consequently their eclipses. They may not, indeed, have been taken very scientifically, and the registers containing them were, probably long prior to the time of Ptolemy, mixed up with astrological absurdities, and swamped in the gulph of superstitious fable.

The contents of the following books (five and six). the chorography of Egypt, and the delineation of the course of the Nile within the limits of the Egyptian territory—were -were certainly an important element of history. Plate XXII. in Lepsius's Records proves the high antiquity of their geometrical surveys. It represents a fragment now in the Turin Museum - of an accurate ground-plan of the Valley of Tombs (Biban El Moluk) at Thebes, with the tomb of King Seti (Sethos) of the 19th dynasty; and, from the style of the inscription, it must have been executed at an early period.

That the principal object of these books was a general survey of Egypt, is clear from the titles of the seventh and three following-"Description or inventory of each temple, of its landed property (the estates of the priests), of its weights, measures, and other utensils "the size and shape of which were doubtless accurately detailed. The monuments here also prove the high antiquity of this branch of economy. The Egyptian cubit of later times was the measure used in the Great Pyramid, consequently in the fourth dynasty. But the regulations made by the great Sesostris of the Old Empire were in reality the basis on which the registration of landed property, and the estates belonging to the priests, was founded. Here again then we find a succession of proofs that these institutions were built on ancient and genuine historical foundations.

4. The Ten Ceremonial Books of the Stolistes. This fourth class was devoted principally or entirely to religious worship, and contained, likewise in ten

Books, "the ordinances as to the First-fruits, and the sacrificial stamp." The above are obviously technical expressions in common use among the Priests. These books were entrusted to the Stolistes. The name, Stolistes, had reference originally to the office of dressing and ornamenting the statues of the Gods, an office which conferred the right of admission to the innermost shrine 32, and indicates in a more general sense the person who had the arrangement of festivals and processions. Clemens quotes among the contents of the separate books, regulations concerning "sacrifice, first fruits, hymns, prayers, festive processions, and the like." Funerals and ceremonies in honour of the dead were probably treated of in this class; for no mention is made of them elsewhere.

Here, again, the light of the monuments, aided by passages of the classics, supplies proof of the great antiquity of those Egyptian institutions, which, in later times, claimed to rest on the authority of the Sacred Books. But (what is more important as bearing on our present inquiry) the high antiquity of the books themselves is thereby established, and their contents impressed with the character of genuine historical tradition. Down to the times of Manetho and Plutarch, and certainly to the fall of Paganism in Egypt, the sacrificial stamp remained a speaking proof of the original sin-offering in Egypt also having been human sacrifice - which is indeed implied in the primary idea of sacrifice. It représented a man on his knees, with his hands tied behind him, and the sacrificial knife pointed at his throat. Manetho's literal description of the Stamp will be found in a subsequent part of this work. Wilkinson discovered one in Egypt that answered exactly to that description, and has given a copy of it in the fifth volume of his "Manners and Customs of the Egyptians,"

32 Inscription of Rosetta, 1. 6. in Lepsius, Plate 19. See Letronne's remark on the passage, Fragm. Historicor. Gr., Appendix, p. 14.

p. 352.33 Now, as we shall see in the second book, the practice of human sacrifices was abolished in the Old Empire at the end of the seventh century after Menes. This is the only explanation we have, but it is a sufficient one, of a circumstance which led even Wilkinson to question the truth of the well-ascertained fact, that the Egyptian monuments, in so far as known to us, offer no representation of human sacrifice, although we there find every other kind of sacrifice and offering frequently and distinctly exhibited. The ordinance of the Sacred Books, therefore, as the foundation of a custom maintained up to the latest times, must be of at least as ancient date as the abolition of that barbarous rite. For, unless the practice of marking the victim had been prescribed by law at that time, it never could have been introduced afterwards, when the reality in which it originated was forgotten or held in abhorrence. But the ordinance concerning the Stamp may have been older than the abolition, and have been retained, although the practice which gave rise to it was abandoned. This portion of the Sacred Writings then must have been composed at latest in the first centuries of the empire of Menes. The common title of books of this fourth class also proves the high antiquity of the ordinance.

