Papyri, buried with many mummies, as a holy and even divine personage. All this is quite in keeping with the character given of him to Herodotus, but it places a wide interval between him and Cheops. Mycerinus the holy can hardly be of the same age and lineage with the infidel tyrant. To represent him as his son involves us again in all the difficulties of "prince Merhet." Then there is Manetho ascribing the Pyramid to Nitoeris in a later dynasty, but contradicted by the production of the actual mummy of Mencheres!

David.

Moreover, we learn from Mr. Birch, that, under the Psammatici“ there arose an affectation for the archaic names, titles, customs, and, to a certain extent, an imitation of the works of art of the era of the Pyramids ; '' and Lepsius has discovered that Cinderella's husband actually assumed, as his own designation, the name of Mencheres! Here, then, are both the names traditionally connected with the Third Pyramid traced, upon monumental evidence, to a pair of lovers who reigned at Sais about a hundred and fifty years before Herodotus visited Egypt! The bones for which Baron Bunsen invokes the veneration of all orthodox believers as the The last discrepancy is removed by the idea veritable relics of St. Mencheres, king and of a double sepulchre supposing Mencheres confessor in the age of Noah, are perhaps to have been first interred under a smaller those of one of the latest Pharaohs, contemPyramid, which Nitocris enlarged, construct-porary with the last king of the house of ing a second vault for herself. In that case, the sarcophagus and the inscription would It may be objected that, at so short an inprobably be the work of the later period, terval of time, Herodotus must have been being consecrated by the queen to the mem- able to obtain the authentic account of the ory of the king whose sepulchre she desired foundation; but this objection implies that to partake. But how should Manetho have the priests were willing and able to imnothing to record of a monarch so renowned part the information, neither of which can in the time of Nitocris? How commemorate be confidently affirmed of their reverences. her work, and not know of his whose name was visible on the Pyramid itself? No one else mentions Nitocris in connection with this structure. The female founder named in other traditions was Rhodopis the Greek slave, a widely different person from the old Memphite queen. Curiously enough, however, Rhodopis means rosy-faced," the very attraction for which Manetho's Nitocris was famed, and which, with her fair hair, incontestably denote a foreigner. Still more curiously, we find a story told of Rhodopis, that, while bathing at Naucratis, an eagle carried off her shoe and let it fall in the king's lap, who was so charmed with its elegance, that he sought out the owner and made her his wife. Now this king was Psammaticus II.; and to finish the story-on his daughter's sarcophagus, which is now in the British Museum, her mother's name is written Nitocris! May we conclude that the fortunate Cinderella assumed the old regal name of Nitocris, and that Manetho, to cover the "scandal about Queen Elizabeth," carried

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They were certainly not free from "the affectation of archaic names," and, notwithstanding the way in which our Egyptologist talks of their "temple registers," it is clear they never had anything of the kind. Herodotus, Diodorus, Manetho, and Eratosthenes, all drew their information from the priests; if registers had existed, their accounts must have substantially agreed. Their irreconcilable differences demonstrate that there was nothing but tradition to go by, and that the traditions were widely various.

It was only in the time of the first Psammaticus that Egypt came into contact with the outer world. In that prince a native dynasty was restored after the overthrow of the Theban monarchy and the retirement of the Ethiopians. He terminated the period of divided rule, called the Dodecarchy, by raising the house of Sais to the throne; and, to sustain the new power, he opened his ports to the Greeks, and flooded Egypt with the longexcluded knowledge of the West. The sta*Vyse's Pyr. vol. ii. App. p. 136.

tionary oriental intellect was suddenly as-Sphinx are parts of one design, and executed sailed by its inquisitive visitors; it answered in the same age. If this could be estabwith as little loss of dignity as might be; but lished, it would be impossible to assign any the answers were those of vergers and guide- other period than that of the Saitic renaisbooks, not of learned registrars and histori-sance between the Dodecarchy and the Perans. Under such circumstances, Herodotus sian invasion. We do not affirm that this is might well be a hundred years out in the age of the Pyramid.*

their true date; but, just to show the unfathomable depths we are pretending to sound, it may be borne in mind that, should the Pyramids be only of the age of Psammaticus, they are still by far the oldest structures in the world. The date which Lepsius claims is just three thousand four hundred years earlier; longer than the interval from the Flood to the present day, according to the longest computation!

