of leaves, seeds, plants, inferior animals; lying far behind us: and we resting at and gradually ascending through separate Faido, a Swiss village, near the awful rocks organs of the human frame, up to the and mountains, the everlasting snows and whole structure of that wonderful creation, roaring cataracts, of the Great Saint exquisitely presented, as in recent death. Gothard hearing the Italian tongue for Few admonitions of our frail mortality can be more solemn, and more sad, or strike so home upon the heart, as the counterfeits of Youth and Beauty that are lying there, upon their beds, in their last sleep. the last time on this journey let us part from Italy, with all its miseries and wrongs, affectionately, in our admiration of the beauties, natural and artificial, of which it is full to overflowing, and in our tenderness towards a people naturally well disposed, and patient, and sweet tempered. Years of neglect, oppression, and misrule, have been at work, to change their nature and reduce their spirit; miserable jealousies, fomented by petty Princes to whom union was destruction, and division Beyond the walls, the whole sweet valley of the Arno, the convent of Fiessole, the Tower of Galileo, Boccaccio's house, old villas and retreats; innumerable spots of interest, all glowing in a landscape of surpassing beauty steeped in the richest light; are spread before us. Returning from so much brightness, how solemn and how strength, have been a canker at the root grand the streets again, with their great, dark, mournful palaces, and many legends: not of siege, and war, and might, and Iron Hand alone, but of the triumphal growth of peaceful Arts and Sciences! of their nationality, and have barbarized their language; but the good that was in them ever, is in them yet, and a noble people may be, one day, raised up from these ashes. Let us entertain that hope! And let us not remember Italy the less regardfully, because, in every fragment of her fallen Temples, and every stone of her deserted palaces and prisons, she helps to inculcate the lesson that the wheel of Time is rolling for an end, and that the world is, in all great essentials, better, gentler, more forbearing, and more hopeful, as it rolls! What light is shed upon the world, at this day, from amidst these rugged Palaces of Florence! Here, open to all comers, in their beautiful and calm retreats, the ancient Sculptors are immortal, side by side with Michael Angelo, Canova, Titian, Rembrandt, Raphael, Poets, Historians, Philosophers-those illustrious men of history, beside whom its crowned heads and harnessed warriors show so poor and small, and are so soon forgotten. Here, the imperishable part of noble minds survives, placid and equal, when strongholds of assault and defence are overthrown; when the tyranny of the many, or the few, or both, is but a tale; when Pride and Power POTATOES-Dr. Lindley, at the head of the Horticultural Society, read two communications, are so much cloistered dust. The fire and stated the results of experiments made on within the stern streets and among the the propagation of potatoes from seeds, which had massive Palaces and Towers, kindled by been suggested for the purpose of producing a rays from Heaven, is still burning brightly, more healthy future source of supply, from the when the flickering of war is extinguish-anticipations, it was thought might lead to disprobable present exhaustion of the stock. Such ed and the household fires of generations appointment, and the experience of one case in have decayed; as thousands upon thou- particular showed that little reliance could be sands of faces, rigid with the strife and placed upon it, as the seeds of the season 1844, passion of the hour, have faded out of the before the disease had appeared, produced 80 potatoes which were very much diseased, although old Squares and public haunts, while the the haulms were not in the first case affected. nameless Florentine Lady, preserved from All the evidence on the subject was, however, oblivion by a Painter's hand, yet lives on, very conflicting; for whereas in this country the in enduring grace and youth. results of the experiments were very unsatisfactory, the reverse was the case in Prussia, where crops of excellent quality had been procured from seeds, with most satisfactory results both in the greater quantity as well as the superior qualiSo satisfied were the Prusty of the produce sian Government of the results of these experiments, that they had given instruction to purchase seed wherever it could be obtained.-Lit. Gaz. Let us look back on Florence while we may, and when its shining Dome is seen no more, go travelling through cheerful Tuscany, with a bright remembrance of it; for Italy will be the fairer for the recollection. The summer time being come and Genoa, and Milan, and the Lake of Como From the Dublin University Magazine. THE OLDEST OF ALL ALMANACKS. immediately followed by three characters, expressing the nature of the morning, the day itself, and the evening-as prosperous, indifferent, or adverse. The character deAn old almanack is proverbially a value- noting good fortune is written in black ink, less document; and yet a person can scarce- the other two generally in red-a curious ly peruse a very old one without finding instance of the difference between Egyptian something in it to interest, if not to instruct and European notions in many respects; him. An "old almanack," however, and with us it would have been the reverse.