NINTH WEEK-SATURDAY.

ARCHITECTURE.-ITS ANCIENT HISTORY AND PRACTICE-EGYPT -THE PYRAMIDS.

THE most peculiar and remarkable of all architectural efforts, whether we consider their nature, or the toil expended in their erection, are assuredly the Egyptian Pyramids. For thousands of years these huge masses of solid masonry have withstood the ravages of time, and the rage of hostile armies. They continue, and to the end of time will continue, imperishable monuments of human power and vanity.

There is something very marked and characteristic in Egyptian architecture. Its peculiar feature, as we have said, is an awful and stern sublimity; but its mysterious vastness and severe simplicity, are without grace and without beauty. From these properties, however, the most powerful, if not the most refined and agreeable, emotions are experienced. "Long withdrawing lines," says a talented writer in the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, "unbroken surfaces, large masses, simple contours, even should the individual forms be destitute of proportion and grace, will always produce grand and solemn effects, capable of being carried to the majestic and sublime. Thus, in viewing the temples scattered over the Thebaid, those very edifices characterized by Strabo, as 'barbarous monuments of painful labour;' and in contemplating the pyramids, whose outline is without variety and contrast, the imagination is exalted to a high pitch of awe and astonishment. But these lofty efforts arise from a principle merely accidental; they are not the fruits of intrinsic science or refined art."*

The writer we have quoted, justly attributes this peculiar style of architecture to the predominant influence * Edinburgh Encyclopedia, article-" Sculpture."

of the Egyptian priesthood, whose policy it was to perpetuate their power by investing themselves, and the productions of their domination, with a character of immensity and of permanence. The eternal durability to which, in all their designs and institutions they aspired, necessarily pointed out a style, retaining, as the most substantial, only the simplest forms and the largest

masses.

In the pyramids this character is peculiarly marked. Whatever was their immediate object, it is obvious that the whole resources of art were employed to render them indestructible. Standing on an immensely extended base; tapering to a narrow top; within, compact and solid; without, formed of heavy blocks of stone, whose size has excited the astonishment of all beholders; nothing seems to have been left unthought of or undone, which could tend to produce that one object, durability co-extensive with that of the earth on which they were founded. What the more direct and particular intention of their erection was, seems still to be matter of doubt. Some persons have supposed that they were temples erected in honour of a deity, and an attempt has been made to prove that this deity was the sun, the first and greatest God in almost every heathen calendar. Considering them in this light, an ingenious writer remarks, that “it was natural to build them in that shape which the rays of the sun display when discovered to the eye, and which men observed to be the same in terrestrial flame; because this circumstance was combined in their imaginations with the attribute they adored. If they were temples dedicated to the sun,” he adds, “it seems a natural consequence that they should likewise be places of sepulture for kings and illustrious men, as the space which they covered would be considered as consecrated ground.""

That one of the uses of these enormous buildings was that of receptacles for the dead, is generally believed, * Gentleman's Magazine, for June 1794.

and that they were so employed has been placed beyond conjecture, by the fact of sarcophagi and human bones having been found in them. Perhaps it is refining too much to look further for their object. It is well known, that the ancient Egyptians spared neither labour nor expense in preparing the tombs, and preserving the bodies of their dead. This was probably the only immortality to which they looked forward, and their prejudices rendered it dear; for they imagined that so long as the body remained undecayed, the living principle continued to inhabit it. Near their chief cities, accordingly, are always found extensive ranges of tombs. In Upper Egypt, these were formed by excavations in the sides of the adjacent rocky mountains, which were executed with such laborious art, that they to this day form a striking contrast with the rudeness of the surrounding desert.

The

pyramids are erected in the northern extremity of this wonderful valley, in the neighbourhood of Memphis, the second capital of that ancient kingdom, and may have been intended to supply the want of mountains in that immediate neighbourhood, for the construction of mausoleums, if we are to believe that they are the work of this second period in the Egyptian history. They certainly are not unlike an imitation of mountains; and what might be supposed to favour this opinion, is, that a hill in the neighbourhood of the pyramids has been actually shaped by art into the pyramidal form, thus, by a kind of reaction, causing nature to copy back from art, what art had originally copied from nature.

