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    dences upon which so unreserved a judgment should be founded . For wlwitj in point of fact , are the discoveries in connexion with tbe hieroglyphs apart from theories and . assumptions . Until the exhumation of the Rosetta . stone , in 1799 , from centuries of obscurity , the ideas of Europe with reference to the ancient characters of Egypt were vague , fanciful , and contradictory . The most arbitrary methods of classification and interpretation were adopted . Some read the Hermetic books on the monuments of the Nile ; same the hymns of Isis ; some a body of laws Kircher invented , while he ¦ affected to translate ; one Frenchman , even with the Rosetta marble before him , saw the Hundredth Psalm on the pictured portico of Dendera , and another identified the hieroglyphs as transcripts from several parts of the Bible . The Rosetta marble , however , is supposed to have furnished a key to the mysterious lore of the Nile Valley . It contained , as is well known ,

    a trigramnxatical inscription—Greek , demotic , hieroglyphic . In the Greek it was represented to be a solemn decree of the united priesthood in synod at Memphis , in honour of the fifth Ptolemy , who had conferred upon them certain benefits , in gratitude for which they had ordered it to be erected in every temple of the first , second , and third rank throughout the country , in three forms of writing . Here was , indeed , a clue , but one as likely to mislead as to explain . Half the hieroglyphic characters had been destroyed . It was a matter open to dispute whether they represented ideas , syllables , or sounds . Comparing the Greek with the demotic , it was ascertained that , while in the one a certain word was repeated thirty times , in the other it was repeated , supposing the identity established , thirty-seven times , and that the enchorial " Ptolemy ' fourteen times repeated , represented the Greek " Ptolemy , " repeated . only eleven times . Meanwhile , the Egyptologers were not content with the Opeu , sesame / of llosetta . Palin asserted that it was only necessai-y to translate the Psalms of David into Chinese , and to write them in the ancient characters of that language , in order

    to reproduce the Egyptian papyri ; Lenoir treated them , as Hebrew documents ; an . Arabian quack elucidated the whole mystery with complacent ease ; one Italian impostor translated , dated , and annotated the hieroglyph of the Pamphilian obelisk as though , he had been paraphrasing Ariosto . The more serious masters of the Egyptian school , however , con ° tinued to spell the llosetta inscription , convinced that it pointed the way to a world of philology . Seckler fastened upon a somewhat rational hypothesis , but made the worst possible use of it . Vater had previously suggested to Young that the unknown language on the stone might be resolved into an alphabet of thirty letters , and Young , applying the phonetic principle in a peculiarly clumsy manner , elicited in a way very creditable to his ¦ energy an interpretation of the mystic oracle . He worked his way through the euchorial to the hieroglyphic groups , and satisfied himself that the hieroglyph was not a translation , but a paraphrase of the enchorial . Here , then , was a new element of confusion ; the horizon retired as the explorers advanced , and the Rosetta stone , as deciphered by Young , was set aside in the limbo of rejected theories .

    Then came Champolhon , a proficient Coptic scholar , who conjectured the hieroglyphs in the cartouches to be used alphabetically , and not syllabically . He supposed tliat in the texts each hieroglyph had the value of the initial syllable of the object it represented , a pictured knee being identical with the initial K , of Kleopatra , and the pictured Lion with the " imtial L in the Coptic Laboi , or Lion . " Supposed , " and " probable value , " are the terms which even a , theorist so daring as Mr . Birch applies to the process by which Champollion groped through Egyptian darkness in search of a glimmer of history . But , although that eminently learned man had undoubtedly exhibited as much genius as erudition in his attempt to solve the mystery of the inute language of a dead race , other Egyptologers appeared who questioned his success . Spohn considered the hieroglyphs to have been a sacred dialect , composed , not of letters , but of their ~ symbols , and Seyffarth followed him . Mr . Birch says -. " Aided by the light of philology , the present age penetrates the gloom of thirty centuries , and unsealed tbe closed lips of the dead . " Eut it has been written , by one at least liis equal in authority ,

