2fiO A HISTORY OF 



CHAPTER XIII. 



OF MUMMIES, WAX-WORKS, &C 



" MAN* is not content with the usual term of life, but he is willing 

 to lengthen out his existence by art ; and although he cannot prevent 

 death, he tries to obviate his dissolution It is natural to attempt to 

 preserve even the most trifling relics of what has long given us plea- 

 sure ; nor does the mind separate from the body, without a wish, that 

 even the wretched heap of dust it leaves behind, may yet be re- 

 membered. The embalming, practised in various nations, probably 

 had its rise in this fond desire : an urn filled with ashes, among the 

 Romans, served as a pledge of continuing affection ; and even the 

 grassy graves in our own church-yards, are raised above the surface, 

 with the desire that the body below should not be wholly forgotten. 

 The soul, ardent after eternity for itself, is willing to procure, even 

 for the body, a prolonged duration." 



But of all nations, the Egyptians carried this art to the highest per- 

 fection : as it was a principle of their religion, to suppose the soul 

 continued only coeval to the duration of the body, they tried every 

 art to extend the life of the one, by preventing the dissolution of the 

 other. In this practice they were exercised from the earliest ages ; 

 and the mummies they have embalmed in this manner continue in 

 great numbers to the present day. We are told, in Genesis, that Jo- 

 seph seeing his father expire, gave orders to his physicians to embalm 

 the body, which they executed in the compass of forty days, the usual 

 time of embalming. Herodotus also, the most ancient of the profane 

 historians, gives us a copious detail of this art, as it was practised, in 

 his time, among the Egyptians. There are certain men among them, 

 says he, who practise embalming as a trade ; which they perform with 

 all expedition possible. In the first place, they draw out the brain 

 through the nostrils, with irons adapted to this purpose ; and in pro- 

 portion as they evacuate it in this manner, they fill up the cavity with 

 aromatics : they next cut open the bell}', near the sides, with a shar- 

 pened stone, and take out the entrails, which they cleanse, and wash 

 in palm oil ; having performed this operation, they roll them in aro- 

 matic powder, fill them with myrrh, cassia, and other perfumes, ex- 

 cept incense , and replace them, sewing up the body again. Aftei 

 these precautions, they salt the body with nitre, and keep it in the 

 salting-place for seventy days, it not being permitted to preserve it so 

 any longer. When the seventy days are accomplished, and the body 

 washed once more, they swathe it in bands made of linen, which have 

 been dipt in a gum the Egyptians use instead of salt. When the 

 friends have taken back the body, they make a hollow trough, some- 

 thing like the shape of a man, in which they place the body ; and 



* This chapter I have, in a great measure, translated from Mr. Daubenton. Whatever 

 <s added from others, is marked with inverted commas. 



