EGYPT. 
fanatic, would have all or none, fo adopted the entire 
dietetic fyftem : after this, travelling.into India, he em¬ 
braced without referve the regimen of the Bramins, for¬ 
bidding all animal food, as the Egyptian had done that 
of fifh, and of many vegetables : thus his fyftem became 
an abfurd notion of the two ; each of which had been cal¬ 
culated for a different climate, and neither for that in 
which he and his followers were to obferve it. To a 
genuine' bigot doiStrine is every thing ; common fenfe* 
nothing! Leprofy, fore eyes, and gonorrhea, were very 
early endemic in Egypt: the elephantiafis, a fpecies of 
leprofy peculiar to the Egyptians, above all corrupts the 
fpermatic juices; this accounts for the origin of the go¬ 
norrhea, as likewife for the invention of circumcifion. 
For this reafon the prieds ordained abftinence from all 
kinds of fidi, as produdlive of fcurvy ; yet the people 
were indulged in the ufe of fuch as were lead fo : Ihell- 
fifli, and in general thofe of the fcaly tribe, were deemed 
the mod innocent. The fird magidrates, efpecially the 
Pharaohs, were not allowed to drink wine. Pythagoras 
adopted the prohibition ; but it did not lad long. Apol¬ 
lonius Tyanaeus endeavoured to revive it, but in vain. 
The flefli of fwine was totally prohibited, except twice 
a-year, when the common people were indulged in the 
ufe of it. The fleth of goofe and pigeon was the mod 
edeemed; and therefore referred for the prieds and the 
king. 
The ancient Egyptian Lent of forty days was a dietetic 
inditution ; they had feveral fmaller Lents of fix days : 
during all thefe the lnifband was not allowed to deep 
with his wife. Their Lent was kept in the hotted feafon 
.of the year: at this day, the better fort of the inhabi¬ 
tants, in the hot months, take their meals only in the 
cool of the morning and evening. Mahomet borrowed 
his Lent, the time of keeping it, and the abdaining from 
wine, from the Egyptians:— C'ejl en Egypte qu'il faut 
chercher la ratine de la plus-part des inJliLulioi.s rellgicujes .-— 
It is from Egypt that we mud trace the origin of mod 
religious inditutions. The Egyptians confecrated onions, 
that is, prohibited the eating of them, on account of 
their being dimulating and hurtful to the eyes : it is in 
this point of view that we are to condder their confecra- 
tions in general ; for w hatever was deemed hurtful was 
confecrated, and not to be touched aslood. 
The Egyptian government was monarchical, not de- 
fpotic; for the king was not judge ; this belonged to the 
prieds; nor could he tax without their confent. In this 
refpedt, the prieds were the ephori of that government. 
Herodotus informs us, that exclufive power and autho¬ 
rity was lodged in the hands of the prieds, who ruled the 
fovereign, and kept the formula of their religion wrapt 
up in emblem and mydery, to put a barrier between 
themfelves and the people." The king was ferved and 
counfelled by prieds, fed and indrudted by them ; every 
morning they read to him the duties of a fovereign to¬ 
wards his people, and towards his religion; they then 
led him to the temple, where thefe duties were incul¬ 
cated by prayer and facrifice. The only two fovereigns 
who, according to hidory, dared to fltake od' their yoke, 
were Cheops and Cephrenes, who (hut up the temples 
for twenty years ; but thefe were regarded as impious 
and rebellious princes, and were recorded as fuclfin the 
annals which the prieds compofed and handed down to 
poderity. The palace with a hundred chambers, the 
only one mentioned in the hidory of Egypt, was the work 
of a new form of government, in which the prieds could 
no longer pofiefs the fame influence. In this fplendid 
palace of the kings, the idea of uncontrouled monarchy 
was implied by fculptured figures on the fide of the gate, 
reprefenting heroes holding by the hair a group of con¬ 
quered prifoners, and prefented by the divinities with 
new arms for future victories. But it does not appear 
that this date of kingly power was of long duration. 
