They had a language or at least a writing peculiar to | poulterers, fishermen, and servants. The herdsmen and themselves. The king himself, if not of their caste, was shepherds appear to have been held in peculiar contempt adopted into it, was initiated into its mysteries, and became among them. Besides servants, they had a number of bound by its regulations. The priests were exempt from slaves, both black and white. Fish was an article of comail duties, and a large portion of land was set apart for their mon food, except to the priests. Wine of native growth maintenance; and we read in Genesis, that when Pharaoh was used by the rich, and a kind of beer was the drink of in a season of famine bought, by the advice of Joseph, all the poor. An account of the different grains, plants, and the land of the Egyptians on condition of feeding them out trees, the produce of antient Egypt, and also of its native of his stores, only the land of the priests bought he not, animals, is given in Wilkinson's Topography of Thebes, ch. for the priests had a portion (of corn) assigned them of v., on the manners and customs of the antient Egyptians Pharaoh, and did eat their portion which Pharaoh gave The above-mentioned five castes as specified by Diodorus them, wherefore they sold not their lands.' (xlvii. 22.) And i. 74, were subdivided into ranks according to the various again when Joseph, after the scarcity was over, made it a law callings and trades, and this has occasioned some variety of the land that the king should have for ever after a fifth in their enumeration. Herodotus reckons seven castes, part of the produce of the soil, restoring the rest to the Plato six, others have not reckoned the despised shepherds owners, he excepted only 'the land of the priests,' which be- as a caste, and others have counted the military as one caste came not Pharaoh's.' (ib. 26.) The testimony of the Scrip- with the husbandmen, as being drafted from the body of ture is here perfectly in accordance with that of Herodotus the latter. Like the Hindoo, every Egyptian was required and other historians. The priests were subject to certain to follow his father's profession and to remain in his caste, strict regulations: they abstained from certain meats, and at That such institutions were incompatible with our motimes from wine, made their regular ablutions, had but dern notions of independence and freedom is evident one wife, while polygamy was allowed to the other castes, enough; but freedom is a word differently understood in and they wore a peculiar dress according to their rank. different ages and countries, and the Egyptians, trained up The soldiers formed the second caste, for Egypt had a as they were from infancy to reverence laws which they standing army from a very remote period, divided into regi- deemed immutable, might have enjoyed as great a degrea ments or battalions, each having its standard with a peculiar of happiness as most nations in the old world. But emblem raised on a pike and carried by an officer. Their the degradation of the lowest caste, and the waste of human arms were the bow, sword, battle-axe, shield, knife or dag-strength and human life in the working of their mines and ger, spear, club, and sling. Their besieging engines were the building of their pyramids and other colossal structures, the battering-ram, the testudo, and the scaling ladder. and the frequency and nature of the summary punishments They had a military music, consisting of a kind of drum, inflicted, as mentioned by Diodorus and confirmed by their cymbals, pipe, trumpet, and other instruments. The mili- monuments, seem to imply that the mass of the people, and tary caste was held in high repute and enjoyed great privi- the lower classes especially, found their superiors of the leges. Each soldier was allowed a certain measure of land, sacerdotal caste to be hard task-masters. exempt from every charge, which he either cultivated himself when not on active service, or let to husbandmen or farmers. Those who did the duty of royal guards had besides an ample allowance of rations. They were inured to the fatigues of war by gymnastic exercises, such as wrestling, cudgelling, racing, sporting, and other games, of which the representations still exist on their monuments.

The husbandmen formed another class, which was next in rank, as agriculture was highly esteemed among the Egyptians. They made use of the plough and other implements. They had various breeds of large cattle, sheep, goats, pigs, and a quantity of poultry reared chiefly by artificial means, the eggs being hatched in ovens, as it is the practice of the country in this day. The peasants appear to have been divided into hundreds, each with a peculiar banner, which they followed when presenting themselves before the magistrate for the census, which was taken at stated periods, when they were obliged to give an account of their conduct; and if found delinquent, were punished with the stick.

