nagement of the loom in the retirement of the house, whilst they themselves are engaged abroad in the business of commerce59. Other nations in weaving shoot the woof above, the Egyptians beneath here the men carry burdens on their heads, women on their shoulders; women stand erect Herodotus says nothing of the matter. But Diodorus Siculus is of this opinion; and he thinks that by this peculiarity they wished to perpetuate the gratitude which they felt from the mild government of Isis. "Thus," says he, " in Ægypt, the queens are more honoured than the kings, and the influence of the women is greater also in private life. In the contracts of marriage it is stipulated, that the woman shall be mistress of her husband, and that he shall obey her in every particular."—Larcher. Nymphodorus (in the Scholia to the Ed. Col. of Sophocles) remarks, that Sesostris seeing Ægypt become exceedingly populous, and fearing lest the inhabitants should conspire against him, obliged them to employ themselves in feminine occupations, in order to enervate them.-Larcher. The present aspect of Ægypt exhibits a scene of very different manners. "Each family," says Savary," forms a small state, of which the father is king, the members of it, attached to him by the ties of blood, acknowledge and submit to his power. When the master of the family dines, the women stand, and frequently hold the bason for him to wash, and serve him at table, and on all occasions behave to him with the extremest humility and reverence. The women spend their time principally among their slaves, in works of embroidery, &c.-T. 59 Business of commerce.]—The same fact is mentioned in the Edipus Coloneus of Sophocles, verse 352. It occurs also in Pomponius Mela, which, however, is little more than a translation of Herodotus.-T. 3 erect to make water, the men stoop*. The 60 offices of nature are performed at home, but they eat their meals publicly in the streets. In vindication of this they assert, that those things which, though necessary, are unseemly, are best done in private; but whatever has no shame attached to it, should be done openly. The office of the priesthood is in every instance confined to the men; there are no priestesses in Ægypt, in the service either of male or female deities; the men *I am given to understand that in India the men also stoop on such occasions. I have heard too that it is universal among the Mahomedans, and the reason is, their fear of contaminating themselves by any drops of urine falling on their cloaths. It is singular enough that the ancient Ægyptians should be distinguished by any mark of superstition in common with the disciples of Mahomet. See Fryer's Travels, p. 200. As they are careful (speaking of the people of the East) what they take into their bodies, so are they solicitous to evacuate in good order, always squatting when they make water. Again, the same author, p. 33: Among them all it is common to make water sitting; it is a shame for any one to be seen to do otherwise. Our countryman, Ellis, in his account of the Hudson's Bay Indians, relates that they observe the same usage as the ancient Egyptians. They differ also from almost all other nations in another particular, which is their manner of making urine, for here the men always squat down, and the women stand upright. p. 198. 60 Offices of nature.]-For this purpose the Greeks went out of doors.-T, men are under no obligation" to support their parents, if unwilling to do so, but the women are. XXXVI. The priests of the gods*", who in other places wear their hair long, in Ægypt wear it short. 61 Men are under no obligation.]—In this barbarous custom I can by no means discern the so much boasted wisdom of the Ægyptians. The law of Solon seems much more commendable: this permitted a young man to neglect the maintenance of his father, and to refuse him admission into his house, if he had been prostituted by his means. He was nevertheless obliged, after his death, to give him sepulture, with the usual funeral solemnities. The law of which Herodotus speaks had probably this foundation-The priests and the military having duties to perform which did not suffer them to take care of their parents, these in their sons' absence would probably have experienced neglect. It is well known that the priests were also judges, and that they were dispatched to different places to administer justice, and that of consequence they must often have been absent from their families.-Larcher. But a still better reason for all this may be found in ́p. 345, where we are informed that women had more authority than their husbands. *6 The priests of the gods.]—Amongst the singularities which distinguished the Jewish priesthood, there is one so striking, that I cannot forbear pointing it out to the attention of the reader. The Jewish high-priest was not allowed to marry, except with a virgin. He was forbidden to marry either with " a widow, or a divorced woman, or profane, or an harlot." See Levit. xxi. 14. The discipline of the primitive christians was not in this instance much less rigorous: they were excluded from the priesthood who had either married two wives, or a widow, or whose wives had been guilty of adultery. If this last incident happened, they were either obliged to be divorced, or to renounce their profession. It 62 short. It is elsewhere customary in cases of death, for those who are most nearly related, to cut off their hair in testimony of sorrow; but the Egyptians, who at other times have their heads closely shorn, suffer the hair on this occasion to grow. Other nations will not suffer animals to approach the place of their repast; but in Ægypt they live promiscuously with the people. Wheat and barley are common articles of food in other countries; but in Ægypt they are thought mean and disgraceful; the diet here consists principally of spelt, a kind of corn which some call zea. Their dough It can by no means be impertinent to add, from Mosheim, that the christian doctors had the good fortune to persuade the people that the ministers of the christian church succeeded to the character, rights, and privileges of the Jewish priesthood, which persuasion was a new source of honour and of profit to the sacred order. Accordingly, the bishops; considered themselves as invested with a rank and character similar to those of the high-priest among the Jews, while the presbyters represented the priests, and the deacons the Levites. The errors to which this notion gave rise were many, and one of its immediate consequences was the establishing in the Roman church a greater difference between the christian pastors and their flock, than the genius of the gospel seems to admit.-T. 62 Elsewhere customary.]—Amongst the Greeks when any sad calamity befalls them, the women cut their hair close, the men wear it long; in general the women wear their hair long, the men short.-Plutarch. 63 Zea.]-I suspect this to be a kind of bearded wheat. The far, olyra, zea, all mean a corn which we have not in cultivation, but which our writers call spelt. What dough they knead with their feet; whilst in the removal of mud and dung, they do not scruple to use their hands. Male children, except in those places which have borrowed the custom from hence, are left in other nations as nature formed them; in Egypt they are circumcised 64. The men 66 What Martyn says upon this subject very much deserves attention. See his note upon Georg. i. 73. at the word farra. Far," says he, seems to be put here for corn in general." It seems to me pretty plain that it is the Caa or ɛa of the Greeks, and what we call in English spelt. It is a sort of corn very like wheat, but the chaff adheres so strongly to the grain, that it requires a mill to separate them, like barley. Dionysius of Halicarnassus says expressly that the Greeks call that a which the Latins call far. The principal objection to this seems to be, that Pliny treats of zea and far as two different sorts of grain; but we may reasonably suppose, that what Pliny says of zea, was taken from the Greek authors, aud that they are the same grain, notwithstanding his having distinguished them. Besides this, in the 219th verse of this Georgic, Virgil has given the epithet robusta to farra, which is the very same that Theophrastus has given to zea, &c. 64 Circumcised.]-" I am aware," says Mr. Gibbon, "how tender is the question of circumcision." He affirms, however, that the Æthiopians have a physical reason for the circumcision of males and even of females, and that it was practised in Ethiopia long before the introduction of Judaism or Christianity. The above is one of Gibbon's sneers; of his two assertions on this subject, the one is very doubtful, and the other a positive falsehood. The commencement of circumcision with the Jews was unquestionably with Abraham, and by the command of God. Marsham |