401 
Society. We have here a list of Assyrian Kings from the year 
B.C. 1850 to B.C. 620, a period of 1230 years,* 
While Mr. Smith has done so much for Assyria Dr. Birch has 
done no less for Egypt. He has also written the history of that 
wonderful land from the stony records which have been 
preseryed. The study of the hieroglyphics and of the wall paint- 
ings has enabled him not only to bring Egyptian history into a 
perfectly arranged system from the earliest dawn of its existence 
to its decay and fall as a nation, but also to paint the domestic 
manners and customs of the people as they once lived. “In 
private life,” he says, “ the Egyptian Lord led a charmed life, his 
estate was cultivated by slaves, his household full of domestics ; 
the barber, the waiting-maid, the nurse, appear as necessary 
adjuncts to his household as the steward who presided over the 
destribution, and the clerk who checked the expenses of his daily 
life. Each Priest or Noble had in his establishment all the trades 
necessary for his ease and comfort; the glass-blower, the gold- 
worker, the potter, the tailor, and the baker and the butler. 
His leisure or ennui was charmed by the acrobat and the dancer, 
the harpist and the singer; games of chance and skill were 
played either by him or in his presence. The chief occupation of 
the period, or at all events that most often represented in the 
tombs, was the inspection of the farm. The Noble of the Fourth 
Dynasty was a hereditary landed proprietor.” + 
But archzological research has attained to more than opening 
- out the pictures of private life in ancient Egypt, it has recovered 
the Record of Ancient Egyptian Kings. Mr. Duemichen found at 
Abydos on a wall of a temple there, a list of seventy-six Royal 
names, commencing with Menes, the first monarch of Egypt, and 
* The lamented early death of Mr. George Smith while prosecuting his 
researches abroad, has been a heayy loss not to this country alone, but to the 
whole scientific world. The above was written before the sad event took place. 
t See “Egypt from Earliest Times,” by S. Birch, LL.D., p. 44. 