The next class was that of the artificers and tradesmen, who lived in the towns. The progress made by the Egyptians in the mechanical arts is evident from their monuments, paintings, and sculptures; in which the various handicrafts are represented. The mines of gold, copper, iron, and lead, which are in the mountains between the Nile and the Red Sea, were worked at a very remote date under the early Pharaohs. There is a passage in the work of Agatharchides on the Red Sea which describes their manner of working the gold mines and smelting the metal, and the sufferings of the people who were compelled to do that labour. (British Museum, Egyptian Antiquities, vol. ii. ch. 9.) The Egyptians were acquainted also with the art of gilding. The art of fabricating glass was early known among them. Beads of glass, generally coloured blue, are found on many mummies, as well as other ornaments of a coarse kind of the same material. A kind of antient porcelain, sometimes covered with enamel and varnish is found in great quantities in Egypt. Their pottery was often of the most elegant forms. The taste displayed by the Egyptians in several of their articles of furniture is not surpassed by our most refined manufactures of modern times. In the great French work and in the recent one of Rosellini we have specimens of many articles of furniture, especially chairs and couches, which are singularly beautiful in their forms Linen cloth, plain or embroidered, white or dyed, was an article of Egyptian manufacture highly in repute among foreign nations. (Ezekiel xxvii. 7.) The art of making leather was also known to them.

The last class or caste included pastors or herdsmen,

The progress of the Egyptians in the exact sciences has been taken for granted without sufficient evidence. Of their astronomy we know but little, but it appears to have been confounded with mythology and astrology, and made subservient to religious polity. [DENDERAH, ZODIAC OF.] Their year was of 365 days: for their method of correcting it see SOTHIAC PERIOD. Diodorus says that they foretold comets; but he also says that they foretold future events, leaving us in doubt whether they were successful in either or both cases. We cannot here enter into the vast and intricate ground of Egyptian mythology, and must refer the reader to the special works on that subject by Champollion, Wilkinson, and others. Their mythology appears to have been originally symbolical, but afterwards degenerated, at least for the vulgar, into gross idolatry. That they had some practical knowledge of geometry, which indeed must have been requisite for the construction of their buildings, &c. is generally admitted. Yet they appear not to have known until a comparatively later period that the level of the Red Sea was much higher than that of the Mediterranean or of the Nile. Their boats were rude and clumsy, and chiefly constructed for river navigation. They were for a long time averse to maritime expeditions from superstitious prejudice, probably instilled by their priests in order to keep them secluded from the rest of the world, and the Phoenicians were then the sea-carriers of Egypt. It was chiefly after the restoration effected by Psamaticus I., and their consequent intercourse with the Greeks, that their rigidity in this and other respects relaxed: they had their ships of war both on the Mediterranean and Red Sea, and under Apries Egypt had sufficient naval power and skill to cope with the fleets of Tyre. His predecessor Necos II. is said by Herodotus to have dispatched some Phoenician vessels by the Red Sea to circumnavigate Libya (Africa), and to return to Egypt by the Pillars of Hercules, which they effected. The truth, or at least the extent of this expedition has been much questioned. [AFRICA.] There is a curious story in Plato's Critias,' of Sonchis, an Egyptian priest, having told Solon of the Atlantic isles, which he said were larger than Asia and Africa united, which seems to imply something like a knowledge of the existence of the Western Continent.

