The Press.
London, England, 1858-05-22 00:00:00

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':'''• -' e, ~, ,f, 4/.tli, ~'''.:,.' '2 .:' 4.1 v. 7. • ' . . . •
486 THE PRESS, MAY 22, 1858
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. upon himself as a modern of the very newest accuracy t that through the whole of this vast
'
fiftraturt. coinage • the Pyramids were to him what West- tract of time not one new idea should be n.
minster Abbey is to us—they reminded him of an ceived in an Egyptian skull ; that the pictureco
immeasurable past, they convinced him that he should always preserve the same respectful dis-
The History of Herodotus. Edited by George was born in the old age of the world. How vague tance front the original, neither improving nor
sense we attach to the word " an- greatly deteriorating. But change
Rawlinson, M.A., late Fellow and Tutor of must be the change, improvement,
cient," when one of the earliest of those whom progress would appear to be European words.
H. Sir J. G. Wilkinson agrees with all other
Exeter College, Oxford. Assisted by Colonel we call the ancients is as truly an antiquarian as
Sir Henry Rawlinson, K.C.8., and Sir J. G. the most recent of his commentators! scholars in fixing upon the eighteenth and nine-
Wilkinson, F.R.S. Vol. 11. London : Herodotus talking with an Egyptian priest is a teenth dynasties as the zenith of the Egyptian
Murray. scene which presents a curious illustration of the monarchy. These dynasties seem to have
THE history of mankind, when we contemplate
transformations wrought by time. That Greek, flourished about the thirteenth and twelfth cen-
it as a whole, may be compared to Milton's ignorant of the vast future which we know so tunics before Christ—that is, while the Judges
image of the half-recumbent, dimly-seen arch-
well and the indications of which we, prophets ruled the neighbouring nation of Israelites.
angel. It is a huge object upon which the light
after the event, trace so clearly in his inquisitive, For five or perhaps six centuries before this
falls in scattered rays, illuminating here and there
busy, shrewd, European face, striving to pene- glorious period Egypt had been wholly or par-
s limb and a feature, while the great bulk lies trate the remote past, of which he knows so tially under the power of the Shepherds. It
concealed in shadow, or half-revealed in an un-
much that we are ignorant of, and is ignorant of is uncertain who these foreigners were, but it is
certain glimmer. It has a "head erect above
so much that we know; that Greek, an ancient certain that they occupied the country fbr a long
" the wave, and eyes that sparkling blaze ; " but to us, but a modern in the eyes of his compa- time, and that their memory was held in utter
" its other parts besides, extended long and large, nion, the Saite priest, bred up at Heliopolis in abomination by the Egyptians in after times.
"lie floating many a rood" in waves of oblivion. lore which Moses studied, in the mysteries of a Now, a period of extraordinary prosperity is
As the light falls upon parts concealed before, and faith decrepit as Ultraniontanism m the nine- generally found to succeed any united and
makes distinctions in that which before seemed teenth century, and sustained chiefly by the tra- successful effort made by a nation against foreign
uniform, it makes us immediately sensible of a dition of its earlier triumphs, of its victory over invasion or oppression. So numerous are the
vagueness in our nomenclature. As more parts the hateful Shepherds and the miscreant sun- examples of this connection of events afforded by
disclose themselves in the object before us, our worshipping Strangers, of the offerings made to history, that it is impossible not to conclude that
description of it demands nicer and more dis- its divinities by Thothmes and Rameses! It the sense of union and the instinct to patriotic
criminating phrases. For example, as soon as would make a subject for a painter who should self-sacrifice elicited by a pressing common danger
the period called the Middle Age began to be understand the art of suggesting more than meets is the basis or necessary condition of political
scrutinized with any attention, it divided itself the eye. And to match it he might paint Wil- greatness, and that in many cases invasion and
into two ages, as distinct in character as any fred, afterwards first Saxon Archbishop of York, the oppression of foreign conquerors is the tonic
other contiguous periods in the history of the bearing in the seventh century the English cha- which the languor of a national system demands.
