be a traveller, an inquirer, an amateur, to sympathize with my rapture on this occasion. When it was brought me, I felt that I turned pale with anxiety; I was going to express my indignation at those who had violated the integrity of this mummy, when I perceived in its right hand, and resting on the left, a roll of papyrus, on which was a manuscript, that I should perhaps have never seen without this violation. I then blessed the avarice of the Arabs, and my good fortune, which had put me in possession of such a treasure, which I hardly dared touch for fear of injuring this sacred manuscript, the oldest of all the books in the known world. I could not venture to entrust it out of my sight, and all the cotton of my bed was devoted to wrapping it up with the utmost care. What could be its contents? Was it the history of this personage, the remarkable events of his life? Was the period ascertained by the date of the sovereign under whom he lived? Or, did this precious roll contain maxims, prayers, or the history of some discovery?"

In his explanation of the plates to his work, the French citizen has the following additional remarks:

"The first observation which we shall make on this relic of antiquity is, that the papyrus on which it is written is prepared in the same way as that of the Greeks and Romans; that is to say, of two layers of the medulla of this plant glued to each other, with the fibres made to cross, to give more consistence to the leaf. It may also be seen that the writing goes from right to left, beginning at the top of the page.

"Above the figures is an inscription composed of seven vertical and four horizontal lines the writing is here different from the rest of the manuscript, of which this is a part, and the characters appear to be infinitely varied and numerous; some of the emblematical figures, met with in other places, may be here distinguished, such as the serpent, the eye, the birds; but these are mixed with others that seem to be purely conventional, and exhibit no kind of image.

"In copying the whole manuscript I have found the return of entire phrases, and particular characters, so often repeated, that they can be only articles, conjunctions, or auxiliary verbs: from these, it would be easy for those persons who devote themselves to this kind of study, to compose alphabets, or groups of words, which may assist in the general explanation; and a single one of these manuscripts would furnish the whole of the set of characters, if each character only expressed a single letter.

"This manuscript belongs to the first consul, who has been pleased to allow me the use of it...

"Part of another manuscript with which citizen Amelin has furnished me. . . "We may remark in this manuscript, the writing of which is large and carefully executed, that the characters of the inscription above the figures are different from those of the body of the manuscript itself.

"Various colours appear in the several parts of the original figures of this plate: I have thought it necessary to assist any attempt at explanation by indicating these colours, and therefore the reader will please to observe, that the horizontal-lined engraving represents red; the vertical, blue; the sloping, green; and the crossed lines indicate black."

These discoveries afford undeniable evidence that the Egyptians enclosed a roll or book (5) in the coffin with their dead; and though we cannot answer M. de N.'s questions as to the contents of such books; yet we may safely call them sepulchral inscriptions, or breviates.

The word rendered printed in our public version, as observed, undoubtedly denotes impressed :-may this allude to a manner of writing even now practised in the East, on palm leaves, &c. as mentioned in the following quotation from Pliny, with a sharp point, as of ivory, or, &c. ?—Or, may it rather be connected with the iron stylus and lead of the same author, and of our pious patriarch?

Pliny says, xiii. 11: Olim palmarum foliis scriptatum et libris quarundam arborum; postea publica monumenta PLUMBEIS VOLUMINIBUS, mox et privata linteis confici cœpta, aut ceris. At first men wrote on the leaves of the palm, and the bark of certain other trees; but afterwards public documents were preserved on leaden scrolls, or plates, and those of a private nature on linen, or on wax tablets.

This distinction, perhaps, was not always observed, or the custom varied in successive ages; for besides paper scrolls, it is not difficult to prove that the Egyptians buried books of lead, with their deceased friends-not with rustics, or unlettered persons, it may be presumed; but with men of high station and dignity, priests, kings, &c. such as Job was.