The money of the Egyptians was in rings of silver and gold, similar to those still used in Sennaar, and its value was ascertained by weight, and its purity by fire. Gold was brought to Egypt from different tributary countries of Ethiopia and Asia, besides what they drew from their own mines. The revenue of Egypt, derived from the taxes alone, amounted, even during the negligent adminis tration of Ptolemy Auletes, to 12,500 talents, between thre

and four millions sterling. Diodorus reckoned its popula- | leks or Sultans. They did not assume the title of Caliphs, tion at seven millions, and Josephus at seven millions and but allowed the descendants of the Abbasides to retain that a half, exclusive of that of Alexandria, which exceeded name, and to live in Egypt under their subjection, as a sort 300,000. For further particulars on the commerce, re- of state prisoners. sources and policy of antient Egypt, see Heeren's Researches. Champollion le Jeune in his Egypte sous les Pharaons,' has endeavoured to retrace the national names and localities of the antient Egyptian towns, many of which had disappeared long before Strabo's time, or their names had been disfigured by the Greek writers. Egypt was, according to Champollion, divided already under the Pharaohs into 36 nomes or governments, 10 in the Thebais or Upper Egypt, 16 in Middle Egypt, and 10 in Lower Egypt, commonly called the Delta. Each nome was subdivided into districts or toparchies. This was exclusive of the Oases, the dependencies on the side of Nubia, &c.

With regard to the principal existing monuments of antient Egypt we refer the reader to the respective heads, such as DENDERAH, EDFU, PYRAMIDS, THEBES, &c., and for the general character of Egyptian architecture to the following article.

Modern History. Passing over the ages during which Egypt was a province of the Roman Empire (see Hamilton's Egyptiaca, on the State of Egypt under the Romans, and map of Egypt with the names of the Roman period, by Raoul Rochette), we begin the modern history of Egypt at the Mohammedan conquest. Under the Caliphate of Omar, successor of Abu Bekr, Amer Ebn el As invaded Egypt, A.D. 638, and took Pelusium and Babylon of Egypt, a strong Roman station, which sustained seven months' siege. John Mecaukes, governor of Memphis for the Byzantine emperor, treacherously surrendered his trust, and the Copts agreed to pay tribute or a capitation tax to the Caliph, with the exception of old men, women, and monks. The hatred, not only political but religious, which the Copts bore to the Greeks, facilitated the success of the Moslems. The first mosque on Egyptian ground rose with the new town of Fostat on the site of Roman Babylon. Alexandria made a long and obstinate defence; it fell at last, and was plundered. The Saracen General asked the Caliph what was to be done with the library, and Omar ordered it to be burnt. But the libraries of the Ptolemies had perished before-the Bruchion was destroyed during the siege of Julius Cæsar, and that of the Serapion was dispersed by Theophilus the Patriarch, A.D. 390; the library destroyed by Omar's order was therefore a more recent collection. [ALEXANDRIAN LIBRARY.] The whole of Egypt as far as Syene was soon reduced to a province of the Caliphate, the capital of which was Fostat. In A.D. 868, Ahmed ebn e' Tooloon, governor of Egypt for the Abbaside Caliphs, usurped the sovereignty of the country and founded the dynasty of the Tooloonides, which lasted till 906, when the Caliphs retook Egypt. But in 912 Abayd Allah el Mahdee after usurping the government of Eastern Africa, invaded Egypt, which he retained till 934, when he was defeated by the forces of the Caliph. In 936 El Akhshed Mohammed ebn Tughg, a Turkish chief in the service of the Caliph, usurped the government of Egypt, and began a new dynasty which lasted till 970, when the Fatmieh or Fatemides, the successors of Mahdee, who had continued to rule in Africa, took possession of Egypt. El Moez, who styled himself Caliph, built Misr el Kahirah, where he fixed his residence, leaving Yousef Ebn Zeiri his viceroy in Africa. From that time till 1171, the Fatemite Caliphs reigned over Egypt, independent of and rivals to the Abbaside Caliphs of Bagdad. This was the period of the wars of the early Crusades, in which the Fatemides acted a conspicuous part. Egypt retained much of its importance and splendour under their dynasty. (See Etat Arabe de Egypte, by Sylvester de Sacy, joined to his translation of Abdallatif.) The Kurd Salah e' deen Yoosef Ebn Eyoob succeeded to the Fatemides in 1171, and founded the dynasty of the Eyoobites, which lasted till 1250, when El Moez, a Turkoman memlook or slave, after murdering Touran Shah, usurped the throne, and founded the dynasty of the Baharite Sultans, who took possession of Syria also. Baybers, a memlook also, assassinated his master in 1261 or 62, made himself Sultan of Egypt, retook Syria from the Tatars, took Damascus, and put an end to the Caliphate of Asia, and extended his conquests as far as and over part of Armenia. His descendants reigned till 1382, maintained possession of Syria as far as the Euphrates, and encouraged agriculture and the arts. Their dynasty is known by the name of Baharite Memlook Me

