C, (the Queen’s,) of the same dynasty and period.
D, (Naskatu,) of the 27th dynasty, or about 500 B.C.
The three sarcophagi, then, B, C, and D, were, (we are told,) cut exactly at the time when, beyond the North Sea, Greek art, just before Marathon, was at its grandest.
And if you look under the opened lid of the queen’s, you will see at the bottom of it the outline portrait, or rather symbol, of her, engraved, with the hawk for her crest, signifying what hope of immortality or power after death remained to her.
But the manner of the engraving you must observe. This is all that the Egyptian Holbein could do on stone, after a thousand years at least of practised art; while the Greeks, who had little more than begun only two hundred years before, were already near to the strength of carving their Theseus, perfect for all time.
This is the Hamite bondage in Art: of which the causes will teach themselves to us as we work, ourselves. Slavery is good for us in the beginning, and for writing-masters we can find no better than these Mizraimites: see what rich lines of Scripture they are, along the black edges of those tombs. To understand at all how well they are done, we must at once begin to do the like, in some sort ourselves.
By the exercise given in Fors of January, if you have practised it, you have learned something of what [[120]]is meant by merit and demerit in a pure line, however produced. We must now consider of our tools a little.
You can make a mark upon things in three ways—namely, by scratching them, painting on them with a brush, or letting liquid run on them out of a pen. Pencil or chalk marks are merely a kind of coarse painting with dry material.
The primitive and simplest mark is the scratch or cut, which shall be our first mode of experiment. Take a somewhat blunt penknife, and a composition candle; and scratch or cut a fine line on it with the point of the knife, drawing the sharp edge of the knife towards you.
Examine the trace produced through a magnifying glass, and you will find it is an angular ditch with a little ridge raised at its side, or sides, pressed out of it.