1822.] 
opera, are lost to the audience by the 
ineffective manner in which they are 
attempted by a handful of inexpe- 
rienced singers. ‘The precision with 
which the French choir executed them 
convinced me that every one was well 
grounded in the art. As to Rossini’s 
songs, they want that divine stream of 
melody which we find running through 
those of Haydn and Mozart. The 
characteristic of his music is pretti- 
ness; but he no sooner hits upon a 
melodious passage, than he loses the 
thread of it in some extraneous har- 
mony ; wanting consistency, it has not 
the intelligence we meet with in Mo- 
zart: itis full of shreds and patches, 
and at times is gaudy as the colours 
of a harlequin’s coat. 
In March 1811 of your Magazine, I 
complained that the operas of Mozart 
lay upon the shelves of the bookseller, 
while we were surfeited with the 
works of inferior composers; since 
which time my suggestion has been 
noticed, and the sublime ‘‘ Don Gio- 
vanni,” with others, has been brought 
before the public. I now prefer my 
second complaint, that not a note of 
Beethoven, the greatest musical ge- 
nius that the world has produced, has 
yet been struck within the walls of the 
Italian Theatre. He has written se- 
veral operas, and if one were brought 
out annually, —like Giovanni, — it 
would serve as a standing dish, and 
give solidity to the feast, in the midst 
of the whipt syllabubs of Rossini. 
Thus, Mr. Editor, I have given you 
my remarks upon the French music, 
during our short and hasty trip to 
Paris; but there are many things in 
France, the splendour of which well 
merits description, and I hope some 
of your more able correspondents will 
communicate their observations and 
feelings upon visiting Paris,—that city 
of sights! that focus of pleasure ! 
——a 
For the Monthly Magazine. 
An account of the late REMOVAL of 
the ZODIAC of DENDERAH from its 
ORIGINAL SITUATION in EGYPT to 
PARIS. 
NTIQUITIES, as objects of 
sense, serve as a clue to the 
judgment, as a solid foundation for 
observations relating to, and account- 
ing for, the manners, customs, and 
history of a people. Egypt is now be- 
coming a main object of attention, and 
the eyes of the literary world are turn- 
On the Removal of the Zodiac of Denderah. 
101 
ed onmanyprominent discoveries which 
once characterised its ingenious peo- 
ple, but appear to have been forgotten. 
Curiosity, scientific or literary, is a 
useful impulse, and acts as an incite- 
ment to acquire knowledge. Jt sel- 
dom has been more active, or more 
encouraged, than itis at present; an 
instance of which, both amusing and 
full of information, appears in the de- 
portation of the zodiac from Dende- 
rah. A statement of this I purpose 
giving, with some account of the man- 
ner adopted for its execution. 
A principal and distinguished trait 
in the character of Mohammed Ali, 
present Pasha of Egypt, is his fa- 
vouring Europeans. M. Saulnier 
transmitted to him in 1818 some 
French books that he wished to have 
translated, as notified through the me- 
dium of M. Boghos, his first drogman. 
These were Plutarch’s Lives, a Life 
of Peter I. another of Charles XII. 
the Campaigns of Frederick ITI. those 
of Napoleon, and the ninth book of 
his Memoirs. 
In 1820, M.S. felt an earnest wish 
to avail himself of the facilities allow- 
ed by Mohammed Ali to the explorers 
of antiquities. Disinclined to the ha- 
zardous chances of deep subterranean 
researches, his views were directed to 
some object of acknowledged and in- 
dividual importance. His attention 
was soon fixed on the planisphere, 
sculptured in relief, in one of the up- 
per chambers of the temple of Den- 
derah. It was a venerable relic of 
high antiquity, which, after an atten- 
tive meditation on the project, he de- 
termined to have transported into 
Europe. There are three other zo- 
diacs in Egypt, but their colossal 
dimensions, and the place which they 
occupy in structures of stupendous 
magnitude, will not admit of their re- 
moval. ._And besides, those of the 
temples of Latopolis are not of the 
same epoch as the circular zodiac of 
Denderah, and of course represent 
different states of the heavens. But, 
what still further augments the value 
of the latter, it has been very little 
obliterated, by the hand of time or of 
the barbarians, while the others are 
almost every where defaced by it. 
Other considerations contributed to 
fix his choice on this monument. By 
a singular fatality, as M.S. calls it, 
it had been unnoticed, through a long 
succession of ages, in the place where- 
m 
