xxvi PREFACE TO SECOND SECTION 
Journals ^ attacked the author for having dis- 
puted, although upon his own ocular demon- 
stration, the upright position of the bodies. 
" Surely," said he, '' it will surprise the reader, 
to learn, that one of the principal writers by 
whom the fact above alluded to has so loosely 
been affirmed, was Herodotus.'' It might, indeed, 
surprise any reader, if this were true : but the 
assertion is groundless, and altogether founded 
upon the most glaring misconception of the 
text of that author ; as it is not only admitted 
by every scholar, but decidedly manifested by 
the appearance of the bodies in the sepulchres of 
Egypt. Herodotus does not say that they were 
placed upright in the tombs, but in the private 
houses of the Egyptians'^, after the persons em- 
ployed to embalm the body had delivered it 
into the care of the relatives. It is well known 
that the Egyptians frequently kept the bodies of 
their dead, after the funeral rites were per- 
formed, for a long time, in this manner in their 
dwellings. Sometimes they made them to be 
contrary supposition, must have alluded to the posture in which the 
deceased were kept, while yet retained in the houses of their rela- 
tions." The same is maintained hy Palw; Philos. Duss. vol.U. p. 39. 
Lond. 1793. 
(1) Seethe Critical Reviciv for Jtili/ 1805. vol. V. No. 3. p. 2*6. 
(2) See Pauw, Philos. Dissert, vol. l\. p. 39. Lond. 1T95. 