The pyramids stand upon a plain about fifty miles long, stretching parallel to the Nile. This plain which, beneath the soil, is composed of hard calcareous rock, is about eighty feet above the level of the river, and forms an elevated platform, which gives a more imposing effect to those immense masses, as the traveller ascends from the lower valley. The three largest pyramids are in the neighbourhood of Ghizi, and bear the name of this village. The dimensions of the largest are differently

given by travellers, but it is probably between five and six hundred feet high, and about seven hundred feet square at the base. It is ascended by steps, diminishing in height from four to two and a half feet, in approaching the top. Upon the top there is a platform thirty-two feet square, consisting of nine large stones, each about the weight of a ton, though inferior to some of the other stones, which vary in length from five to thirty feet. The stones are generally of the same nature as the calcareous rock on which the pyramids stand, and, although Herodotus asserts that they were brought from the western side of the Nile, it is more probable that they were quarried in the immediate neighbourhood. The pyramids are built, externally, with common mortar, but no appearance of any cement can be discovered in the more perfect masonry of the interior. The four sides of these masses are directed to the cardinal points, and their north face is said to be nearly in the plane of the earth's equator. This might be held as an additional argument in favour of their relation to the worship of the sun.

The Pyramids of Laccara extend five miles to the north and south of the village of that name. One of them is said to equal in dimensions that which has already been mentioned. The others are considerably inferior. There is one built of unburnt bricks, containing shells, gravel, and chopped straw, which is in a very mouldering state.

It would appear from the accounts of the ancients, that the Great Pyramid was originally covered from top to bottom with a coating of very hard marble. Mr Savary is of opinion, that the ruins of the covering of the pyramid, and of the stones brought from within, buried by the sand, which is continually accumulating, have covered up the base to the depth of two hundred feet. It is certain, at least, that much of the height is lost by this means. The great Sphinx, which is placed near the second pyramid, and is itself of enormous bulk, was, in

the time of Pliny, upwards of sixty-two feet above the surface of the ground. Its whole body is at present buried under the sand. Nothing more of the figure appears than the neck and head, which are twenty-seven feet high.*

How deep and solemn are the reflections naturally arising from the consideration of these amazing relics of antiquity. Thousands of years have passed away since the living beings whose inventive powers conceived them, whose ambition decreed them, and whose laborious exertions constructed them, passed away from this world. A hundred generations have since risen, and been laid in the dust. The face of nature has itself changed. The Nile, indeed, has continued, with unvarying certainty, periodically to overflow its banks, and give luxuriance to the celebrated Delta on which these wonderful productions of art are placed; yet even its uniform operations have contributed to alter the aspect of the region over which its fertilizing waters have yearly passed But another cause, of a very different nature, has been more actively at work: The sand of the desert has invaded the soil, which in those distant ages was rich and beautiful as a cultivated garden, and has buried deep beneath its dreary wastes, at once the bountiful vegetation of nature, and the useful and varied labours of industrious man. Yet these enormous erections still rear their heads amidst such changes, themselves almost unchanged, and promising to be co-eval with nature itself. Strange and enduring monuments at once of human strength and weakness,—of human wisdom and folly! The very names of those mighty and aspiring men who founded them, have for more than twenty centuries

Captain Caviglia succeeded in laying the Sphinx bare to the foundation, for the distance of a hundred feet in front, and discovered some buildings and inscriptions. The whole body, as far as examined, was cut out of the live rock, except the paws, which were of masonry, and fifty feet long. The whole length of the figure is a hundred and forty-three feet,-the height from the belly to the top of the head sixty-two feet.-Library of Entertaining Knowledge- Pyramids.