nificent treasures of gold, silver, and ivory; with innumerable colossuses, and obelisques of one entire stone. There were four temples admir- 

 able in beauty and greatness, the most ancient of which was in circuit thirteen stadia, and five-and-forty cubits in height, with a wall of 

 four-and-tv/enty feet broad." 



What history records of the buildings of the Egyptians would surpass credibility, were it not attested by their monuments, which 

 remain to this day. Egypt is a scene of antiquities; walking among ruins, the traveller forgets the present to contemplate the past, and, 

 amid the traces of a degenerate race, marks the remains of a mighty nation. Their buildings are still sublime. The Pyramids of Egypt have 

 always ranked among the wonders of the world. Three of them still remain, at the distance of some leagues from Grand Cairo, where 

 Memphis formerly stood. The largest of the three, called the Great Pyramid, forms a square, each side of whose base is 660 feet. The 

 circumference is 2640 feet. The basis covers eleven acres of ground. The perpendicular height is about 450 feet ; if measured obliquely, 700. 

 The summit, which viewed from below appears a point, is a platform, each side of which is 18 feet long. The stones with which this 

 enormous edifice was built were 30 feet in length. A hundred thousand workmen were constantly employed in carrying on this amazing 

 structure Thirty years were spent in erecting this immense fabric. The sum expended for food to the workmen amounted to 1600 talents, 

 which, comparing the value of money in those days with what it is at present, amounts to more than two hundred thousand pounds 



sterlinsr. 



The original destination of these most ancient monuments of human ingenuity, and which are likely to last coeval with the works of 

 Nature according to the testimony of all antiquity, was to contain the embalmed bodies of the first monarchs of Egypt. The observation of 

 Strabo' that towards the middle of the height of one of the sides, by raising a stone, an oblique passage is opened, which leads to the coffin 

 of a king in the centre of the pyramid, forms a striking proof of the ancient belief on this subject, and is confirmed by every observation 

 which ha's been made on these stupendous structures. The Egyptians not only believed in the immortality of the soul, but also in the re- 

 animation of the body, after a long period of years : hence their extraordinary attention to embalm and preserve the uncorrupted bodies of 



their departed heroes and deceased friends. 



These majestic monuments descend from an unknown antiquity. Herodotus, who wrote 2000 years ago, speaks with as much uncer- 

 tainty about the time when they were constructed as we do at present. 



Other proofs remain of their very high antiquity. While all the remarkable edifices in Egypt are covered with hieroglyphical inscrip- 

 tions no traces of that Egyptian mode of writing appears on the pyramids, because they were erected before hieroglyphical writing was cul- 

 tivated. A stronger proof of their age still remains. The general idea of Egyptian architecture was entirely taken from the pyramids; which 

 nothing but their high veneration for them, increased by their remote antiquity, could possibly have occasioned ; since the figure of these 

 fabrics so well adapted to triumph over time, is inconvenient for habitable structures, whether public or private. Yet we find, from the 

 ancient ruins of the Higher Egypt, that all the buildings, without exception, were raised on the model of the pyramids. We are surprised to 

 find not only their ports, their doors, but even the walls of their towns, inclining to this form. 



The Labyrinth was, if possible, more astonishing than the pyramids. The same circuit of walls inclosed 3000 apartments, twelve of 

 which were of a particular form and beauty. They communicated with each other by so many turns and windings, that without a guide the 

 traveller was lost. One half of the chambers was under ground : the labyrinth terminated in a pyramid forty fathoms high. 



The Obelisks are in the same grand style, but of a singular composition. The first models were erected by Sesostris, as monuments 

 of his victories- they consisted of one piece of granite, and were 180 feet high. The Romans, in the era of their grandeur, transported 

 some of these monuments to their city; two of them still remain, and, for their antiquity and grandeur, rank among the greatest curiosities 



Works of a similar form, or in the same style with the pyramids of Egypt, were found at Babylon, and in several parts of the east. 



The fine arts are imitative : the great original is nature. In the early periods of society, before the earth is cultivated and im- 

 proved by the human hand, the works of nature strike by their greatness, rather than please by their beauty: hence an incorrect idea of 

 Grandeur prevails in the first compositions of all nations of whatever kind. Aiming at the vast and the gigantic, they study to fill the eye, 



rather than to please it. . ^ , • . ., r . • 1 



But what astonishes us most is, that these massy piles actually related to Jstronomy, for these were in truth gnomons for astronomical 

 purposes • and it is equally certain that their pyramids corresponded exactly to the four cardinal points. They were the first people of anti- 

 quity who adjusted the length of the year to the annual revolution of the sun, and determined it to consist of 305 days, and six hours. From 

 thern the Greeks, and other nations, learned the true duration of the solar year. They seem to have attained a right notion of the system of 

 nature- for they' called the moon an ethereal earth, affirmed the fixed stars to be fire, and placed the sun immoveable in the centre of the 

 world ' round whom the inferior planets revolved. This system Pythagoras introduced into Greece, and communicated to his disciples. 



Before I conclude with the account of the gigantic architecture of the Egyptians taken chiefly from the Travels of Pocock, the reader may 

 possibly not be displeased if I state here the dimensions of a vast colossal Statue, which Pocock discovered in some ruins, which he has ably 

 described and accurately measured. It will rescue from the suspicion of hyperbole the account given by Niebuhr, of the dimensions of the 

 errand bust in the Elephanta cavern, the centre face of which alone measured in length five feet ; that of the same face the nose measured one 

 f t and a half; that the width, from the ear only to the middle of the nose, was three feet four inches; and that the stupendous breadth 

 of^the" whole figure, between the shoulders, was near twenty feet. Vide Maurices Indian Antiquities, with a Plate of this Bust and 



description, in Vol. III. p. 220. 



" This large colossal statue," says Dr. Pocock, " is broken about the middle of the trunk : the head is six feet broad : from the top of the 

 head to the bottom of the neck it measures eleven feet, and so it does from the bottom of the neck to the navel. It is twenty-one feet broad 

 at the shoulders, the ear is three feet long and one foot four inches broad, and the foot is four feet eight inches broad." In another court of 

 this ruined temple he saw the remains of " two statues of black granite : that to the west, which is in a sitting posture, measured, from the 

 hands only to the elbow, five feet ; and thence to the shoulder four feet. The statue, on the east, is three feet five inches long in the foot : 

 lying at a distance from it was the head, with the cap : it is three feet six inches long ; and the ear is one foot in length." If admiration 

 should be excited in the mind of the reader, on perusing the account of the dimensions of these statues, to what an exalted point will his 

 astonishment be elevated, when he casts his eye upon the subsequent page, descriptive of the celebrated statue of Memnon, standing upon a 

 edcstal, which is alone above thirty feet in height, and in width near twenty feet ! I need not acquaint the classical reader, that this is the 

 famous statue erected in the temple'of Serapis, which is affirmed, on the first appulse of the beam of the orient sun, to have emitted a dis- 

 tinctly audible sound. It is represented, by Dr. Pocock, as composed of a particular sort of porous dark granite, such as he never saw before, 

 and much resembling the eagle-stone. The statue itself is broken; but of the whole amazing mass, the fabrication of which one would think 

 must have exhausted a quarry, some idea may be formed from the magnitude of the leg and foot, still remaining entire. Of these an engrav- 



E ing. 



