held in high respect, considered as sacred persons, permitted to have a free access to the temples, and to associate with the priests. Their office consisted in removing from the corpse every part that was susceptible of decay, and washing the rest with palm wine and spices; after this immediate operation, they for more than thirty days applied various kinds of resin, to preserve the body; and, after having impregnated the whole with myrrh and cinnamon, to give it an agreeable smell, they returned it to his relations so perfectly preserved in every part, that even the hairs of the eyelids and the eyebrows remained undisturbed." Indeed, from all accounts, it seems that the whole appearance of the deceased remained so unchanged as to be recognised, not only by his height, and the outline of his figure, but even by the character and expression of his countenance. Nor must we be surprised at this great progress which the Egyptians had made in the art of embalming, for they had the custom of keeping the bodies of their ancestors, in their houses, for generations, and enjoyed the gratification as if of living with them. You remember what Lucian says of having been an eye-witness of these mummies being placed on seats at table, as if they had been living.

But to return. The common place of burial was beyond the lake Acherjsia, or Acharejish, which meant the last state, the last condition of man, and from which the poets have imagined the fabulous lake of Acheron. On the borders of this

lake Acherusia sat a tribunal, composed of fortytwo judges, whose office, previous to the dead being permitted to be carried to the cemetery beyond the lake, was to inquire into the whole conduct of his life.

If the deceased had died insolvent, they adjudged the corpse to his creditors, which was considered as a mark of dishonour, in order to oblige his relations and friends to redeem it, by raising the necessary sums amongst themselves. If he had led a wicked life, they ordered that he should be deprived of solemn burial, and he was consequently carried and thrown into a large ditch made for the purpose, to which they gave the appellation of Tartar, on account of the lamentations that this sentence produced among his surviving friends and relations.

This is also the origin of the fabulous Tartarus, in which the poets have transferred the lamentations made by the living to the dead themselves who were thrown into it.

If no accuser appeared, or if the accusation had proved groundless, the judges decreed that the deceased was entitled to his burial, and his eulogium was pronounced amongst the applauses of the bystanders, in which they praised his education, his religion, his justice, in short, all his virtues, without, however, mentioning any thing about his riches or nobility, both of which were considered as mere gifts of fortune.

To carry the corpse to the cemetery, it was

necessary to cross the lake, and this was done by the means of a boat, in which no one could be admitted without the express order of the judges, and without paying a small sum for the conveyThis regulation was so strictly enforced, that the kings themselves were not exempt from its severity.

ance.

The cemetery was a large plain surrounded by trees, and intersected by canals, to which they had given the appellation of elisout, or elisians, which means nothing else but rest. And such again is the origin of the poetical Charon and his boat, as well as of the fabulous description of the Elysian Fields.

The whole ceremony of the interment seemed to have consisted in depositing the mummy in the excavation made in the rock, or under the sand which covered the whole of the elisout, to shut up its entrance by a large stone; then it seems that the relations of the deceased threw three handfuls of sand on the tomb, as a sign to the workmen to fill up the cavity, and then departed, after uttering three several cries, as three distinct farewells.

To express, therefore, the circumstance, that the deceased had been honoured with the rites of burial, and with the proper and legitimate lamentations of his friends, they exhibited on the legend imprinted on the mummy, or engraved round his tomb, the figure of a horse of the Nile, which the Greeks mistook for a dog, who, by his fidelity and attachment, has deserved to become the symbol of

friendship and affection; and as they at all times wished to add something of their own to the institutions of other nations, in order to express the three cries, or farewells, they represented this same dog as having three different heads. To this emblem, or hieroglyphic, the Egyptians gave the appellation of oms; and the Greeks, in consequence of their mistaking it for a dog, that of Cerber, from the Egyptian Ceriber, a word that means the cry of the tomb, and from which originates the Cerberus of the Grecian mythology.

The manner in which these religious doctrines were exhibited in hieroglyphics, and how they were further distorted by the Greeks, will form the subject of our next Lecture.

LECTURE V.

Continuation of the same subject-Exhibition of the mode by which the souls of the dead entered the Amenti-Further examination of hieroglyphics-Explanation of some of the most important grammatical forms-Genders-Number-VerbsPronouns-Mixture of hieroglyphics-Legends-Names of individuals-of the Pharaohs-Mystic titles which invariably preceded their historical name-Explanation of some most commonly used-Coincidence of the Egyptian inscriptions with the names of some of the kings mentioned in the Bible.

We concluded our last Lecture with mentioning the ceremonies practised by the Egyptians in the burial of their dead; and I deferred to this Lecture the exhibition of the hieroglyphics connected with these ceremonies. I now offer to your inspection a curious picture, [Table 5.] representing the trial and judgment which the Egyptians supposed the soul of a man to undergo, before he was allowed to enter the region of rest and happiness. It is taken from a curious MS. existing in the Vatican library, of which Angelo Mai, a Milanese, has given a description. Although I have not been able to obtain the original work, yet in German there is a translation by Louis Bachmann, in