In 1382 Dowlet el Memeleek el Borgéeh, a Circassian slave, took possession of the throne and founded the dynasty of the Borgéëh, or Circassian Memlooks, which lasted till 1517, when Selim I., the Ottoman sultan, advanced into Egypt, defeated the Memlooks at the battle of Heliopolis, and caused Toman Bey, the last of their kings, to be hanged at Cairo. Selim abolished the dynasty, but not the aristocracy of the Memlooks; he even made conditions with the Memlooks by a regular treaty, in which he acknowledged Egypt as a republic, governed by twentyfour beys tributary to him and his successors, who appointed a pacha, or governor, to reside at Cairo. This pacha, however, was to make no alterations in the system of government without the consent of the beys, who might even suspend him from his functions if he acted arbitrarily, until the pleasure of the Porte should be known. The beys were to elect from among themselves a sheik of Belad to be their head, who was looked upon by the Porte as the chief of the republic. In time of war the republic was to send 12,000 men to join the Ottoman armies. In other respects the republic, that is to say, the Memlook aristocracy, was to enjoy absolute power over the inhabitants of Egypt, levy taxes, keep a military force, raise money, and exercise all the rights of sovereignty. This treaty was signed in the year 887 of the He gira, A.D. 1517. (Savary, Lettres sur l'Egypte, vol. ii.) Under this form of government Egypt remained nominally subject to the Porte, against whose authority the Memlooks often openly revolted, till the French invasion of 1798, when Bonaparte, under the pretence of delivering Egypt from the yoke of the Memlooks, took possession of the country. The English sent an expedition in 1801 to aid the Porte, which drove away the French, and restored the pacha appointed by the sultan. The Memlooks and the pacha, however, could not agree; scenes of bloodshed and treachery took place, and at last the present pacha, Mehemet, or rather Mohhammed Ali, contrived to collect most of the beys with their principal officers within the citadel of Cairo, under pretence of an entertainment, where he had them all massacred in March, 1811. A few escaped into Upper Egypt, from whence they were driven into Nubia, and being also driven from thence in 1821, the few who survived took refuge in Dar-fur. [DONGOLA.] Thus ended the Memlook power, which had ruled over Egypt for more than four centuries. Savary gives an account of the institutions of that singular body, which were still in full force in his time. Their destruction, although perfidiously contrived, has been undoubtedly a benefit to Egypt, for their government was as tyrannical and oppressive as their moral character was depraved. It was a government of slaves who had become masters, for the body of Memlooks was perpetually recruited from young slaves brought chiefly from Georgia and Circassia. .Every bey was a tyrant in his own district. There was not even union among them, as they were frequently at war with each other. Personal bravery or animal courage was their only virtue, if it deserves that name. Egypt suffered more under the Memlooks than during any other period of its history.

Present State of Egypt.-This country is commonly divided by geographers into three regions, namely, Bahari, or Maritime, or Lower Egypt; Vostani, or Middle Egypt; and Said, or Upper Egypt. But the administrative division of the country is by provinces, or prefectships, of which there are fifteen in Lower Egypt, and ten in Middle and Upper Egypt together. The provinces are-1. Masr, or Cairo, with the town of that name, the capital of the whole country, and the town of Boolak, the port of Cairo on the Nile, Old Cairo, or Fostat, and Suez, on the Red Sea; 2. Kelioub, north of Cairo, with the towns of Kelioub, Mataryeh, near the ruins of Heliopolis; Artrib, Choubra, where the pacha has a fine country residence, and Abouzabel, where is the new College of medicine and surgery, with 300 pupils, and a large hospital attached to it; 3. Belbeys, east of Kelioub, on the borders of the Desert; 4. Chibeh, north of Belbeys, with the towns or villages of Chibeh, and Tell Bastah, and Heydeh; 5. Mit Ghamer, north of Kelioub and near the Damietta branch of the Nile; 6. Mansourah, north of Mit Ghamer, likewise on the east bank of the Damietta branch, with the town of Mansourah, and the village of Tmay el Emdid, which has a monolith of granite; 7. Damietta, with the towns of Damietta and