The pontificate was hereditary, not at the nomination 
of the prince, who, by the original conditution, could 
not be of the order; but when Sethon, who was pontiff, 
made himfelf king, there was no counterpoife left to the 
royal authority, which of courfe became defpotic. In 
this, as in all the mixed governments of antiquity, a third 
or middle power was' wanting, a reprefentative of the 
people. From this time, the prieds or the military dif- 
pofied of the throne by election from among themfelves, 
as either prevailed ; the people were but a number, that is, 
Haves. The prince, if chofen from the military, adorned 
the priedhood ; there was no controtil left. Fertility 
of foil, and facility of culture, confiituted their wealth ; 
lienee pyramids, and public works were no proof of the 
riches of the prince ; they were the refit It of the paflions 
of a people little employed in providing the means of 
fubfidence. The Ptolemies at lad gave them a tade for 
commerce, which till then they had defpifed. This ac¬ 
counts for their having ufed no coin in early times. They 
had a phyfician for every malady, but no lawyers ; all 
pleadings were in writing; no torture was inflidted in 
criminal cafes; perjury was made capital, and fo was 
murder. If the accounts we have of the Egyptian go¬ 
vernment be imperfadt and unfatisfadtory, it mud be con- 
fidered, fird, that the national records are lod ; and, in 
the next place, that the government, from the time of 
Sethon, becoming defpotic, the principles of fuch a go¬ 
vernment, if it can then be laid to have had any, mud 
be contained in a very fmall code, the will of the prince. 
The flonriflung date of the arts at the era of the Mace¬ 
donian conqited, is, however, the mod fatisfadlory proof 
of the liability and antiquity of their government. 
The Egyptians had two languages, a popular, and an 
hieroglyphic. The obfeurity and indecifion of the hiero¬ 
glyphic, fays Herodotus, fitted it to become a language 
of which the pried might keep the interpretation to him¬ 
felf. No one can conceive what is become of their popu¬ 
lar language ; it feems totally lod. A conjecture on this 
fubjedt may podibly be allowed. In their laws, man¬ 
ners, and inditutions, the Egyptians piqued themfelves 
on being fuperior to all other nations ; this was the re- 
fult of the mean opinion they entertained of the red of 
mankind ; under this impreflion, they wiflied to with¬ 
hold alt knowledge of the difeoveries they had made in 
arts and fciences from others; to this end, thofe dif¬ 
eoveries were committed to the keeping of the prieds, 
their only authors and literati ; the country being con¬ 
quered, and the priedhood dedroyed, the records might 
perifh with the order. That the prieds did keep thofe 
records in the utmod privacy is manifed from this, that 
the Greek literati, who lived and dudied fo many years 
in Egypt, never brought out of the country a fingle vo¬ 
lume of thofe records, or fpecimen of the language in 
which they were written ; a circtimdance not to be paral¬ 
leled in the hidory of letters : fo that their communica¬ 
tion with their teachers mud have been by interpreters; a 
Angularity the more likely to be adopted by the Greeks, 
from their known contempt of all other tongues, and 
pride in their own. Yet, as the Egyptian prieds had a 
fettled revenue, and differed none of their order to re¬ 
ceive legacies or donations, it is the more extraordinary 
that they fhould have given into thefe extremes of pried- 
craft. Befides, they were obliged to marry, which made 
them a part of the date. They were likewife poflelfed 
of the judicial power: the fird clafs of judges were 
called prophets; that is, interpreters. I'he foreteller of 
events was called Mantis; who, according to Plato, was 
always fuppofed to be out of his fenfes ; or, which was 
the fame thing, to be infpired : hence the priedefs of Dei- 
phos, who pronounced the oracles, aflumed a femblance 
of phrenfy to confirm the opinion of her infpiration. 
There is not to be found in the world a fingle book of 
the great library of Thebes; fo that we know nothing of 
Egyptian literature but from the Information of the Greek 
phiiofophers and poets ; and even they knew not much ; 
for the Egyptian literati held the wiled of the Greeks 
extremely cheap, “ You Greeks will for ever talk like 