In Montfaucon's Antiq. Expliq. vol. ii. p. 378. he describes "a small book entirely of lead, which he bought at Rome, in 1699, and afterwards presented to the cardinal de Boullion. Not only the two plates which form the covering, but the six leaves, the ring, the pin which fastens them together, the bands, the nails, are all of lead."-It is filled with Gnostic figures and writing;-clearly Egyptian. The learned author adds, "Father Bonanni, in his Museum Kirkerianum has given the figure of a similar book found in an ancient tomb. The covering, he says, with the seven leaves of which the book is composed, are of lead: in each leaf there are letters engraved (gravées), some Greek, others Hebrew, others Hetruscan or Latin. They are unintelligible, as are the figures which accompany them. [They are Egyptian Gnostic figures; like the former.] Father Bonanni cites a passage from Tacitus, in which mention is made of similar tablets of lead." These books are su full to our purpose, that we waive all reference to the testimony of Pausanias; who mentions the "works and days" of Hesiod as written on plates of lead; and also, to the testimony of Suetonius, who, in his life of Nero, calls this sort of plate chartam plumbeam, leaden paper.

But we must not quit this part of our inquiry, without observing that Lieut. Col. Fitzclarence in his Tour from India to England through Egypt, says, "Mr. Salt, at Cairo, shewed me a piece of linen covered with hieroglyphics, which appeared exactly as if it had been printed." Will this vindicate the expression used by Job? The subject is curious; and deserves investigation.

The custom of burying the dead in rocks needs no other proof than that of the sepulchres of the kings at Thebes in Egypt; that such sepulchres had inscriptions sculptured on them, it were waste of time to demonstrate. Dr. Pococke saw inscriptions cut in the rock in these tombs. [Descrip. of the East. vol. i. p. 98, 99.] These are written on hieroglyphics-which is evidence of their antiquity. There is also a line of hieroglyphics, in the second pyramid; as Greaves reports, p. 106, 107. Some of the most ancient, as well as most interesting, have occasionally come under our notice in articles already considered.

We are now able to understand why the man of patience does not use the customary term for words, in the opening of this passage-" O! that my words were written "--but . This root seems to imply-to hint to recall ideas to remembrance-to renew former sensations. So Gen. xxi. 7: "Who would have hinted to PART XXX. Edit. 5.

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Abraham-or renewed in his mind, though in a mode the most concise, the idea that Sarah should give children suck? whereas I really have borne him a son in his old age." In the youth of Abraham and Sarah, this was a natural-a primary idea; in their old age it was a renewal of that idea. Again, Psalm xix. 5. The continued discourse of day and night, the firmament, &c. is gone out through all the earth: their renewals of instruction-admonition, they hint, or suggest, to the ends of the world. So Addison, speaking of the moon,

Which nightly to the listening earth,

Repeats the story of her birth.

This repetition is without words: or, if words be attributed to the firmament, &c. it must be metaphorically. But in Prov. vi. 13. even this is inapplicable :

A wicked man winketh with his eyes;

He speaketh with his feet;

He teacheth with his fingers.

In this passage, the term cannot possibly mean words: the feet cannot speak; they cannot by posture and position convey ideas absolutely new into the minds of bystanders but they may hint at matters, or circumstances; they may renew former ideas in the minds of those who have previously been acquainted with the intention of those motions. That which, in the instance of the tomb is capable of renewing former ideas, a sepulchral cause of recognition, must be a short inscription, a record; a breviate; a concise history, character, or, &c. of the person whose remains are enclosed in that mansion of death.

Under this conception of the import of the text, we venture to assign the following sense to the passage:

Who will favour me that my sepulchral breviate should now be written in the inner surface [literally, hollow] of a scroll!

Should be engraven with an iron stylus on a plate of lead!

Should be, for perpetual duration, deeply sculptured in the live rock!

If the royal mourner be asked-" Why, what should be the contents of this important document, about which you are so anxious? What is the testimony you wish to record to the end of time, as your conviction?" He replies, "Even in this desolate condition, I say, I shall arise !"-The sentiment is equivalent to the resurgam

of modern monuments.