world. The Crusades were perceived to be the racter already stamped upon his face, and standing The Persian invasion developed the latent energy
commencement of a system of things not less in his youth amid the ruins of the Capitol, while of the Athenians; Hannibal first showed the
distinct from the system which it superseded he confuses together in his half-informed mind Romans of what stuff they were made; Barba-
than from that which has since superseded it. It the martyrs, pagan deities, Gothic invaders, rossa was the author of the prosperity and great-
was perceived that though the fourteenth century popes, apostles, and consuls whose names are ness of the Italian republics ; the Spanish lnqui-
when compared with the nineteenth may deserve connected with the hill on which he stands and sition and the Duke of Alva trained the 11°1-
the name of a Dark Age, yet as compared with the busy town below him. landers to empire. But the closest parallel to the
the tenth it was an age of glorious enlighten- What that Egypt was of which Herodotus dominion of the Shepherds in Egypt is the long
ment, and that it would not be much more treats in the second book of his history, and occupation of Spain by the Arabs. It was this
absurd to class Anselm with Leibnitz than to rank what had been the course of its affairs during occupation of their territory by foreigners that
Alcuin or Gerbert with Dante or Wiclif. Yet the rule of those monarchs whose dynasty fell gave the Spaniards a national cause, and a
for a long time we spoke, and many still speak, before the arms of Cambyses, we are gradually national cause produced a national life; the
of Dante as a man living in a dark age, and of learning to form some conception. The new enemy by his continual presence accustomed
Plato as a man living in an age of enlightenment ; volume of Mr. Rawlinson's edition of Herodotus them to the use of arms, gave them experience in
whereas, in fact, Dante had probably the advan- presents the collected result of the latest soldiership, and fostered in them a magnanimous
tage in enlightenment, and most certainly had researches. As existing sources of information spirit by habituating them to use their weapons
the advantage in learning. upon this subject are still so far from being cx- in the cause of their country ; and the final con-
Now, as the phrase "Dark Ages" or "Middle haunted, and the progress of discovery is so sequence of this long disciplim was, first, that the
Ages" turns out on examination to be very rapid, this edition of Herodotus must probably foe was himself expelled by the valour he had
loosely and incorrectly applied, so it seems likely soon be superseded, unless its editors take unusual elicited, and, secondly, that his expulsion led to
that as our information accumulates, the word Pains to incorporate each new discovery as soon a close and powerful union of the whole people
" antiquity " will become gradually modified in as it is made. Meanwhile it is a most invaluable under a single government, and initiated a long
meaning. We are growing familiar with the thesaurus; and, as might be supposed, the present period of prosperity and glory. This passage in
manners and customs of nations, with the volume is especially interesting as being occupied the history of Spain makes it easy to understand
achievements of warriors, and with the specula- with a nation which has so long excited, so long why the brilliant eighteenth dynasty and the
tions of philosophers, to whom the Greeks, with baffled, and at length so largely gratified, the foreign conquests of Rameses fbllowed closely
their Alexanders and their Aristotles, and the curiosity of antiquarians. We are more dis- upon the expulsion of the Shepherds.
other men whom we have been accustomed to Posed to present to our readers some part of 111. Our readers may be interested by the fol-
call ancients, are modern. Hindoo Vedas, cunei- what we have ourselves learnt from the perusal lowing account of the three kinds of hiero-
form inscriptions, hieroglyphics, and the applica- of it, than to occupy our space with criticism glyphics :
tion of a sounder and more scientific criticism to upon such passages as may seem to us open to -in symbolic hieroglyphics—l. The ikonogrophic,
the Old Testament, have gradually brought the objection. representational, or imitative hieroglyphics, are those that
second millennium before Christ within the pro- Sir J. G. Wilkinson, who is responsible for represent the object itself, as the sun's disc, to signify the
wince of history. It will probably become, be- most of the annotations to the second book, and " sun ;" the crescent to signify the " moon;' a mule and
fore long, a universally recognized fact, that what for several important essays printed at the end of female figure apply to man and woman when separate, and
mankind w
we have been accustomed to call antiquity is it, does not indulge in any of those fairy tales ,signifY ( together, with or without the weed
only the antiquity of Europe; and that to call which the unchastised imagination of some recent ' r.o,t ;}em knd ).hen
tropicalani R
h i
p'
h.
