Well, it is a slavish trade,—true Hamite; nevertheless, if we will learn our elements in true Egyptian bondage, some good may come of it.
For observe, my literary friends, the essential function of the slavish Egyptian, in the arts of the world, is to lose the picture in the letter; as the essential function of the Eleutherian Goth is to illuminate the letter into the picture.
The Egyptian is therefore the scribe of scribes,—the supremely literary person of earth. The banks of Nile give him his rock volume: the reeds of Nile his paper roll. With cleaving chisel, and cloven reed, he writes thereon, exemplarily: the ark which his princess found among the paper reeds, is the true beginning of libraries,—Alexandrian, and all other. What you call Scripture, in special, coming out of it; the first portion written in Egyptian manner, (it is [[118]]said,) with the finger of God. Scribe and lawyer alike have too long forgotten the lesson,—come now and learn it again, of Theuth, with the ibis beak.[2]
When next you are in London on a sunny morning, take leisure to walk into the old Egyptian gallery of the British Museum, after traversing which for a third of its length, you will find yourself in the midst of a group of four massy sarcophagi,—two on your left, two on your right. Assume that they are represented by the letters below, and that you are walking in the direction of the arrow, so that you have the sarcophagi A and B on your left, and the sarcophagi C and D on your right.
In my new Elements of Drawing, I always letter the corners of a square all round thus, so that A C is always the diagonal, A B the upright side on the left, and A D the base.
The sarcophagus A is a king’s; B, a scribe’s; C, a queen’s; and D, a priest’s.
A is of a grand basaltic rock with veins full of agates, and white onyx,—the most wonderful piece of crag I know; B and C are of grey porphyry; D of red granite.
The official information concerning sarcophagus A, (Nectabenes,) is to the effect that it dates from the 30th dynasty, or about 380 B.C.
B, (Hapimen,) of the 26th dynasty, or about 525. [[119]]