But, here we must recollect, that as Job had alluded to the Egyptian mode of burial of eminent persons, he continues the idea; and states his expectation of being treated as chiefs of equal dignity were treated in Egypt-Jacob, for instance-to be embalmed; to be eviscerated: the shell, or hollow trunk of the body, only remaining as we see in all mummies now in the cabinets of the curious. He proceeds to describe the contents of this breviate accordingly :

For I myself know that my Redeemer liveth,

And ultimately over the dust he shall stand:

Though closely following my skin, they have bandaged around this (body),

Yet in my flesh I shall see the Supreme:

Moreover, I myself shall see him for myself;

And my own eyes shall behold him, and not another's:

My desires shall be absolutely consummated in my (hollow) trunk.

If such were the sentiments Job wished should be perpetuated in his coffin-at his tomb, for ever; by a paper scroll, or by a leaden book, or by the live rock-is it possible to doubt his belief in the resurrection of the dead?

No. DCCXXVI. A LEGIBLE SEPULCHRAL BREVIATE, FOUND WITH A MUMMY.

THE principles of the foregoing Number stand in no need of confirmation, after the evidence adduced; yet the article now to be set before the reader will contribute illustration on points which hitherto could be only guessed at. We could not pretend to gratify the curiosity that might wish to know the contents of the sepulchral scrolls buried with the ancient Egyptians, because neither the character nor the language are understood by us; in the present instance those impediments are removed, and we have now the satisfaction of announcing information from which the veil of secresy and ignorance is withdrawn.

Our authority is a tract in German, printed at Berlin, 1821, containing an "EXPLANATION OF AN EGYPTIAN CONTRACT WRITTEN ON PAPYRUS, in cursive Greek characters, dated 104 years before A. D. Read January 24, 1821, at the Royal Academy of Sciences, by Augustus Bockh, Member of the Royal Academies of Berlin and Munich." [Reported on by M. Jomard, Revue Encyclop. Vol. x. p. 370.]

The history of this interesting document informs us, that the original was obtained from Upper Egypt (the Thebais) where it had been preserved in the hand of a mummy, from the time of its deposition twenty centuries ago. The purchaser of this mummy was M. John Anastasius, Swedish Consul at Alexandria, who took out the manuscript, and enclosed it between two glasses, as the most curious article of his collection. General Minutoli, who travels in Egypt and the East, by order of the Prussian government, procured a fac simile of the papyrus, which he transmitted to the Academy at Berlin. The preservation of this papyrus is attributed to the power of the balsams with which the mummy had been impregnated, and to the extreme dryness of the tomb in which it had reposed.

The size of the manuscript is about 22 inches in length by 5 inches in height: on the left is the impression of a kind of seal, representing a bearded head with a helmet on, as common on Greek medals. The writing is divided into three parts: the first part comprised in five lines, marks the date, and the names of the officers of religion for the time being. The second part, in eight lines, contains the body of the contract; the third part, also in eight lines, is a registration; no doubt in some public office. These lines are shorter than the others-and in a different handwriting; the characters are more slender, are closer together, and are evidently written in haste. These particularities lead to the inference that this papyrus is the original of the act and that, the mummy with which it was found is that of the purchaser named in the contract.

We are obliged to three German literati for decyphering and translating this document; M. Bekker first attempted to read it, and after making out the greater part, he transferred it to M. M. Bôckh and Buttmann, who attached themselves to the difficulties it presents, till, at length, very few words, and those of no importance, remain not understood. The following literal translation may convey an idea of it.

The interval from the sale of this property to its registration-from the 29th of Tybi to the 20th of Pharmuthi (February 13th to May 5th)-is something less than three months. It is probable, that this was an allowed interval according to law. Is it at all analogous to the reservation, Lev. xxv. 29, 30?