Cecil, and promulgated in 1563. All the painters and engravers -were prohibited by it to
continue making portraits of the Queen, until some good artist should have made a truthful
likeness, to serve as model for all the copies to be made in future, after the model has, upon
examination, been found to be as good and exact as it could be. It is further said that the
natural desire of all the subjects of the Queen, of every rank and condition, to possess the
portrait of H. M., having induced many painters, engravers, and other artists, to multiply
copies, it has been found that not one of them has succeeded in rendering all the beauty and
charms of H. M. with exactness, much to the daily regret and complaints of her well-beloved
subjects. Order was, therefore, given for the appointment of commissioners (the
French text says ‘ experts ’) to inquire into the fidelity of the copies, and not to tolerate
any one, marked by deformity or defects, from which, by the grace of God, Her Majesty
was free.” ,.'
In conclusion, let us rejoice with our collaborator, M. Maury, that
“ the school of Champollion, therefore, feels every day the ground
more steady beneath its tread; every day it beholds those doubts dissipating
which at first offered themselves to its disciples in the face
of denials made by jealous or stubborn minds. * * * * * It is to this
| monumental geology ’ (after all) that we are indebted for the demonstration
of the two great historical laws that dominate over all the
annals of Egypt; viz : the 'permanence of races, and the constant mobility
of tongues, beliefs, and arts,—two truths which are precisely the
inverse of that which had been -for a long time admitted.”91
I I I . T H E A R T OF T H E S H E M I T E S .
T he term “ Shemitic” (or Semitic), as it is popularly applied to
certain races, languages, and 1ypes of physiognomy, has no reference
to the genealogy or rather geography of the Xth chapter of Genesis,
since it includes the Phoenicians, who, according to this old document,
are descendants of Ham ; whilst Elam, Assur and Lud, sons
of Shem, must be classed among races different in character and lan-
guagé from what most scholars, since Eichhorn, have been accustomed
to call Shemitic. This word is now constantly used to designate
the Syro-Arab nations; that is to say, the Syrian, Phoenician,
and Hebrew tribes (including Edom, Moab, Ammon, Midian, and
the Habatæans of Harran), and the Arabs both Yoktanide (Himyarite
and ^Ethiopian) and Ishmaelite or Maadic. All those tribes and
nations form a most striking contrast to the Arian or Japetide races,
in language as well as in their national character.
It is difficult to over-state the influence of the Shemites on human
91 Des travaux modernes sur VEgypte Ancienne, Revue des Deux Mondes, Sept. 1855, p.
1078.
civilization. Hence it has been said without exaggeration, that all
tbe moral and religious progress of mankind may be summed up in
the combined action of the Arian and Shemitic races : the former
being the continuous warp, the latter the intersecting woof.95 Whilst
the civilization of Egypt, too proud to seek proselytes, remained isolated
and spell-bound within the limits of its Nile-valley, the culture
of the Shemites was eminently prolific and propagandist. Though
they never exceeded thirty millions in number,96 still their peculiar
restlessness and commercial tendency, their migrations, deportations,
colonizations, and wars of conquest, which dispersed them all over
the ancient world, multiplied, as it were, their number by locomotion,
and brought them into a kind of ubiquitous contact with most
of the progressive races of mankind. The Japetides (Indo-Europeans,
Arians, Iranians,) surpass the Shemites at least ten times in extent;
yet, nevertheless, their civilization is deeply and lastingly affected
by, and indebted to, the Shemites, without having been able to
absorb and to transform them by amalgamation. Down to our days
the Shemite race maintain their peculiar type so constantly, that their
pedigree is still unmistakably stamped upon their features ; and it
is a curious fact that among the lower classes in central and northeastern
Europe, the consciousness of a difference of race remained so
strong both with Shemites and Japetides, as often to prevent amalgamation,
even where the difference of religion had ceased.
There are principally three nations among the Shemites which
have become of the highest importance for the history of mankind.
To the Phoenicians,—those first explorers of the Mediterranean and
eastern Atlantic, — merchant-princes, manufacturers, and colonizers
of antiquity—we owe the phonetic Alphabet, and probably the
coinage of money. East and South to Phoenicia dwelt the Hebrews,
who, though numerically few, have by their monotheism become,
the basis of modern civilization ; whose financial genius moreover
continues to be felt in all the great money-marts, upon which their
invention of bills of exchange has concentrated the mobilized property
of the world. Further to the South we meet with the Arabs,
destroyers of idolatry, conquerors of northern Africa, civilizers of
95 Bunsen, Ægyptens Stelle, preface, x ii.
96 According to Renan’s rough estimate, th eir actual number is the fo llowing :—
In Arabia proper, about........................................................................ g qqq qqq
The Syrians and Arabs of Asiatic Turkey ........... 6 ,0 0 0 000
The Arabs of Africa: Egypt, Barbary, Morooco, Sahara, Sudan., lolooo’ooo
Shemitic Abyssinians.............................................................................. 3 q q q q q q
Jews all over the world..................................................| ........... ....... 4 qqq qqq
(Histoire et Système comparé des langues sémitiques, p. 4 1.)