esubstitute one object fur
arts Greece the mother of and sciences because writers has constructed out of the Egyptian another, to which it beeraersy an analogy, as heaven and
she introduced them into Europe, is as absurd as monuments. We have had authors who have for " night ;" a leg in a trap for " deceit ;" a pen and ink-
to call Augustine of Canterbury the founder of given us a continuous account of the early years stand for " writing," "to write," or a "scribe ;" and a man
breoking his own head with an are or a ebb for. the
British Christianity because he introduced it and education of Moses, lively sketches of the
to the Saxons. court of a Sethos and an Amenophis, with criti- "wicked," saicide being considered the most wicked
action of a man. Again, the sun is put for a " day;' and
Some plausible reasons might be given for in- cisms upon the literature and leading authors of the moon for a "month;" a youth with his finger to his
eluding those centuries to which we commonly that period. Nothing of this sort will be found mouth for a " child ;" a man armed with bow and quiver
refer when we speak of antiquity, in the modern in the present volume; but if we can be content for a "soldier ;" a man pouring out a libation from a vas?,
times of the world. Greece and Rome are more With a sketch of Egyptian historwhich, y, if or merely the vase itself, for a " priest ;" a man with his
hands bound behind his back for "a captive ;" the ground'
like the States of the modern world than they meagre, has at least the advantage of being con- plan of a house for a "temple," or a " house ;" as a valve
are like Egypt and Assyria. In aspirations after firmed by monuments, and with a very con- signified a "door ;" the firmament or the ceiling of a
political liberty, in the propensity to action rather siderable mass of information about manners and mom, studded with stars, " the heaven ;" and a mall
than to contemplation, the nations of Europe customs it may serve our turn as well as another. raising his hand and ceiling to another was the exclania-
tign.fied a
, tion " oh," and the vocative "o." An egg have resembled each other in all ages, and have We will note here some of the most im rt po am. ~ ch•• • e
lid or " son ;" a face "before," or a " chief ;" and a
been distinguished from those of Asia. We observations made by Sir J. G. 'Wilkinson. lion's forepart the "beginning," and the hind-patter
might, therefore, call the whole period of the I. lie confirms an observation made by some " the end."
ascendancy of Europe modern, and the whole of the earlier • • investigators of Egyptian antiquity, •3. The enigmatic put an emblematic figure or nbject in
previous period ancient. If we took this view, that the
sculptures exhibit no signs of progress
lieu of the one intended to be represented, as a'' hawk
for the " sun ;" a seated figure with a curved beard for a
the great epoch of transition would be removed in artistic skill,
the e oldest being as perfect as the " god." It is sometimes difficult to distinguish between
about six centuries back, to the time when the latest. On
h
the contrary, in those specimens tropical and enigmatic hieroglyphics, as when two,,wateri
Jewish monarchy fell, and when Psammitichus which he
attributes
to the twenty-fifth century plants are put for the "upper and lower country, kin
emblems of the two districts where they principally g
ports ee ,
opened his to Greek traders, and sue- before Christ h
e discovers greater truth and free-
evident that Me
rounded his person with Greek guards. However doe than in the Upper and Lower Egypt. But it will he
in.
works of the age of Rameses or • l
tropics is the nearest of the three to the phonetic, in co h
this may be, it is clear that when he who seems of Psammitic • • us. To a European mind it seems pass, and power of expression, from its being able mur"
to us so venerable as the Father of History absolutely incredible and monstrous that a nation readily to express abstract ideas and facts.
listened to the legends of the priests of Sail, he h uld s o go on for eighteen centuries repeating the We have not space here to treat the com-
egarded them much as we regard him. He looked same conventional forms with nearly the same mentary on the third book, neither can we here
1616.