February 1 8, 1892] 



NA rURE 



363 



add to the clearness of the work. Taken as a whole, 

 however, the book will he read with interest and 

 advantage both by the maritime engineer and by the 

 geologist. 



EG YP TIAN HIS TOR V. 

 Egypt under the Pharaohs. By H. Brugsch-Bey. A 

 New Edition, condensed and thoroughly revised by 

 M. Brodrick. (London : John Murray, 1891.) 

 "T^HE science of Egyptology is scarcely seventy-five 

 *- years old, and published formulated statements of the 

 history of Egypt derived from the comparatively newly- 

 acquired decipherment of hieroglyphics are not yet 

 thirty years old ; books on Egyptian history are now so 

 common that the general reader has yet difficulty in 

 deciding which of those available is best for him to 

 read or study. Dr. Birch's " Egypt from the Earliest 

 Times to B.C. 300 " printed, we believe, in 1875, is without 

 doubt, the best of all the small histories of Egypt which 

 have ever been written : the facts are to be depended upon, 

 few alterations are necessary, difficulties are not slurred 

 over, and the whole subject is there treated with the 

 breadth of view and learning only to be found in such a 

 scholar. More concise, but written in the same admir- 

 able style, is the " Apergu " of Mariette, which aimed at 

 presenting in a small compass the principal facts of 

 Egyptian history to the visitors to the Exhibition in Paris 

 in 1867 ; for the general history of Egypt and the relations 

 of her people with foreign nations in the various epochs 

 of her national life, the reader would naturally consult 

 Maspero's " Histoire Ancienne des Peuples de L'Orient," 

 and Lenormant's " Histoire Ancienne de I'Orient." The 

 best examples of scientific histories of Egypt are those of 

 Diimichen and Wiedemann. In the "Aegyptische 

 Geschichte " of the latter scholar, published at Gotha in 

 1884, the author not only sets before the general reader 

 or student the statements of certain facts, but gives in 

 foot-notes the authorities for the statements, so that 

 his work may easily be controlled. « 



This was an important step in advance, and has done 

 more to convince people generally that the decipher- 

 ment of the Egyptian inscriptions has been productive of 

 important results than can be directly estimated. Long, 

 however, before any of the above-mentioned works was 

 written, or probably planned, Dr. Brugsch, the greatest 

 of all living Egyptologists, so far back as 1859, published 

 the first part of a history of Egypt which was to begin 

 with the earliest monument, and to end with our own 

 days ; this part was entitled " L'Egypte sous les Rois 

 Indigenes," and was published with 19 plates in quarto, 

 but the two other parts, which were announced to contain 

 the history of Egypt under the Greeks and Romans, and 

 under the Arabs, seem never to have appeared. In 1876 

 Dr. Brugsch published his "Geschichte Aegyptens unter 

 den Pharaonen," in two volumes, with maps and tables ; 

 and in this work he dealt with the history of Egypt as 

 comprised in the thirty dynasties, beginning with the 

 first historical king, Menes, and ending with Nectanebus. 

 The narrative was written in fine German, and nearly 

 every important event in the history of Egypt, as then 

 known, he described by translating the hieroglyphic 



NO. r T64. VOL. 45] 



inscription which referred to it. These translations read 

 easily, and, on the whole, represented very well the sense 

 of the Egyptian inscriptions in the words of a modern 

 language. In 1877 Mr. John Murray published an English 

 translation of this work entitled "A History of Egypt 

 under the Pharaohs," with Maps, by H. Brugsch ; 

 the translation was the joint work of Danby Seymour 

 and Philip Smith, and although it was on the 

 whole good, it was only too evident that on cer- 

 tain points of Egyptology the translators had no 

 special knowledge, while the beauty of Dr. Brugsch's 

 style was, of course, lost in the process of transla- 

 tion. In 1881, Mr. Murray issued a second edition of 

 the work, which, in addition to a new preface by Dr. 

 Brugsch, contained a number of notes by Philip Smith, 

 which were helpful to the reader, and several alterations 

 and corrections by the author himself ; the thirty-two 

 pages of additions and notes were also most useful. 

 During the past ten years great strides have been made 

 in the science of Egyptology, notwithstanding the loss, by 

 death, of Birch and Lepsius, the fathers of Egyptology ; 

 and general investigations into the history and language 

 of Egypt have resulted in the discovery of a host of new 

 facts, many of which have an important bearing upon the 

 received ideas on these subjects. That a new edition of 

 Brugsch's "Aegypten," or of its English translation is 

 called for, is not to be wondered at, and no one has 

 shown himself more sensible of this need than Mr. Murray 

 himself. We venture to submit, however, that any attempt 

 to " condense" or " thoroughly revise " the work by any- 

 one except Dr. Brugsch or some competent hand was a 

 mistake. The "condensed" edition of "Egypt under 

 the Pharaohs " now before us contains 450 pages of text 

 8vo., and three maps ; all Philip Smith's notes, which, as 

 we before said, were useful to the general reader for whom 

 this book is intended, are deleted, Brugsch's article on 

 the Exodus, the additions and notes, the transliteration 

 and translation of the stele of Usertsen III. have been 

 omitted, and the originally full index has been cut down. 

 Each page contains five lines more than the second 

 English edition, hence we necessarily expect the " con- 

 densed" edition by Miss Brodrick to be a smaller book ; 

 but seeing also that by cutting out clauses and important 

 adjectives, &c., &c., she has succeeded in putting 49 

 pages of the second English edition into 1 8 of the condensed 

 edition, we do not understand the statement made in the 

 second paragraph of her preface that nothing has been 

 omitted except the Essay on the Exodus and the trans- 

 literation, &c., of the Tablet of Usertsen. 



We have no doubt that Macaulay's " History of Eng- 

 land" could be condensed to one-fifth of its present size 

 by cutting out all that is explanatory of facts ; but what 

 should we gain by this mutilation 1 Miss Brodrick's 

 condensation has been so vigorous that Brugsch's ex- 

 planation of the word " Hyksos," which occupies fifty- 

 seven lines in the second English edition, occupies only 

 eight in hers ; and where Brugsch gives two references 

 to one event described in the Bible, Miss Brodrick omits 

 the one which refers to the fuller narrative (p. 375, note 4). 

 "The much-vexed question of the nationality of the 

 Bubastites has, so far as possible, been accommodated 

 to Brugsch-Bey's present views" by omitting whole 

 paragraphs which occur in the second English edition. 



