The marvels of the Egyptian galleries might lead us away even into yet another world; but we have already touched upon the subject (pp. 146, and following), and therefore hasten forward, making a momentary stop at one object only, namely, the celebrated “Rosetta stone,” thus described in the Synopsis:—
“The Rosetta stone, containing three inscriptions of the same import, namely, one in hieroglyphics, another in a written character, called demotic or enchorial, and a third in the Greek language. These inscriptions record the services which Ptolemy the Fifth had rendered his country, and were engraved by order of the Synod of Priests, when they were assembled at Memphis for the purpose of investing him with the royal prerogative. It is the key to the decipherment of the hieroglyphical and demotic characters of Egypt. This stone was found near Rosetta, and it appears to have been placed in a temple dedicated to Atum by the monarch Nechao, of the twenty-sixth dynasty: it is of basalt.”
The industry and the sagacity of a succession of learned men have so far availed (greatly by aid of the threefold inscriptions of the Rosetta stone) as that the history of Egypt, up to a very remote age, has been recovered, and has been carried to its place, so as to synchronize with that of the surrounding nations. Every such conquest, or, as we may call it, inroad upon the dark regions of bygone ages, gives a further confidence to our belief in the general trustworthiness of ancient written history. The ancient historians were indeed sometimes misinformed, or perhaps negligent in putting together their materials; nevertheless, on the whole, they have acquitted themselves as honest and intelligent witnesses.
In ascending the north-west staircase, we must not fail to notice several framed and glazed specimens of Egyptian writing, which enliven the walls. These manuscripts are on the Egyptian papyrus, the texture of the material in several instances being quite discernible. These should be looked at as furnishing the best possible illustration of the statements already made in general terms (Chapter V.). What we have there spoken of may here be (not handled indeed, but) seen.
It will now be time to bring our visit to the Museum to a close, lest we should be allured by its multifarious treasures—the memorials of all ages, to wander too far from our proper subject. Yet a glance must be had at the manuscripts that are exposed to view in cases in the saloons on the eastern side of the Museum. These manuscripts, to some of which we must hereafter make a reference, bring under the eye all those varieties of material, of decoration, and of character as to the writing, which already have been briefly mentioned. Among them we may find samples of the writer’s art, and of the art of the writer’s brother—the decorator, as seen in the illuminations; some of them are in the highest degree sumptuous and magnificent; others are more business-like:—a few that have held their integrity as books through sixteen hundred years, and many, during a thousand years. The summers and the winters—times of war and devastation—times of peace:—years of narrow risks from spoliation, conflagration, barbarian recklessness; and centuries, perhaps, when, throughout noiseless days and nights not a breath, not a hand, moved the dust that was always coming to its long rest upon the cover! So it has been that a safe transmission of the inestimable records of mind has had place, notwithstanding the mischances, the storms, the violences, the ignorance, and the neglects, of so many years.
CHAPTER XVI.
FACTS RELATING TO THE CONSERVATION, AND LATE RECOVERY, OF SOME ANCIENT MANUSCRIPTS.
Some of the most ancient, and the most valuable of the manuscripts which at present enrich the British Museum, have been very lately acquired, being the product of the researches of learned travellers in Egypt, and in the islands of the Ægæan Sea, and the countries bordering upon it. These researches and these journeys have been undertaken expressly for the purpose, and with the hope of discovering, and of bringing away, some of those literary treasures which were known, or believed, to lie neglected, and almost forgotten, in the now dilapidated monasteries of Egypt and Greece. This hope has, to some extent, been realized, and these labours rewarded; as we may now briefly mention.
The desolate region which stretches away far to the west on the parallel of the Delta of the Nile, bears the marks of having been, at some remote period, and to a great extent, covered with water. The remains of this dried-up sea still appear, as small lakes, filling the cavities among the rugged hills that skirt the desert toward the valley of the Nile. Upon the margins of these lakes is found the Natron, which may be called natural salt-soap, and whence, also, large quantities of pure nitre are obtained. These lakes have received their designation from this natural product.
The district, Nitria, is frequently mentioned by ancient authors; as by Strabo (Book xvii.) and by Pliny (Book xxxi. 46), and again by the Church writers of the fourth and following centuries; especially by those of them who speak of the monastic institutions of their own times. Around these dreary waters the monks of that time established themselves in great numbers;—so many, indeed, that the emperor Valens, thinking that he could find a more useful employment for them than that of reciting the Psalter, enlisted as many as five thousand of them in his legions. But here, notwithstanding disturbances of this kind, these recluses continued to find a refuge from the world, and its temptations—or so they thought; and here, by the aid of grants from some of the better-minded of the emperors, or of opulent and religious persons, many religious houses were constructed; some of them being of ample dimensions, and so built as to be capable of resisting the attacks of the marauders of the desert; and as their precincts included spacious gardens, they might, for lengths of time, support the frugal life of their inmates, even if besieged.
As to these establishments,[5] we find incidental notices of them sufficient to assure us that, in some, if not in all of them, the copying of books afforded occupation to a class of their inmates; and that this was the fact, we now have evidence in the results of the researches above referred to. In some instances there has been enough of continuous life in a decaying monastery, even though the building may seem to be little better than a huge ruin, to maintain the “Copying-room” in some activity. In others, where a score of monks, or even fewer, have slumbered away their term of years, they have yet retained a vague traditionary belief in the value of the manuscripts which they knew to lie, in heaps, in some cell or vault, never visited, by themselves. In some cases the books, which had been huddled away from the library in a moment of danger, when an enemy was under the walls, have remained—safe and forgotten, in their concealment—perhaps for centuries. Thus it has been that—by the intellectual activity of one age, by the slumbering or the inert industry of the next period, and at length, by the utter mindlessness of centuries—the precious products of the ancient world have been conserved for our use in this age. May we not well notice and admire that providential interposition which, in these varying and precarious modes, has made us the inheritors of the wealth of the remotest times!