And now, gentle reader, do you feel at all clear who built the Pyramids? and when? If not, you may spare yourself the trouble of learning hieroglyphics, or, what we have found a much harder matter, wading through the four volumes of Bunsen's "Egypstens Stelle." Every scrap of evidence has been carefully collected in this article; if it comes to nothing, you can make nothing more of it by hunting it through a maze of hypothesis and romance. Of the numerous smaller Pyramids, still less is known than of the famous three; yet round the apices of these hoary structures Baron Bunsen persuades himself that he has woven, so firmly as never to be removed, a history to this effect:

But now, if the Third Pyramid should turn out to be more truly dated by the tradition which Herodotus was persuaded to reject, than by that which he followed, what about the other two? They had also their counter traditions. Armæus and Amosis were rival names with Cheops and Cephrenes, and both were illustrious in Egyptian annals. The first may be the Armais, by Greeks called Danaus, who carried his fifty daughters to Argos, and obtained the kingdom; or it may be Ramses (for the vowels are movable), whose colossal statue was entitled Sesostris ; or some other of the nine or ten kings of that name found on the monuments. Amosis is a still more likely hero. There were two of them; one the head of the Eighteenth Dynasty, the first of the New monarchy, and in all, probability the founder of the temple of Vulcan attributed to Menes. This was the dynasty that enslaved the Israelites; and the erection of the pyramids has been thought to form part of their labors. It must be added that Pliny mentions a tradition that the Great Sphinx was his tomb; and Lepsius, Man was created in the year B.C. 19,752, from examining the position of the two struc- when everything north of the Alps was an tures, comes to the opinion that the Sphinx open sea, the Ural mountains standing up as was part of the same design with the Second an island, and Britania not having yet arisen Pyramid; one of a pair intended to flank its from out the azure main. After five thouapproach. sand years, the "earliest polarization of reThe later Amosis was son-in-law to Psam-ligious consciousness issued in that formation maticus and Nitocris, whose names appear on of pure agglutinative speech, which was the his wife's coffin in the British Museum. He eastern polarization of Sinism "-a piece of belonged, therefore, to the age of "archaic affectation; " perhaps the great Theban conqueror's name was assumed by him in compliance with the mode. He was the wealthiest and most prosperous of all the later Pharaohs; and, after the Persian invasion, Man was "froze out" of his paradise by a. the Egyptians were never weary of recount- convulsion of nature, in the eleven thousandth ing the glories of his reign. In favor of this year of his existence, and sent wandering, founder, it may be added that some compe- like the market gardeners about London in a tent observers are strongly impressed with severe winter. This was the flood, not exthe opinion that the three Pyramids and the tending to Egypt, which had been peopled a • Herodotus assigns fifty years to Cheops, fifty-thousand years before, direct from Eden, yet, six years to Cephrenes, and six to Mycerinus, bring- nevertheless, with Osirian idolators. From ing the death of the latter down to B.C. 688. Psammaticus died about B.C. 590.

information doubtless very intelligible and comforting to the Vicar of Broadchalke, who is learned in Welsh as well as German, though a trifle hazy to our less " agglutinative" English intellect.

