sweeping aside, or carrying in its surges, those whose inclination would induce them to stem
its force ; and, at the present hour, we know more of pgsitive Egyptian history and of the
ancient inhabitants of Egypt, ages previously to the patri arch. Abraham, than on many subjects
we can assert of our acquaintance with England before Alfred the Great, or with
France before Charlemagne !” (373)
The work last cited, accessible tò every reader of English at an insignificant cost, renders
explanations on the incipient steps of hierological discovery herein superfluous. As a
synoptical report of the progress of Egyptian studies it is correct enough, for general purposes,
to the close of the year 1841. Our present point of departure is a . d . 1822.
“ With Dr. Young’s key, and Champollion’s alphabet contained in his letter to M. Dacier,
a group of scientific Englishmen, headed by Henry Salt, and subsequently aided by A. C.
Harris, commenced in Egypt itself, about 1822, the scrutiny and examination of all the
monuments of antiquity existing, from the Sea-beach tp Upper Nubia, from the Oases to
the peninsula of Mount Sinai, and in every direction through the Eastern and Western Deserts.
These gentlemen, mutually aiding and co-operating with each other, were enabled to take
instant advantage of the true method of interpretation. Egypt was then ali virgin ground.
Every temple, every tomb, contained something unknown before ; and which these gentlemen
were the first to date, and to describe with accurate details. A more intensely interesting
field never opened to the explorer— every step being a discovery. Nobly did these
learned and indefatigable travellers pioneer the way, and mighty have been the results of
their arduous labors. They procured lithographic presses from England ; and, at their
individual expense, for private circulation, Messrs. Felix, Burton, and Wilkinson printed
(at Cairo—1826 to 1829) and circulated a mass of hieroglyphical tablets, legends, genealogical
tables, texts mythological and historical, with other subjects, which, under the modest
titles of “ Notes,” (374) “ Excerpta,” (375) and “ Materia Hieroglyphica,” (376) were disseminated
to learned societies in Europe. Lord Prudhoe’s distant excursions and correct
memoranda rendered the collections of antiquities, with which he enriched England,
extremely valuable ; and his labors were the more appreciated, as his lordship’s liberal
mind and generous patronage of science were above any'sordid motives of acquisitiveness.
Mr. Hay’s own accurate pencil, aided by various talented artists whom his princely fortune
enabled him to employ, amassed an amount of drawings that rendered his portfolios the
largest then in the world. The researches of all these gentlemen have been of incalculable
value to the cause. They have preserved accurate data on subjects,(377) that the destroying
hand of Mohammed Ali has since irrevocably obliterated ; and as they all pursued
science for itself, they deserve and enjoy a full measure of respect. The rumor of their
successes reached Europe ; and Champollion, with reason, apprehended that, if he delayed
his visit to Egypt any longer, the individual labors of English travellers would render that
visit as unprofitable as unnecessary. National jealousy was excited ; and, to preserve her
position as the patroness of Egyptian literature, France determined not to .be anticipated.
“ In 1828, the French government sent a commission, consisting of Champollion le Jeiine,
and four French artists, well supplied with' every necessary outfit, to Egypt, in order that
the master might, for his own and his country’s honor, and at her expense, reap the harvest
for which his hand had sown the seed. A similar design having suggested itself to another
patron of arts and sciences, the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the celebrated archaeologist and
oriental scholar, Professor Ippolito Rosellini, of the University of Pi^a, and four Italian
artists under his direction, were appointed a commission to proceed to Egypt, with the
same intent as the French mission. It was amicably arranged by the respective governments,
and between the chiefs of each expedition, that their labors should be united ; and,
in consequence, the French and Tuscan missions were blended into one, and both reached
Alexandria in the same vessel, and prosecuted their labors hand in hand from Memphis to
the second Cataract. They returned'in 1829.
“ It was amicably arranged, between Champollion and Rosellini, that they were to Jcoinb
in e their labors in the works that were to be issued ; each, however, taking separate
branches—-Champollion undertaking the illùstration of the “ Historical Monuments,”iand
the grammar of the hieroglyphic language of Egypt— to Rosellini was assigned the task
of elucidating, by the “ Civil Monuments,” the manners and customs of this ancient people,
and the formation of a hieroglyphical dictionary. Each set to work by 1830 ; but Champ
o llio n , finding his end approaching, hastened the completion of bis grammar. Intense
application had prostrated the fragile frame which enveloped one of the most gifted mental
(3 7 3 ) Gleddon: Chapters on Early Egyptian History; New York, 1843; p . 10: 15th ed., Philad., 1850.
(3 7 4 ) F e l ix : r e p u b lis h e d in Italian, a t P isa; but n o w o u t o f circulation.
