144 ALEXANDER GORDON, THE ANTIQUARY. 



for printing and publishing never did arrive ; and so Alexander Gor- 

 don, junior, never received his two-thirds, nor Frances Charlotte her 

 one-third part, of all and singular the sums of money which the 

 sanguine Antiquary persuaded himself were to accrue from the sale 

 of his grand solution of the Egyptian mystery. 



To survivors belonging to a century which has shared in the labours 

 and elucidations of Dr. Thomas Young, Champollion, and many later 

 Egyptologists, by whom the Rosetta Stone, and subsequent discov- 

 eries of inscribed tablets and papyri, have been turned to such good 

 account, the unpiiblished " Critical Essay" of the author of the Itine- 

 rarium Septentrionale would be of little enough value now. But it 

 is otherwise with his own portrait. As a work of ai-t, its merit is 

 possibly not to be ranked very high ; and, now that his heirs and 

 assignees have all passed away, if it still exists, it is probably consigned 

 to some lumber room, or deserted attic, from whence — if it could but 

 be ferreted out, — the lucky discoverer might rescue it almost for the 

 trouble of taking it away ; and yet, to not a few it would be a prize 

 of rare worth. Doubtless it bears its own means of identification : 

 the author's folios, perchance, duly labelled with the titles of his 

 literary fame ; or — in evidence of the tastes of a later era, — an Egyp- 

 tian mummy, or other symbol of those mystic studies wliich beguiled 

 him from his fir&t love. By some such feature the old canvas may 

 yet be identified, and so introduce to us the veritable effigies and 

 handiwork of Alexander G-ordon, the quondam Roman Antiquary, 

 and Registrar of the Province of Carolina in those good old times 

 when George II. was King. Since we have been fortunate enough 

 to recover his will, with its characteristic bequests, after its destruc- 

 tion had been assumed aa unquestionably involved in General Sher- 

 man's sack of Columbus, the capital of the old State, and the burning 

 of all the records of elder generations ti^easured there, we may still 

 indulge the hope that some lucky chance will yet restore to the State 

 of South Carolina the portrait of its old Registrar, around whom a 

 fresh halo of glory has gathered since the times when he transacted, 

 unheeded, the routine duties of his office, as a citizen of Charleston ; 

 and, in accordance with his own directions, was there committed to 

 the dust, " decently, and in a Christian-like manner." 