9086 B.C. to 7231, a dynasty of sacerdotal

kings reigned over the Egyptians, followed a pre-idolatrous origin. If the abscence of by elective, and then by hereditary princes, sculpture can be reconciled with a contempodown to 3643, when Menes (whom Manetho, raneous idolatry, and Chufu is to be conand all other authorities, declare to be the nected with the tombs of Ghizeh and Benifirst human king after the gods and demigods) hassan, the argument becomes very strong for became sole monarch. To the fourth dynasty a much later date. There is no trace of any from him (B.c. 3229) belonged Cheops and idolatrous building in Lower Egypt before Cephrenes, with the two larger Pyramids; the Theban Amosis, who, according to an inand to the end of the sixth (B.c. 2967) Nito- scription yet remaining in the quarry, built cris and the third. Jacob came into Egypt the temple of Phthah at Memphis, in the two hundred years later, but his descendants twenty-second year of his reign. The Egyptwere not reduced into bondage till 1625 B.C. and the Exodus took place in 1320, after a sojourn of 1434 years in the land of Ham! There now! Let us draw breath; all this out of the undated, speechless Pyramids! not only who built them, and when, but the when and where of mankind for sixteen thousand years before either of them was thought of! Lord Burleigh's shake of the head was nothing to this.

Such is the stuff which an English clergyman has been flaunting in the face of a decent Christian public as more authentic than Holy Writ; though, as soon as his glove is taken up, and he is brought into court, he screams out that he is persecuted for another man's writings. No! if Dr. Williams did not mean to concur with Baron Bunsen, he should not have pervaded his theories with such unqualified laudation, and taunts of orthodox writers. The Holy Scriptures are far too serious a matter to be trifled with by a clerical reviewer. Moreover, it is still open to him to abjure Bunsen, and believe his Bible. Not a hair of his head, not a tithe-pig of his benefice will be touched, if he declare in proper form that the romance he has published is not his own opinion and teaching. It may be hard for a soul so enlightened to submit to Moses and Dr. Lushington, but there is also Sir Cornewall Lewis, who, after a really critical and scholarlike examination, declares there is no evidence for any building in Egypt-no, not the Pyramids-anterior to Solomon's Temple, B.C. 1012.*

Evidence assuredly there is nonc. The case is simply this: we may conjecture the oldest Pyramid to be of the age of Abraham, Bay 2100 B.C.; any earlier date is worthy only of the " Arabian Nights." The strong est grounds, moreover, of this conjecture, are cut away by the Egyptologists, when they reject the astronomical indications, and deny "Astronomy of the Ancients."

ologists choose to consider this a rebuilding
after the Shepherd desolation: but the Shep-
herds are a myth, unknown to the monu-
ments as to the Bible and to Herodotus.
Then, too, the argument for unity of design
comes seriously into play; only, instead of
carrying the Sphinx back to Cheops, it will
bring Cheops down to the Sphinx. The mon-
ster is unquestionably of Theban origin, and
was probably constructed in the early part of
the Eighteenth Dynasty as a monument to
the new monarchy. In that case, the Second
Pyramid may be the oldest (as Bunsen
thinks), and Amosis may be Shafra or Cha-
ryis, its founder. Chufu and Mencheres may
be successors or colleagues, and Nitocris may
be the regent sister of Thothmes III., whom
Wilkinson calls Amun-neitgori, and Lepsius,
Numt Amen. For ourselves, we incline to
the queen of Psammaticus as at least the
second founder of the Third (or rosyfaced)
Pyramid: and if one was rebuilt in this age
of archaic_restoration, why not the others
also? Taking this, the latest date, the Pyr-
amids will still be the oldest monuments in
existence, and the last of the Seven Wonders
of the world. Surely we may be content
with so marvellous an antiquity, without fol-
lowing the Prussian enthusiasts in their at-
tempt to out-Manetho Manetho.
As a ques-
tion of critical evidence, there is absolutely
nothing in their speculations to determine,
one way or the other, the problems that were
insoluble to Herodotus. One or two inter-
esting coincidences between the names in
Egyptian legend and the interpretation from
the monuments (genuine or fictitious) is the
utmost yet attained to. To set up these
scraps and guesses against the authority of
such a history as the Book of Genesis, is,
ridiculous. To place them against the au-
from a purely literary point of view, simply
thenticity and inspiration of the Mosaic writ-
ings, attested in the New Testament even
more strongly than in the Old, is an offence
to our common Christianity.

