296 FROM GRAND CAIRO TO ROSETTA. 
Vv'ear ' ; a type of Nature's bounty, and of peace 
on earth'. To this veneration of the plough may 
be referred all the mysteries of Ceres, and many 
of the most sacred solemnities, the rites and 
the festivals, of Egypt and of Greece. Such is 
the explanation of Kirckers Hierolpha, in a 
symbolical view. That, as an archetype, it subse- 
quently gave birth to an alphabetical sign, which 
was introduced among the characters used in 
Egyptian writing, is very probable ; for a gra- 
dual change from the pictured forms of visible 
objects to written types, is manifest to any one 
who will give himself the trouble to collect and 
to compare the various modifications which the 
hieroglyphics have sustained'. 
(1) " In antient times, the sacred plough employ'd 
The Kin^s, and awful fathers of mankind." Thomson. 
(2) "And they shall beat their swords into plough-shares." /ya.ii.4. 
(3) Mr. HiiniiKon'i ohservations upon the rolls oi Papyrus which 
are found in the Mummies'of the Thehald confirm this opinion, in a 
remarkable manner.—" Of the four," says he, " which 1 brought to 
England, one is in the British Museum ; another in the possession of 
the Society of Antiquaries: the other two are but frajcments ; one of 
them written in the common Egyplic character, that of the other 
approaching much more to the hieroglt/phical mode of writing. 
" This circumstance had first induced me to consider, in a Memoir 
submitted to the Society of Antiquaries, the vulgar character, or 
ly^upia, ypifAfiarit, of antient Egypt, as having- derived its origin from 
the picture-writing of earlier ages: and I am further inclined to that 
opmioq 