fourths of what he pays for, the remainder being stolen by the subordinate officers. The pacha has dispossessed all the private proprietors throughout his dominions, giving to each, as a partial compensation, a pension for life, so that the farmers are now his own tenants and entirely at his mercy. (Lane, vol. i., c. 4, and Wilkinson's Thebes, pp. 268 and foll.) The government of Mohammed Ali, too extravagantly praised by some, is certainly much more rational, orderly, and humane, than that of the memlooks or that of the old pachas in the other dominions of the Porte. He administers impartial justice to all his subjects, without regard to race or religion; has established regular judicial courts and a good police; has done away with tortures and other barbarous punishments; has encouraged instruction to a certain extent; has removed most of the ignorant prejudices which existed among his subjects against the arts and Learning of Europe; and has introduced European manufactures and machinery; he keeps a printing-office and a journal; has formed schools and colleges for the arts and sciences and for military and naval tactics. All this is much more than it may seem at first sight to a person unacquainted with the state of Egypt and other Turkish provinces forty years ago. But the pacha's ambition and the difficulties of his situation have obliged him to resort to two violent expedients, an enormous taxation and an oppressive conscription. The pretended legislative assembly sitting at Cairo is a mere fiction of enthusiastic panegyrists. The government of Egypt is still absolute in the strictest sense of the word, though the present pacha has chosen to govern according to forms and regulations which he has himself established. He has formed a council consisting of his chief officers and of the provincial and local governors and sheikhs, whom he occasionally consults. Many of the subordinate agents of the government in the provinces still exercise occasional acts of capricious tyranny, which seldom reach their master's ears, but whenever they do he is not slow in punishing the offenders and redressing the grievances of the oppressed. Of what Mohammed Ali has really done a good sketch may be found in Planat, Histoire de la Régénération de l'Egypte, 8vo., Paris, 1830, and in a notice of the same work in No. xiv. of the Foreign Quarterly Review, April, 1831. The reforms effected by Mohammed Ali are far more complete and effective than those of Sultan Mahmood in Turkey, and are directed by a keener sagacity and with a steadier purpose. Mengin, 'Histoire de l'Egypte sous le gouvernement de Mohammed Ali, 2 vols. 8vo. with an atlas, Paris, 1823, gives a full account of the career of this extraordinary 'man. At the end of the atlas there is a 'Tableau du Commerce de l'Egypte avec l'Europe. For the various arts and manufactures of Egypt see Lane's vol. ii. 1.

totally distinct is it in its taste from what is termed classica, antiquity. Indeed, until of comparatively very late years, hardly any thing was known of the Egyp.ian style, or the edifices executed in it, with the exception of the pyramids; for previously to the French expedition to Egypt, at the close of the last century, no satisfactory delineations had been taken of the temples and their details; but merely such views as were calculated to convey some general idea of their enormous masses and colossal grandeur. Hence it has been--we may say even still continues to be-regarded as wonderful both for the gigantic vastness of its structures, and the prodigious solidity of the materials and mode of construction employed, but at the same time as utterly devoid of beauty in its forms and proportions,-uncouthly sublime. Yet as the first impression of strangeress wears off-when the eye, so long habituated to Grecian and modern architecture, becomes more accustomed to it, and the first prejudices against it are overcome, it will be found to possess much elegance in some of its forms, together with powerful and legitimate architectural effect.