5. The Ten Books of the Prophets.

The last class of these 36 Sacred Books were the

Sacerdotal Books in the proper sense. Hence it was, that they bore the general name of Hieratic writings, and were intrusted to the Prophets, the first Order of Priests, who in consequence took precedence immediately after the High Priests of the great Temples. These books again were ten in number. According to Clemens they

33 Plut. de Is. et Os., c. 11. p. 363. Compare Manetho and Porphyry in the Appendix of Authorities.

34 Inscription of Rosetta, and Letronne's remarks.

treated of "the Laws, the Deities, and the entire education of the Priests." This class therefore contained instructions as to the apportionment of the taxes, one of the privileges of the Priests, the authority for which was found in the books of the third Class, in respect at least to the Land-Tax, the Priest-Tax, or Free-Gifts. It is remarkable that long after the fall of the Egyptian Constitution, even up to this very day, the Copts retained, and still retain the office of collectors and controllers of taxes. In the general education of the Priests the regulation of their mode of life certainly held an important place. Chæremon's account of it preserved by Porphyry, is without doubt derived from those books, with which the former, who was a Sacred Scribe, must have been familiar. It describes rather what it ought to have been, than what it actually was, in the first centuries of our æra. That representation reminds us again very strongly of Manu, and several passages in the Vedas.

By far the most important subdivision of this class of books was doubtless that which treated of their Mythology, and the laws connected with religious rites. For the term, law, is to be understood of these, and not of the purely civil jurisprudence. The laws of the Priests however, as we know, were not of an exclusively ecclesiastical character; but many, if not all the Constitutional laws, were very closely connected with the rites and duties of the Priesthood, who formed the really privileged class of the Egyptian nation. As the Rosetta stone testifies, the solemn recognition, coronation, and consecration of the Sovereign was, even in the time of the Ptolemies, the privilege of the Priests, into whose Caste it was requisite he should be admitted, previously to his election, if he were not a Priest already, as was usually the case. Heeren also has shown

35 Porphyr. de Abstin. ii. 6. 8. See below upon Chæremon.

from a passage in Synesius", that the original form of the old constitution must have been a really elective Monarchy. The Crown became hereditary with Menes, and the right of succession was extended during the Second Dynasty, in the third century of the Empire, even to the female line. From henceforward the Priests exercised no privilege of election, except when the Royal Race became extinct; and ultimately, after the formation of a despotic Monarchy, no more than the semblance and form of an election was preserved. It was not till after the Priests had elected a Sovereign on the Libyan Mountain near Thebes, and the Gods had been consulted, that the King went in procession to the Temple of Ammon, to be solemnly inaugurated. These various regulations could be embodied nowhere but in the Books of the Prophets-another strong proof of the great privileges possessed by the Priests in these primeval Egyptian Comitia.

That the oldest laws were ascribed to Hermes", implies however nothing more than that the first germ of the Civil law sprung from the Sacred Books, and that it was based in part upon the religious tenets which they contained not that the Egyptian Code formed part of these Books. In the same way the Code of Manu is

36 Heeren, Ideen, vol. ii. Egypt, p. 335. The passage he quotes from Synesius, Opp. p. 94., is from the beginning of the work on Providence, which he also called Λόγος Αιγύπτιος. The Priests stood next to the candidates for the throne, then came a circle of warriors, and last of all the People. The Priests declared the name of the candidate, and had themselves great privileges in the mode of voting. Every soldier's vote counted for one, a prophet's for a hundred; a priest's of subordinate rank for twenty (kwμarris, equivalent to epulo, according to Petavius's accurate work on Synesius, p. 73., кoμaστýpia); a servant's of the temple (áxopoç) for ten. All this reminds us very much of Manu. The form of contest between Osiris and Typhon for the crown, which Synesius selected, is a romance.

37 Diod. i. 94.; Ælian. V.H. xii. 4. ; compare xiv. 34. ; Diog. Laërt. Proem. §§ 10, 11, according to Manetho and Hecatæus. We give the whole description afterwards under Manetho.