THE HAMILTON ASSOCIATION. 37 



as the Coptic, that language survived as a Uving language amongst a 

 small school of priests until last century. 



Egyptian writing is of three kinds, called Hieroglyphic, Hieratic 

 and Demotic. The Hieroglyphics were cut in stone, or, for sacred 

 purposes, depicted in outline on vestments and papyri. They were 

 called by the Greeks grammata hieroglyphica — letters sacred sculp- 

 tured. The two other forms of writing are cursive and quicker 

 methods of conventionally representing the older characters. The 

 Demotic, the younger of the two systems, does not appear in use 

 till the ninth century B. C. From cursory inspection, the monu- 

 ments and writings were found to shew a variety of Hieroglyphic 

 characters, and closer scrutiny proves that they are even more than 

 was suspected. A Leipzig publishing firm keep in stock for Egyptian 

 printing a font of 1479 different Hieroglyphic signs. They include 

 representations of divinities, men, women, birds, beasts, fishes, 

 insects, and forms of the chief objects before the eyes in Egyptian 

 life. 



With such a bewildering variety of signs, it is little wonder that 

 Egyptian writing for centuries was thought to be a form of picture- 

 writing only ; and that its characters were supposed to be ideographic 

 and not phonetic. Prof. Mahaffy, in one of his essays, shews, with 

 his usual ability and force of illustration, how transition from the 

 lower form of picture-writing may advance to the suggestion of 

 abstract ideas, by depicted objects of sense ; and may further become 

 a conventional alphabet to symbolize sounds, and set in train those 

 faculties of our intellectual and emotional nature, which a clever 

 writer%by his pen has the power to excite. It was after a time 

 learned that figurative, ideographic and phonetic signs are all found 

 in hieroglyphic writing. How this discovery was made is an inter- 

 esting story. 



In 1799 a French officer of artillery, when digging a trench in 

 Fort St. Julien, at Rosetta, found a block of black basaltic granite, on 

 which was a trilingual inscription. He was not heedless of his treas- 

 ure trove, for his General had brought with the army the best artists 

 and savants of France, expressly to describe the antiquities of Egypt. 

 Their description filled twenty-two immense folio volumes sold 

 at $1,000. It was the grandest work of its day, and, though in part 

 superseded, remains one of the great books of the world. Nelson 

 rudely awoke Napoleon from his dream of Eastern empire, and after 



