102 On the Mami/cickire of Glass, Porcelain, Si'C. 



ments that remain, and from the evidence of ancient writers. 

 The sculptures inform us that many inventions were known to 

 the«i at the early periods when most other nations were still in 

 their infancy, which, though generally ascribed to a much 

 later epoch, are, from the facility we now have of fixing the 

 chronology of Egyptian monuments, ascertained to be coeval 

 with the Exodus, or the bondage of the Israelites. 



The scientific skill they possessed in architecture, is always 

 a matter of surprise to the traveller who beholds the stupen- 

 dous monuments of Egypt ; whose solid masonry would have 

 defied the ravages of time, and have remained unimpaired to 

 the present day, had not the destructive hand of man been 

 employed against them. The invasion of Cambyses, and the 

 subsequent wars with the Persians ; the three years'" siege of 

 Thebes by Ptolemy Lathyrus, which laid several of her build- 

 ings in ruins, and so completely reduced that ancient capital, 

 that it was no longer worthy to be considered an Egyptian 

 city ; the inveteracy of the Christians against their Pagan pre- 

 decessors, and the abhorrence of the Moslems for the monu- 

 ments of the idolatrous infidels; and, lastly, the position of 

 the temples, wlaich presented themselves to the mason as a con- 

 venient quarry, supplying, at little labour and expense, abun- 

 d?.nce of stones for the erection of new edifices, were the bane- 

 ful causes of the downfall of the Egyptian monuments. But, 

 though great portions of the finest buildings were destroyed, 

 sufficient remains to attest their former grandeur, and to pro- 

 claim the wonderful skill and mechanical knowledge of their 

 founders. 



At the period of the Persian invasion, Egypt was looked 

 upon as the great school of science and the repository of all 

 kinds of learning ; but the arts had fallen from the degree of 

 excellence to which they attained under the Augustan age of 

 the iSth dynasty, and,, though luxury and private wealth in- 

 creased, taste in sculpture and architecture had long since been 

 on the decline, and minute and highly finished details were 

 substituted for the simple and dignified forms of an earlier 

 period. The arts, however, continued to flourish under the 

 succeeding dynasties, and in the reigns of Psamaticus and 

 Amasis, the encouragement given to architecture, sculpture, 