In character, the Egyptian is the very reverse of the Gothic style; for although both are distinguished by grandeur and solemnity, the one aims at ponderous massiveness, and affects low proportions, and great extent of unbroken horizontal lines; while the other affects exactly the contrary-slenderness and loftiness, forms aspiring upwards, and extreme diversity of outlines. Notwithstanding, too. that Egyptian architecture has much in common with that of Greece, it exhibits, together with what stamps the affinity between them, many striking points of difference. While they agree in having columns supporting a horizontal epistylium, or entablature, and in the general proportions resulting from such a disposition, they disagree in almost al their other subordinate particulars. It will, therefore, not only be interesting in itself, but facilitate explanation, to compare the Egyptian style with the Greek, as described in the articles CIVIL ARCHITECTURE and COLUMN. Although, in the massiveness of its proportions, in simplicity and breadth of effect, its character partakes more of that of the earlier Doric-the latter being, in fact, the first remove from it, there is one remarkably striking difference between them; for Egyptian columns are as frequently cylindrical as not; whereas those of the earlier Doric taper very suddenly, owing to the difference between their upper and lower diameter, and the shortness of their shafts. In Egyptian buildings, on the contrary, the profile of the columns is vertical, or nearly so, while that of the walls is sloped; thus producing the same degree of contrast between the two which is observable in the Greek Doric, although the mode adopted in the one case is just the reverse of that pursued in the other. It may further be remarked that in both styles the general outline was nearly the same, it being The present dominions of the ruler of Egypt extend on sloped in each; in the Egyptian, by the walls; in the Doric, one side to Sennaar and Kordofan, and on the other over all by the external peristyle of columns enclosing them'; Syria to Adana, a part of Cilicia at the foot of Mount Tau- whereby, in the latter case, as well as in the former, the rus. He is likewise possessed of the fine island of Candia. base is wider than a horizontal line on the level with the In Arabia he is protector of Mecca and Medina, and lord of upper part of the columns. Or if we take the ground-line the Hedjaz. He is possessed of at least as extensive a tract of formed by the lowest of the steps on which the columns are country as any of his predecessors of the Fatimite, Ptolemaic, placed, we find that it accords very nearly with that of the or Pharaoh dynasties. Whether this empire will survive his cornice, or uppermost line of the building, similarly as in death is a very doubtful question. His power is founded on Egyptian edifices. This will be tolerably well understood a strong military force, which consists of between fifty and from the view, in the next page, of the front of the temple at sixty thousand regular troops, the officers of which are Denderah, which exhibits the sloping or tapering profile we mostly proud Osmanlees, aliens to Egypt, and the soldiers have been describing, and to which we shall have occasion are the sons of the poor, oppressed, despised fellahs. No again to refer in explanation of various other particulars. Arab officer, says Planat, is raised above the rank of lieute- From what has been stated as to Egyptian columns being nant. The Osmanlees fill likewise the principal offices of the cylindrical, it is not to be understood that they were either government. But the native Egyptians are said to be quick invariably or perfectly so, but that such was their general at learning, hardy, frugal and persevering; they make ex- form; because there is occasionally a slight difference between cellent soldiers; they divest themselves of old prejudices more the upper and lower diameter; or else the shaft is cinctured easily than the Turks, and in their intercourse with Eu- at intervals by bands consisting of three or more rings enroreans they exhibit none of the jealousy and pride of the circling it, and thereby increasing the diameter in those latter. Whatever therefore may be the consequence of Mo- parts. In addition to this species of ornament, the shaft hammed Ali's reforms, with regard to the stability of his was variously decorated in other respects, the spaces between dynasty, there is some reason to hope that the impulse which the bands being sometimes sculptured with hieroglyphics; at he has given to the native population will not be lost, and others, reeded, that is, its surface was divided into a series that the seeds of improvement scattered about Egypt will of upright mouldings, or staves, so as to have the appearspread in course of time to other parts of the Arab world, ance of a bundle of smaller pillars bound together, of which of which Egypt forms the central and so important a part. mode, as well as that of encircling the shaft with ring EGYPTIAN ARCHITECTURE. This was not in- mouldings, frequent examples occur in Gothic buildings. cluded under the head of CIVIL ARCHITECTURE, for the rea- The kind of striating, or striping, just described, is the son that it is purely monamental or historical, and not at all reverse of that practised in the Doric and other Grecian the object of study to the architect except as belonging to orders, since in the latter it was produced by concave chanthe archaeology of his art, and as matter of curiosity; sonels, or flutings, but in this by convex surfaces. The diverP C., No. 570.

