torian, "is the admirable one of Ofymandyas. The entrance to it is by a veftibule of various coloured ftones, two hundred feet long and fixty-eight high. Leaving this we enter a fquare periftyle, each fide of which is four hundred feet in length. Animals twenty-four feet high, cut from blocks of granite, ferve as columns, and fupport the ceiling, which is compofed of marble flabs twenty-feven feet fquare, and embellished throughout by golden ftars, glittering on a ground of azure. Beyond this periftyle is another entrance, and after that a veftibule, built like the firft, but containing more fculptures of all kinds. At the entrance are three ftatues, formed from a fingle ftone by Memnon Sycnite, the principal of which, reprefenting the king, is feated, and is the largest in Egypt. One of its feet exactly measured is above feven cubits. The other two figures fupported on his knees, the one on the right, the other on the left, are those of his mother and daughter. The whole work is lefs valuable for its enormous grandeur than for the beauty of the fculpture and the choice of the granite, which, tho' fo extenfive, has neither flaw nor blemish on its furface. The coloffus bears this infcription, I am Qfymandyas, king of kings: he who would comprehend my greatness, and where I reft, let him deftroy fome one

of these works *. Befides this is another ftatue of his mother, cut from a fingle block of granite thirty feet high. Three queens are sculptured on her head, intimating that fhe was daughter, wife, and mother of a king.

"After this portico is a periftyle ftill more beautiful than the first, on the ftones of which is engraved the hiftory of the war of Ofymandyas against the rebels of Bactriana. The façade of the front wall exhibits this prince attacking ramparts, at the foot of which the river flows; he is combating advanced troops, and by his fide is a terrible lion, ardent in his defence. On the right wall are captives in chains, with their hands and genitals cut off, as marks of reproach for their cowardice. The wall on the left contains fymbolical figures, of exceedingly good fculpture, defcriptive of the triumphs and facrifice of Ofymandyas returning from this war. the centre of the periftyle, where the roof is open, an altar was erected of a fingle ftone of marvellous bulk and exquifite workmanship ; and at the farther wall are coloffal figures, each hewn from a fingle block of marble forty feet high, feated on their pedestals. This admirable periftyle has three gates, one between the two ftatues, and the others on each fide. Thefe lead to an edifice two hundred feet fquare, the roof of which is fup

In

two

ported

ported by high columns. It refembles a magnificent theatre. Several figures carved in wood reprefent a tribunal adminiftering juf. tice. Thirty judges are feen on one of the walls, and in the midft of them the chief juftice, with a pile of books at his feet, and a figure of Truth, with her eyes fhut, fufpended from his neck.

66

Beyond is a walk furrounded by edifices of various forms, in which were tables ftored with all kinds of moft delicious viands. In one of these Ofymandyas, cloathed in magnificent robes, offers up the gold and filver which he annually drew from the mines of Egypt to the gods. Beneath, the amount of this revenue, which was thirty-two million minas of filver, was infcribed. Another building contained the facred library, at the entrance of which these words were read, PHYSIC FOR THE SOUL. A fourth contained all the deities of Egypt, with the king offering fuitable prefents to each, and calling Ofiris and the furrounding divinities to witnefs he had exercifed piety toward the gods, and juftice toward men. Befide the library ftood one of the finest of thefe edifices, and in it twenty couches to recline on while feafting; alfo the ftatues of Jupiter, Juno, and Ofymandyas, whofe body it is fuppofed was depofited here. Various adjoining apartments con-tained representations of all the confecrated animals of Egypt. Hence was the afcent to the fepulchre of the king, on the fummit

of which was placed a circle of gold in thickness one cubit, and three hundred and fixty-five in circumference; each cubit corresponded to a day in the year, and on it were engraved the rifing and fetting of the ftars for that day, with fuch aftrological indications as the fuperftition of the Egyptians had affixed to them. Cambyfes is faid to have carried off this circle when he ravaged Egypt. Such, according to hiftorians, was the tomb of Ofymandyas, which furpaffed all others, as well by its wealth as by the workmanship of the skilful artits employed *.

