STATE OF SOCIETY.

AT the earliest period of Egyptian history of which the monuments present to us any records, we discover a state of society the farthest possible removed from barbarism. It was elaborately artificial; all its component parts, from the king to the slave, "from Pharaoh that sat upon his throne to the maidservant that was behind the mill," took their places in a classified system, which were defined by perfectly understood limits, and handed down by hereditary and unchanging custom. Repeated conquests have long ago dislocated and abolished this state of things in Egypt; but in India we see it still remaining, where society maintains with unyielding strictness the angular divisions into which it was mapped out thousands of years ago. There every one is aware of the existence of caste; and of the iron sway which this institution holds over the habits of the people. The priesthood, the military, the husbandmen and the labourers, are the four grand divisions of Hindoo society, which may not mingle in the smallest degree. The soldier dares not marry into the family of an artizan, nor can a brahmin eat with a husbandman, without incurring a penalty to a Hindoo the most intolerable, the loss of caste.

The divisions of Egyptian society appear to have been correspondent to these; and as in India there

exists a class of miserable beings who are considered "without caste," the very outcasts of society, so in Egypt there seem to have been some whose hereditary occupations were esteemed so degrading, that intercourse with them was avoided as an impurity, and even access to the temples was denied them.

a. The red crown of Lower Egypt.

b. The white crown of the Thebaïs.

c. The emblem of sovereignty over the whole of Egypt.

The King was the head of the priestly class, by his office. The exercise of the regal authority seems,

from the earliest times, to have been handed down from father to son; but in the case of a dynasty becoming extinct, a new king was elected from either the priestly or the military class. The renowned Pharaohs of the eighteenth dynasty appear to have been of the latter. On the accession of a monarch, he was immediately initiated into the mysteries of the idolatrous worship, and made a member of the sacred college of priests. "He was the chief of the religion and of the state; he regulated the sacrifices in the temples, and had the peculiar right of offering them to the gods upon grand occasions ; the title and office of 'president of the assemblies' belonged exclusively to him, and he superintended the feasts and festivals in honour of the deities. He had the right of proclaiming peace and war; he commanded the armies of the state, and rewarded those whose conduct in the field, or in other occasions merited his approbation; and every privilege was granted him which was not at variance with good policy or the welfare of his people.” (Wilkinson.)

Some of the early Greek writers who visited Egypt, as Herodotus and Diodorus, have mentioned a custom which, (if not a fable) was doubtless instituted as a salutary check upon royal morality, a sort of public censorship upon the monarch's actions, exercised by the officiating high-priest on great occasions. The victims being brought to the altar, the high-priest, standing beside the king, in the presence of the congregated people, implored various blessings in return for the virtues of the monarch. These he then proceeded to enumerate and to eulogize ;

noticing particularly his piety and his clemency. He praised the king's moderation and justice, his self-command, his generosity, his love of truth, and his entire freedom from envy and covetousness. His leniency towards offenders, and his liberality towards well-doers were loudly extolled. After these praises indirect cautions were administered in the shape of a reprehension of such faults, as persons in high station were most liable to. The object of this ceremony, we are told, was to exhort the sovereign to live in the fear of the gods, and to cherish virtue; and, if uprightly performed, it would doubtless have had a salutary influence; but it is easy to see that it would in a short time degenerate into a blind and fulsome flattery. It is not to an idolatrous priesthood that we must look for the integrity that would dare to administer to an absolute monarch in public, the amount of praise and of blame justly due to his actions, nor would the despotic Pharaohs brook to be thus schooled. The haughty pride and insolence with which the monarch of the Exodus set himself against the Lord: "Who is Jehovah, that I should obey his voice to let Israel go? I know not Jehovah, neither will I let Israel go,”—as well as the cruel tyranny with which he and his predecessors had ground the Hebrews in their iron bondage, is perfectly in character with the over-bearing assumptions common to the Pharaohs in the monumental inscriptions. We select the following as specimens of the modesty of an Egyptian Pharaoh. The first is a congratulation addressed to Sethos I. on his return from the Arvadite war,

"The song of the chiefs of Upper and Lower Egypt, when they came to felicitate the good god (Sethos,) when he returned from the land of Arvad with many captive chiefs.

"Never was seen the like of thee, O divine Sun !

"We say, Glory be to his majesty, who in the greatness of his fury went unto the land.

66

Making sure the words of thy justice, thou slayest thine enemies beneath thee.

"Thou conquerest every day with thy majesty, like the sun in heaven," &c., &c.

The following humiliating speech is put into the mouths of the captive Arvadites:

"The chiefs of the lands approach, conducted by his majesty.
"The fruits of his victory over the wicked race of the Arvadites.
"They say, Great is his majesty, and adorable in his victories.

66 Thy name is very illustrious.

"Thou art vigilant in the ardour of thy courage. The land rejoiceth in thy deeds upon the waters.

"Thou makest firm thy borders.

66

"Many are thine offerings.

"But we are impure in Egypt.

"We may not approach our Father (Amoun.)

"Behold us, and the breath which thou givest us.'

99

The other specimen we select from a triumph of Sesostris. The haughty monarch, seated in his chariot, beholds the counting of the severed hands and other members of the slaughtered enemies, and thus addresses his army.

"Give yourselves to mirth: let it rise to heaven.

66

Strangers are dashed to the ground by my power.

"Terror of my name has gone forth; their hearts are full of it.

* Osburn's Anc. Egy. 62.