VOL. IX.-2 S

sity observable in Egyptian columns is so great that it is | ceived that in their general mass the capitals of this class, impossible to specify here all their varieties, which can be learned only by studying them in engravings; equally impossible is it, too, to reduce them to any kind of system, there being neither any peculiar form of capital, or other distinct characteristic, nor any thing in regard to proportions whereby they can be classified; for we find columns similar in proportions differing materially in all the rest, or else vice-versa.

Egyptian columns have rarely any distinct base, seldom more than a circular plinth; but they have frequently an ornamental footing, which differs, however, from a base, in being contracted instead of expanded below. It may be described as shaped like the calyx of a flower, the resemblance to which is increased by its being sculptured into some forms of foliage, so that the shaft appears to be set in and rise out of a plant. Of this description are the bases of the columns of the temple at Latopolis or Esné. By some this has been insisted upon as a defect and as indicative of weakness; consequently, contrary to that law of architecture which prescribes that there should be apparent as well as real strength, more especially where the expression of solidity is naturally looked for. Still it may not unreasonably be urged that, as in all such cases, the judgment comes to the aid of and corrects the eye, what is known to be strong cannot fairly be said to appear weak; and the solidity of columns which have stood the test of some thousands of years cannot possibly be called in question. Were we unacquainted with its properties, even the form of the arch might be thought ill calculated for sustaining pressure; by others pendents likewise from vaulted roofs might be deemed blemishes rather than ornaments, as carrying with them a decided appearance of insecurity. The particular kind of Egyptian base here alluded to is certainly not in accordance with Grecian principles, yet it does not therefore exactly follow that it is faulty in itself. On the contrary, it may be argued that the excess of strength which they gave their structure, and the prodigious solidity and durability of the materials employed, allowed the architects of Egypt to contract the diameter of their columns below, without rendering them at all weak. Perhaps, too, one motive for doing so was thereby to produce a still more effective contrast between the columns and the general outline of the building, which, as already explained, sloped upwards.

The most usual form adopted for capitals was bell-shaped, that is, resembling a bell reversed, or rather the bell and petals of a flower, with a rim bending downwards, which was sometimes quite circular, thereby giving the whole somewhat the appearance of a mushroom; at others, jagged, the circumference being divided into a number of convex curves, forming so many distinct petals. The six specimens given in the article COLUMN, vol. vii., page 383, exhibit two of the latter, and three of the first-mentioned variety of the bell-shaped capital.

From these it will be seen what variety prevailed in the decorative details, some being cut into distinct leaves, either convex or concave, others embellished with sculpture representing branches and flowers. It will also be per

far from having anything in common with that of the Grecian Doric, bear some general similarity to that of the Corinthian order; at the same time both the foliage itself and its arrangement are altogether of a different character. Yet even were the resemblance more perfect in these respects, there would still exist an exceedingly wide distinction between them and every variety of either Grecian or Roman capitals, namely, in the abacus being a mere square plinth, considerably smaller than the capital itself. Consequently it bears no similitude whatever to that of the Doric, which overhangs the echinus, and extends beyond the architrave which rests upon it; while it is equally remote from that of the Corinthian, since, besides being enriched with mouldings, the latter has its sides curved so that the angles extend to those of the volutes. The Egyptian abacus, on the contrary, is anything but ornamental in itself, and would be a defect, were it not that in the buildings themselves it can