PART IV. CHAPTER XI.

When breakfast was over, Miss Dora made

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not that quick-witted iron-gray woman been, MISS DORA WENTWORTH rose very unre- as we have already mentioned, too deeply freshed next morning from her disturbed engaged. Perhaps her nephew's imaginary slumbers. It was hard to sit at breakfast backsliding might have excited even Miss with Leonora, and not betray to her the new Leonora to an interest deeper than that anxiety; and the troubled sister ran into a which was awakened by the new gin-palace; countless number of digressions, which would but as it happened, it was the humbler intelhave inevitably betrayed her, had not Miss ligence which occupied itself with this Leonora been at the moment otherwise occu- supposed domestic calamity. Miss Dora's pied. She had her little budget of letters as breakfast was affected by it in a way which usual, and some of them were more than did not appear in the morning meal of her ordinarily interesting. She, too, had a favor- sister; for somehow the most fervent love of ite district, which was in London, and where souls seldom takes away the appetite, as the also a great work was going on; and her love of some unlucky individual occasionally missionary, and her Scripture-readers, and does. her colporteur were all in a wonderful state of excitement about a new gin-palace which a very elaborate excuse for going out by herwas being fitted out and decorated in the self. She wanted to match some wool for a highest style of art on the borders of their blanket she was making, "For Louisa's especial domain. They were moving heaven baby," the devoted aunt said, with a little and earth to prevent this temple of Satan tremor. "Poor Louisa! if Gerald were to from being licensed; and some of them were go any further, you know, it would be so sad so very certain of the divine acquiesence in for her; and one would like to help to keep their measures, that they announced the up her heart, poor dear, as much as one success of their exertions to be a test of the could." faithfulness of God; which Miss Leonora By means of a blanket for the bassinet read out to her sisters as an instance of very in scarlet and white," said Miss Leonora; touching and beautiful faith. Miss Went-" but it's quite the kind of comfort for worth, perhaps, was not so clear on that Louisa. I wonder if she ever had the smallsubject. During the course of her silent life, she had prayed for various things which it had not been God's pleasure to grant; and just now she, too, was very anxious about Frank, who seemed to be in a bad way; so she rather shook her head gently, though she did not contravene the statement, and concluded with sadness that the government "I suppose because he was very fond of of the earth might still go on as usual, and her," suggested Miss Dora, with humility. God's goodness remain as certain as ever, "But why was he fond of her? a goose! even though the public-house was licensed, said the strong-minded sister, and so went.' or Frank did fall away. This was the teach-about her letter-writing without further coming of experience; but Aunt Cecilia did not utter it, for that was not her way. As for Miss Dora, she agreed in all the colporteur's sentiments, and thought them beautiful, as Leonora said, and was not much disturbed by any opinion of her own, expressed or unexpressed, but interspersed her breakfast with little sighing ejaculations on the temptations of the world, and how little one knew what was passing around one, and "let him that thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall," which could not have failed to attract Miss Leonora's attention, and draw forth the whole story of her sister's suspicions, had 1082

THIRD SERIES. LIVING AGE.

est inkling what kind of a husband she has got. I don't think Frank is far wrong about Gerald, though I don't pin my faith to my nephew's judgment. I dare say he'll go mad or do worse with all those crotchets of his- but what he married Louisa for has always been a mystery to me."