    "We cannot assert that any inscription , or part of ai \ inscription , has been deciphered with any certainty . " The proof is contained in the single fact that Seyffarth continues to argue with force and consistency against the system bequeathed by Champollion , and that the learned Uhllmann and Parratt adopt and defend his views . It is easy to say of them , as of Ivlaproth , that they are wrong in principle ; the point has not been demonstrated ; on the ' contrary , _ no one can study the writings of the Egyptologers without remarking upon ' the confusion and discrepancy mixed up with conjectures , assumptions , and critical " restorations"of mutilated texts . Champollion reckons the number of hieroglyphics in use among the Egyptians at 8 ( i 4 ; Bruce at ol ^; -Goega at 958 ; Bunsen gives 9 G 9 ; Mr . Birch says 1000 in round numbers . Lcpsius , indeed , lias added to the enormous alphabet ; but we arewell aware of his method . No one can make the Nile voyage ' without seeing the name of the German doctor gigantically daubed and profanely blackening the monuments . lie may be a successful discoverer , but he id certainly a very authoritative theorist .

    Wo do not-wish to disparage the useful and interesting manual prepared by Mr . Birch . It is neat , clear , and pleasantly written . " iiut it has all the faultsof Champollionisin ; it is didactic and daring , and inconclusive . Hieroglyphic science does not rest on the impregnable basis claimed for it by JUr . Uirch . Sir Gardner Wilkinson ' s sketch Of E gyptian manners in the time of the Pharaohs , though alloyed with conjecture , is an example of the success with which a writer , full of his subject , can illustrate it with a popular desisw .

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    A MEDLEY OF NOVELS . Richard Emb lei on : a Novel . 3 vols . ( Newby . )—The author of Richard JStjibleton has wandered fur and -wide in search of impossibilities , and ha 3 discovered them in abundance . But , instead of disposing them in dramatic order , he has piled them up in formless . confusion , casting over British chalk his red touches of Italian li g ht , and mingling his black , white , and grey , in a most melancholy chaos , liichard , an . articulate mummy , is primally introduced at the village of Roekhain , near the glad , blue sea . Ho enters a church , dwelling in ecstasy on the thought of the happy moment , swiftly coming , when he is once more to meet his Katherino llarbum . But , hark ! that _ heavy sound ! — the officiating clergyman pronouncing banns of marriages , names Katherine Harburn and James Bexluy . OlFto the beach

    goes idchard , to a ; lone tower , and ' marvellous to say , . Kathorinc goes thither also . He sees her face ; he might touch her curls ; but refrains , and on the appointed morning , watches her approach the altar , Bexley's bride-Then , a volume of retrospect . Among the episodes is that of a hollow-eyed old mail on his death-bed , trying to stab his daughter , that he way save one more Virginia from the pollution of the world . Itiohurd inter / ores , however . After three hundred pages in wandering manes lost , the second volume discloses that Katherine Harburn was not married , for , in the middle of the service , she broke away , and fainted . Francnseu , however , is a troublesome item , her light gipsy figure being wrapped in a robe of rosecoloured Lyons silk , " cinctured by a cord of gold , " and her face bein" - romantically angelic . In that rose robe and girdle of gold slie dies , and 13 buried , and itieluutl weds Katherine . "We wonder where the writer founil

    his rusty daggers , his tragic masks , hi . s pantomime properties , and ma <* ichmlern effects . We wonder , still more , that novels so furnished from the old repertorieti of fustian ami frippery , should be acceptable to any class of . readers . ' J ' Ji' jHut in . hntin ; a , Tale of Mauehnler Lift ; . By L ' owys Oswyn , Author of" Knife Denne . " ( Ilopii . ; - —Mr . l ' owya Oswyn has probably been laughed ut in ManchcoLer , and lia . s . written this book in revenge . But , in attempting assassination , he has committed suicide . IIis profane incoherences must disgust _ iiny adventurous render who happens to g lance at the crazy book called ftnwst Mibicnt . What the writer intends h , apparently , to lush the merchant princes and cotton lords of the north . And how does ho do it '•* In that nlylu of nieplntie rhapsody which properly belongs to intoxication or to insanity . This , observe , id a philanthropic ejaculation , or lament over the woes of poor women : —