(3 7 5 ) J ames H alliburton : out of print, and extremely rare.
(3 7 6 ) W ilk in so n : l ik e t h e p r e c e d in g .
(3 7 7 ) Gl id d o n : Appeal to the Antiquaries of Europe on the Destruction of the Monuments of Egypt; 1841;
London, Madden. -
capacities ever vouchsafed to man. The government gave him, in the Collège de
France, a professor’s chair, created for him alone ; and his address to his pupils, at the
first and only occasion accorded to him by Providence, is a marvel vof eloquence, sublimity
of thought, and classical diction.
“ He finished his grammar on his death-bed, and summoning his friends around him,
delivered the' autograph into their custody, with the injunction | to preserve it carefully,
for I hope it will be my visiting card to posterity.’:- A few weeks after, Champollion le
Jeune was followed to the, grave by the noblest men of France ; and the wreath of ‘ Immortelles
’ hung over his sepulchre (at his native town, Figeac), symbolized the imperishable
fame of the resuscitator of the earliest records mankind has hitherto possessed.”
His posthumous works were put to press at the expense of the nation, nor is their entire
publication as yet complete. Death removed Rosellini (1841) before the Monumenti dell1
Egitto e della Nubia received his final touches : and his worthy Italian colleague, Ungarelli,
also died (1846) previously to the termination of the latter’s Interpretaiio Obeliscorum Urbis.
We may now proceed with a brief historical sketch of the steps through which Egyptian'
Chronology has become the criterion whereby the annals of all antique nations are now
measured ; subjoining references sufficient for the educated inquirer to verify bibliographical
accuracy.
When Fourier, the polytechnic philosopher, in that masterpiece of eloquent erudition-—
the Preface to the “ Description de l’Egypte’ ’—claimed a period of twenty-five hundred years
before the Christian era, (378) for the monuments which he, and thé corps of illustrious
Savans of whom Jomard is the surviving patriarch, had beheld in the valley of the Nile,
his intuitive grasp-of the amount of time adequate to the construction of then-unnumbered
piles as gigantic in their architecture as diversified in their sculptures, obtained but little
favor with the scholars, and none with the public of Europe, from 1810 to 1830. As when
the immortal Harvey announced his discovery of the circulation of the blood, no surgeon,
over forty years of age, but died an unbeliever in the theory; so forty years after the
utterance of this chronological estimate by Fourier, and notwithstanding the victorious
labors of the_hierologists, do we still encounter cultivated minds unwilling to accept; or
incapable of comprehending, the general truth of his proposition. ,
Equally unpalatable was this,scale of 2500 years, at the time of its publication, to the
representatives of two distinct schools.; whom, for convenience sake, we will designate as
the long and the short chronologists. On the one hand Dupuis and those astronomers who
had claimed as much as 17,000 years b . c. for the erection of the temple of Dendera, and
on the other, the followers of the Petavian and Usherian computations of the chronological
element in Scripture, coincided in its rejection ; the former deeming it too restricted, the
latter too extensive for their respective çosmogenical theories. And, in a controversy in
which the first principles of historical criticism, and a common basis of debate were alike
wanting; before Young had deciphered the first letter in the hieroglyphical name of Ptolemy;
before Champollion-le-jeune’s “ Précis” broke the spell in which the antique writings
of the Egyptians bad been bound for fifteen centuries : and at a day when absolutely nothing
was known of the respective ages of Nilotic remains ; the dogmatical assertions of the latter
were infinitely preferable to the hallucinations of the former.
On his death-bed, in 1830, Fourier was solaced by the glimpse which Champollion, then
just returned from his .triumphant mission to Egypt, afforded him of the probable accuracy
of his prospective vision : but, before the founder of Egyptological science could arrange
the enormous materials collected for his chronological edifice, the 4th of March, 1832, overtook
Champollion on his own death-bed, in the act of bequeathing the manuscript of his
immortal Grammar, as “ my visiting-card to posterity.” (379)
In the same year, Rosellini commenced the publication of the “ Monumenti dell’ Egitto
(3<8) Champollion-F igeac: Fourier et*Napoleon—V Egypte et les cent jours; 1 8 4 4 ; p. 61
(379) Grammaire Égyptienne; 1 8 3 5 ; Introduction. See also in Champollion-F igeac {Notice sur les Manuscrits
autographes de ChampoUion le Jeune, perdus en l’année, 1 8 3 2 , et retrouvés en 1 8 4 0 ; Paris, 184 2 ) the account of
hat-wretched larceny which, while it accounts for the non-publication up to this hour of all the Manuscripts
® by this indefatigable scholar, compels the historian to wipe his pen after writing the name—Salvolini.
e example had, however, been previously set by the plagiarist of J ohn H unter’s MSS.