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ment, leaving Aunt Dora to pursue her independent career. It was with a feeling of relief, and yet of guilt, that this timid inquirer set forth on her mission, exchanging a sympathetic significant look with Miss Wentworth before she went out. If she should meet Frank at the door, looking dignified and virtuous, what could she possibly say to him? and yet, perhaps, he had only been imprudent, and did not mean anything. Miss Dora looked round her on both sides, up and down Grange Lane, as she went out into the lovely summer morning. Neither Frank nor any other soul, except some nurse-maids,, was to

be seen along the whole line of sunny road. | kept things close, and there ain't a many as She was relieved, yet she was disappointed at knows; but Miss Wodehouse has spoke up the same time, and went slowly up towards for me, ma'am, right and left, and most perElsworthy's shop, saying to herself that she was sure Frank could not mean anything. It must have been that forward little thing herself who had come up to him when he was out for his walk, or it must have been some accident. But then she remembered that she had heard the curate call Rosa pretty; and Miss Dora wondered within herself what it mattered whether she was pretty or not, and what he had to do with it, and shook her head over the strange way men had of finding out such things. For her own part, she was sure she never looked whether the girl was pretty or not; and the anxious aunt had just come round again, by a very circuitous and perplexing course, to her original sentiment, and strengthened herself in the thought that her dear Frank could not mean anything, when she reached Elsworthy's door.

sons as count for anything in Carlingford gets their fancy articles out o' my shop. Mr. Wentworth, ma'am, our respected clergyman, gets all his papers of me--and partickler he is to a degree-and likes to have 'em first thing afore they're opened out o' the parcel. It's the way with gentlemen when they're young. Most people ain't so partickler later in life-not as I could tell the reason why, unless it may be that folks gets used to most things, and stop looking for anything new. But there ain't a many young gentlemen like our clergyman, though I say it as shouldn't," continued Mr. Elsworthy, with a little effusion, as he succeeded in finding an exact match for the scarlet wool.

"And why shouldn't you say it, Mr. Elsworthy?" said Miss Dora, a little tartly; "you are not any way particularly connected That worthy trader was himself behind the with my nephew." Here she gave an angry counter, managing matters with his usual ex-glance at Rosa, who had drawn near to listen, actness. Berlin wool was one of the articles having always in her vain little heart a cerMr. Elsworthy dealt in, besides newspapers tain palpitation at Mr. Wentworth's name. and books when they were ordered. Miss Dora, who wore no crinoline, stumbled over her dress in her agitation as she went in, and saw, at the first glance, little Rosa, looking very blooming and pretty, tying up a parcel at the other end of the shop. The poor lady did not know how to enter upon so difficult a question. She offerred her wool humbly to be matched, and listened to Mr. Elsworthy's sentiments upon the subject. He told her how he always had his wools from the best houses in London, and could match anything as was ever made in that line, and was proud to say as he always gave satisfaction. Miss Dora could not see any opening for the inquiries which she hoped to make; for how "Yes," said Miss Dora, eagerly, looking was it possible to intimate the possibility of with what was intended to be a very stern disapproval to an establishment so perfect in and forbidding aspect in the little girl's face. all its arrangements? The probabilities are, "She was a-coming up Grange Lane in the that she would have gone away without say-dark," said Mr. Elsworthy-"not as there ing anything, had not Mr. Elsworthy himself given her a chance.

"Miss Wodehouse has been my great help," said the shopkeeper; "she is the nicest lady, is Miss Wodehouse, in all Carlingford. I do respect them people; they've had their troubles, like most families, but there ain't many as can lay their finger on the skeleton as is in their cupboard: they've

"I ask your pardon, ma'am; I'm clerk at St. Roque's. It ain't often as we have the pleasure of seeing you there-more's the pity," said the church official, "though I may say there ain't a church as perfect, or where the duty is performed more beautiful, in all the county; and there never was a clergyman as had the people's good at heart like Mr. Wentworth-not in my time. It ain't no matter whether you're rich or poor, young or old, if there's a service as can be done to ever a one in his way, our clergyman is the man to do it. Why, no further gone than last night, ma'am, if you'll believe me, that little girl there

was any need, keeping two boys, as I do, but she likes a run out of an evening--when Mr. Wentworth see her, and come up to her. It ain't what many men would have done," said the admiring but unlucky adherent of the suspected curate: " he come up, seeing as she was by herself, and walked by her, and gave her a deal of good advice, and brought her home. Her aunt and me was struck all

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