    Jluy may sell their virtue for money to procure more-more— more of that scorching , blaHtni tf , burning liquid that m-m \ n ho many iininmLnl houIh to an etornul hell Jhfty may curse , and swear , and blaspheme , and yell out oiiIIih , thu very Hound of which would almoHt make a devil nhudder . Tlioy may uiib « x themselves . They mnv loao lh « womuu in the fiend . They may slide downward—downwards—downwards — -Bhruskinft yelling , howling , Hcrouming , crying , until they roaoh that Mussim *; ( laming hell , Into which , with one last , long , uppallin- H 3 niek , thai Heenia to rend the vory blues , they dwuppeur , thero to H ^ iend un eternity of woo—a noyor-endini '

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    logic , will be acceptable , we are not disposed to conjecture . In Germany there is a greater degree of liberality on such questions . The student Is allowed to dip into philosophic speculations which would create a complete horror amongst our theological professors , either of Oxford or Cambridge . That we are . still . behind Germany in liberty of conscience is' evident from the fact that a Maurice can be expelled from our orthodox metropolitan college , and a Macn ' aught from a club of his clerical brethren . We have many steps to take before we can conxe up with tbe Germanic States in our rights of viewing theological questions in our own -way . It is true the fire and the fagot no longer follow the heretic in England . But this is owing rather to our political and civil than to our ecclesiastical and religious instit tutions . Wherever ecclesiastics are armed with a however little or brief authority , they play such tricks as make the angels -weep . Liberal England has only recently thrown open-the doors of office to Catholics , and illiberal

    Spooner annually seeks to perpetuate the distinction between the Papists and Protestants of Ireland , while Jews are still excluded from participatinoin the honours of legislation . '¦ '¦ . ' ¦ ¦ ° The work opens with an introduction to the student . A few prefatory remarks on philosophical theology brings us to the subject itself . A history of the Christian Church concludes the manual . Each , section of the . book is divided into numbered paragraphs . Wherever a point or an assertion seems to require it , an amplified explanation is given , as well as illustrations introduced . Of course in a book of this kind the Immortality of the Soul occupies a ' fundamental position . Herr Bretschneider remarks therefore on this question that without the belief in this und yingness of the soul we could not believe in the reality ^ of a Divine Being , lie asserts that our faculties are capable of accomplishing more than they can accomplish within a limited sphere of time . He argues that it would not be consistent with

    our notions ot the goodness of a Divine Being to create in us longings after an immortality -which He did not intend to gratify . The intellectual , moral , and aestbetical education for the soul is on account of the nature of the present existence not accomplished ; and does not therefore fulfil its destination , namely , nationality , which is the condition of moral progress . One philosopher based his argument on this , that Reason in requiring ° us to aim at the highest good would demand-something impossible and contradictory if Immortality did not exist . A similar train of reasoning is pursued by Herr Bretschneider . " The moral law , " he says , "reveals itself to our Conciousness as claiming ; implicit obedience , that is to say as a law i isin «¦ above

    sensual lite , and demanding that we should sacrifice all pleasurable feelings , and even the sensual life itself , to duty . This demand would be absurd atad contradictory if the sensual life constituted '¦ the--whole existence of man , because in this case the preservation of life would be the highest good and law . But from the existence-of the demand follows the possibility of meeting it ; and as this cannot be accomplished without the soul being immortal , Immortality inust be admitted . " Herr Bretschneider uses in this work an amount of reasoning and logical deduction not usually found in works of a similar character in this country .

    • GERMAN PROTESTANTISM . A Manual of Relit / ion < md of the Jlhtory of the Christian Church , for the lisa of Tipper Classes in Public Schools in Germany , andfor all Educated Men hi . General . My Karl Gottlieb liretsehneider . Translated from the German . Longman uud Co . This is a handbook of German Protestantism , translated and published with a view to supply a defect in our own upper schools , and to create a grenter rapprochement of the Protestants of both countries . How far such A work , emanating from a German source , tinged and laden with German

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    ffEBRUAJESg . 28 , 1857 . ] THE LEABER . 2 n

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 28, 1857, page 211, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2182/page/19/