I dare not, Sir, warrant all that Diodorus Siculus advances on the faith of preceding writers; for in his time the greatest part of these edifices were no longer in existence. Nay, I confefs that, in any other country, fuch marvellous edifices would pass for mere chimeras ;) but in this land of fecundity, which feems to have been first honoured by the creative genius of the arts, they acquire probability. Let us examine the remains of those monuments, and our eyes will oblige us to believe in miracles. Thefe remains are heaped together near Medinet-About, in the circumference of about half a league. The temple, veftibules, and periftyles, prefent only piles of ruins, among which fome pyramidal gates rear their heads, whofe folidity has rendered them indeftructible; but the numerous coloffal figures defcribed by Diodorus, though mutilated, ftill fubfift. That neareft the.

ruins,

ruins, which is of yellow marble, is funk in the earth one third of its height. On a line with it is another of spotted marble, black and white, thirty feet long, with many hieroglyphics fculptured on its back. In the space between them, the ground is covered with fragments of columns, and broken ftatues, denoting the arrangement of the veftibules. Beyond are two other coloffal ftatues, totally disfigured; and a hundred fathom ftill further the traveller is ftruck with aftonishment at the fight of two gigantic figures, which feem like rocks, and are feated befide each other. Their pedestals are nearly equal, and formed from blocks of granite thirty feet long, and eighteen wide. The fmalleft of these ftatues is alfo one fole ftone; the other, the largest in Egypt, is formed of five different pieces of granite, and broken in the middle. This fhould feem to be the ftatue of Ofymandyas*, for we find two figures, fculptured in baffo-relievo, the length of his legs, and rifing one third as high as himfelf. These were the mother and daughter of this prince. The other coloffus, of one fingle ftone, correfponding to the dimenfions Diodorus Siculus gives, alfo reprefented the mother of the king. You will form fome idea of the gigantic fize of the grand coloffus, when you are told that its foot alone is near eleven feet long, which answers to the feven cubits of Diodorus. This ftatue, the half of which remains on

its bafe, and which Strabo calls the ftatue of Memnon, uttered a found at fun-rifing. Its fame formerly was very great. Several writers have fpoken of it with enthusiasm, regarding it as one of the feven wonders of the world. A crowd of Greek and Latin infcriptions, which are ftill legible on the bafe and legs of the coloflus, atteft that princes, generals, governors, and men of all conditions, have heard this miraculous found. You know, Sir, what the judicious Strabo thought, and, I hope, you will be of his opinion. Such, Sir, are the remains of Thebes, and her hundred gates, the antiquity of which is loft in the obfcurity of ages, and which still contains proofs of the perfection of the arts in those most diftant times. All here is fublime, all majeftic. Its kings feem to have acquired the glory of never dying, while their obelisks and coloffal ftatues exift, and to have only laboured for immortality. They could preferve their memory against the efforts of time, but not against the barbariím of conquerors; those most dreadful fcourges of fcience and nations, which, in their pride, they have too often erased from the face of the earth.”

Dr. Glafs's letter to William Marsden, Efq; on the affinity of certain words in the language of the Sand- · wich and Friendly Isles in the Pa

cific Ocean, with the Hebrew.From the 8th vol. of the Archaologia.

you.

If there was a time when all the inhabitants of the world spoke Hebrew, then we are juftified in our attempts at tracing to that primary fource any word in any language fpoken on the habitable globe: and an argument connected with thefe data, though it may not carry conviction with it, will not, I hope, be confidered, prima facie, as abfurd and impoffible.

It is my opinion, then, that the word taboo, which is fo common in all the islands of the Pacific Ocean, and which occurs fo very frequently in the journals of our circumna vigators, is, poffibly, of Hebrew origin.

At least thus much is certain, that the Hebrew word nan Taooba, from arn, has the fame precife fignification with the word Taboo, as ufed in the Sandwich and Friendly ifles, &c.

The word an as a verb fignifies tranfitively, to loath, nauseate, abominate, both in a natural and mental fenfe. From hence is derived nawn Taaob-a, and nayn Taoob-ath, an abomination.

It occurs in feveral places of the facred writings; but the three following inftances are fufficiently in point for my purpose, viz. to fhew that the effect of that abomination we speak of, was interdictory, and that to a very high degree, which is

that תעובת -מצרים we facrifice »

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