The Litchfield County post., 1827-09-13

rss.sas Car Intentionally aFFessing theproyess
az -r.nhie ART Noald seem unreasonable; but
ss;l In this. as in allpther things. their priest
az voyernmrnt. from its nature. fostered inn
,,rcvrp,au, only 10 a certain extent, and there
stopped Il forever.
The scrp,icism &c some learned writers may
have gone too far in abridging the claims Of
Egypt to remote antiquity in civilization; but
the hypothesis that she was the parent OF all
human knowledge seems TO be equally I'M
probable. The learned Heeren has shown
very strong grounds for cOnjecturing that her
priests were originally an Ethiopian colony !;
and more than one traveller of research and
perspicacity has come back from those ~re-
gions with conviction that their antiquities
show the religion of Egypt to have come
down the Nile. Egyptian astronomy was
undoubtedly ancient Il but the Oldest eclipses
quoted by Hipparchus and Ptolemy are those
which had been observed in Babylon; and
the former astronomer reckOned upon no e.
clipse that had been recorded in Egypt.
The division both of priests and people into
castles exercising hereditary vacations, was
pernicious to all ingenuity but the most me-
chanical. Their priesthood included at once
their lawyers, astrOlOgers. and physicians
The last of these were so subdivided, that those
who protested to heal one part of the body
burst not interfere with another; and II they
prescribed beyond old superstitious recipes in
the statute book, they had their own death
more imm1 diately than that of their patients
set before their eyes. AS priests, however,
they were rich, independent of fees, and con-
sequently careless of practices. and this is the
only way in which we can account for the F.
gyptians, in spite of their medical faculty ,hav-
ing been long lived peOple-unless we take
into consideration that their priests, very un-
like the monks of Christendom. set the peo-
pie wholesome example ofpersonal cleanli-
ness.
Their arts and taste and ir1aginations were
all, undoubtedly, impressed with the cold for
mality of their institutions. Their temples
echoed not to the sounds of Instruments, and
their sacrifices were performed in silence
Yet it is incredible that music and poetry
should have been prescribed by them, as Dio
Chrysostom asserts. They had pipes and
Tyres; and people possessing Instruments,
vet destitute Of vocal and verbal melody, is a
thing unimaginable SO that the song among
them which Herodotus mentions, could not
have been their only one.
Altogether, the memory of Egypt. far as it
yields to Greece in animating associations, is
still venerable for the antiquity of science
whether it rivalled the Assyrian or not) and
the remoteness of her pacific arts in the annals
of existence. Whatever her positive inven-
tons may have been, she was the great pre-
server of human knowledge anterior to the
Aourishing ages Of Greece, and the main link
Of intellectual connexiOn between Asia and
Europe. Defective as the Egyptians were in
human statuary, Wmkelham speaks OF pieces
Of their animal sculpture, which he had SEEM
that were of even elegant execution. But the
relics of this wonderfulsland must be scanned
by their beldness, and not their beauty; and
the Sensations impressed on the traveller BY
her wildernesses of art,her avenues of sphinx
es, her colossal architectsre, and stony giants
even in description overawe the Imagination
Ito be continued.)