1825. ] - 
conquests. A new Theseus was to 
thread the mazes of the Labyrinth; and 
the Sphynx was to be again humiliated, 
by the victorious expounder of her rid- 
dies, on her own soil. The result was 
the splendid collection, entitled, De- 
scription de ’ Egypte. Notwithstanding 
its typographical and chaleographical 
elegance, however, no new light was in 
reality added to that which had been 
elicited by the less pretending, but more 
accurate, work of Mr. William Hamilton 
on the same subject. 
- Another great distinction between the 
English schools (if we may be pardoned 
the term) of Egyptian research, and the 
French, is, that the latter (elevated by. 
the sublimity of the subject, as well as 
prompted by national character) were 
inclined to impute too exorbitant an 
antiquity to Egyptian monuments ;— 
whereas the former, following the more 
modest footsteps of Mr. W. Hamilton, 
and the colder genius of their country, 
consider many. of these monuments 
capable of illustration by comparison 
with Greek and Roman inscriptions, 
and are disposed to infer their compara- 
tively recent origin. The difference is 
yery great,—one dating monuments at 
the period succeeding the flood; the 
other dating them to the era preceding 
the Christian. 
In our view, both schools are wrong 
in their extreme opinions. Ultraism, in 
fact, is always wrong. In medio tutissima 
via est. In this, as in every thing else, 
the golden mean is most likely to be 
nearest the truth. 
It is scarcely necessary to say, that 
before the era of the expedition to 
Egypt, works of great magnitude on the 
subject had been undertaken. Among 
these may be recorded the ponderous 
volume of Zoega on the Obelisks; the 
equally ponderous works of Pauw and 
Palin, on the affinity between Chinese 
and Egyptian Antiquities and Language; 
and the six elaborate folios of the learned 
Jesuit, Kircher. All these, however, 
produced little gold from the dross and 
scoria of the antiquarian mine, vast and 
intricate as its branches were. 
_ Father Kircher’s interpretation of the 
Obelisks is more dignified than that of 
Hermapion, which is a mere enumeration 
of stupid letters and senseless eulogy ; 
but it is a petitio principii throughout. 
Any given modern discovery, or theory 
in physics or metaphysics, might, on his 
principle, be discovered in certain hiero- 
glyphics, and all human invention shifted 
upon the “Atlantean shoulders” of 
Montury Mae. No. 406. 
Egyptian Researches. 9 
Egyptian wisdom.—The “learned vision- 
ary,’ however, has been content with 
discovering, among these sculptured 
archives of the vanished kingdom of the 
Pharaohs, the theological mysteries of 
the church, handed down from Adam 
to Ham, and from him to the Egyptians. 
The original inscriptions are either due 
to Seth or Enoch; and his interpretation 
has the miraculous. advantage of being 
able to succeed equally well, whether he 
begins at the end of any series of figures, 
or takes Rabelais’ advice, commencer 
par le commencement. His success is 
equally certain, whether he starts from 
the career or the goal,—on the right or 
the left,—at the bottom or the top. 
As to the Egyptian expedition. The 
only practical result of it, as regards this 
perplexing secret of antiquarian BLUE- 
BEARDISM, was the discovery of the 
Rosrrta Stone. This monumental Key, 
as is well known, consists of an inscrip- 
tion in three divisions, the first being 
hieroglyphical writing, the next Encho- 
rial, or vulgar, and the last Greek. 
While the Greek inscription was fully 
illustrated and completed by Porson and 
Heyne, Akerblad employed himself with 
the hieroglyphical and enchorial charac- 
ters, and began satisfactorily by esta- 
blishing the fact, that the Greek was 
really a translation of the hieroglyphies 
(as it professed to be, and no fraud, as 
was suspected), first by pointing out, at 
the end of the inscription, where the 
Greek has the words “first and second,” 
the end being broken off, the three first 
numerals, I., II., and III. 
With regard to the first inscription, 
Akerblad did little or nothing more than 
establish these necessary premises ; and 
with regard to the enchorial inscription; 
he exhausted himself in vain efforts to 
explore its mazes, by means of an alpha- 
betical clue, composed of twenty-five 
letters, which, unlike that of Ariadne, 
left him, at the termination of his re- 
search, as much in the dark and uncer- 
tainty as when it commenced. A slight 
glance at the inscription will shew that 
Akerblad’s datum is quite unsupported 
by its internal evidence. The failure of 
the result was, therefore, a natural con- 
sequence. All he effected was, to inter- 
pret certain proper names according to 
their localities, in composing whieh, it 
appears that a mixed process of hiero- 
glyphical signs and Phonetic characters 
was resorted to.. Dr. Young and M. 
Champollion have followed the clue he 
left, and lay claim to the discovery of 
Demotic or Phonetic characters, for the 
C purpose 