— even a very old almanack," may mean Most days have the same character throughvery different things in the mouths of dif- out, but there are exceptions. Thus we ferent persons. Some would call a Watson's read-"Thoth 25 G. G. M. ;” i. e., good, Almanack of the reign of George II. a very good, middling; implying that the evening old one; and there are many Irishmen who was rather unlucky; and a caution is added, would find good amusement for an idle "do not go out of doors at the time of hour, not indeed in the calendar itself, but evening." After the day has been thus in its accompaniments. One of William briefly characterized, observations are made, Lilly's Ephemerises, two hundred years old, sometimes very briefly, at other times at with its predictions of future events, de- considerable length, which may be classed duced from planetary configurations and under three heads. Some relate to the eclipses, would be interesting as an alina-religious ceremonies to be performed on the nack; and a still greater degree of curi- day in question, or to the mystic events osity would be excited by one of the cheap supposed to have happened on it. These Dutch almanacks, which our ancestors used three hundred years ago; or by one of the illuminated manuscripts, which, two hundred years before that, announced the festivals and the weather to the few who, in those days, could command such a luxury. Most persons would consider such a manuscript as this a very old almanack indeed; and yet it is a mere thing of yesterday by the side of that of which we are now going to speak. There is in the British Museum an almanack, which wants but a little of being 3000 years old; which, having been used as his monitor by some Egyptian of the olden time, was buried with him; and has been dug up in this all-exploring age, unrolled, displayed to the public, copied in facsimile for the benefit of the student, and, in fine, read—to a great extent at least. are in many cases not easily separated; and the latter is sometimes mentioned as a reason for the former. Other observations are in the nature of cautions against doing certain things on certain days, or of encouragements to do them; and others, again, are predictions of the fate of children who may be born on that day. T'hese are not what we should now-a-days call astrological predictions. There is no allusion in the almanack to the positions of the moon or of the planets, which the Egyptians did not take into account in their calculations of lucky and unlucky days; and in truth there could be no such allusion consistently with the nature of the almanack; as it was not, like those to which we are accustomed, intended to last for a single year, but for a quaternion, or period of four years. This almanack is, like other Egyptian manuscripts, written on papyrus. It is in In order to explain this observation, it columns; and of these twenty-five are will be necessary to describe the Egyptian wholly or partially preserved. The portion mode of computing time. In the early of the year which these contain begins with period of their history, the Egyptians used the 19th of Thoth, the first month, and ends a year, the commencement of which was with the 13th of Pachon, or the 253d day determined by some phenomenon connected of the year. This day, however, is men- with the sun's annual course; in the first tioned pretty high up in the twenty-fourth instance, probably, by the cessation of the column, the remainder of it and the twenty- inundation. To this year the hieroglyphififth being illegible. It is probable, then, cal names of the months were adapted, that thirty-eight columns or thereabouts which represent physical characters, such contained the whole almanack; unless, as would belong to the months of a year indeed, which is not unlikely, there was beginning about a month after the autumsome additional matter at the beginning ornal equinox; and which could not have end. The days are named in red ink; and been given at a time when the year was a the figure, which terminates the name, is wandering one, as it was in later ages. long before Christ was this? That, too, may be answered from the almanack; and it appears to us, on very sure grounds, though we anticipate dissent on the part of those Egyptian chronologers, who are vying with one another as to how far the reigns of the several kings may be carried back. In the quaternion which commenced in what would be, after the Julian reckoning, No The intercalation of a three hundred and sixty-sixth day, which sometimes took place in the fourth and sometimes in the fifth year, and which, in the absence of an authorative national calendar, would occur in different years, in different parts of Egypt, was found to be productive of, so much inconvenience, that it was abolished by a law, which the kings were required to swear that they would observe; and thence-vember, 1767, B. C., the summer solstice forward the commencement of the year began to wander through the different seasons; returning to its original or normal position, when the months would correspond in character to their hieroglyphic names, in about fifteen hundred years. Now, of the festivals which were observed by the Egyptians, some were connected with certain seasons of the year; and the consequence of this alteration in the calendar was that they fell on different days of the year in different years. For four years in succession one of these festivals fell on a certain day, suppose the first of Thoth; in the next four, it fell on the second; then on the third, and so on. Other festivals, on the contrary, retained their position in the month, whether that month fell in the spring or in the autumn. These fixed and moveable feasts would be continually interfering with one another, and a calendar was needed by the Egyptian to instruct him on what days each was to be celebrated, and also, according to his notions, what good or ill fortune might result from their different combinations. Such a calendar would serve for four years; and there is every reason to think, that it never served for more; but that the Egyptian almanack-makers regularly carried forward the moveable feasts at the end of a quaternion; thus making them to go round the year in 1460 years, though the equinoxes and solstices would in reality take about 1500 years to complete this circuit. fell, according to astronomical calculation, on the 5th of Pachon, or the 245th day of the Egyptian year. This was about the time when the months were in their normal position; and was, therefore, about the time when the wandering year originated. We take the quaternion to have commenced in this year, because the quaternions of the canicular cycle certainly commenced in 1323, B. c.; and there can be little or no doubt that the two sets of quaternions coincided. If, now, the day of the Egyp tian year on which the summer solstice was computed to fall be noted in this almanack, we have only to count the number of days between the 5th of Pachon and it, multiply this number by four, and subtract the product from 1767; and we shall at once have the date before Christ of the first year of the quaternion. Whether the origin of the wandering year was actually in 1767, B. C., or four, eight, or twelve years earlier or later, makes no difference in this calculation.In the latter case, indeed, the solstice would have fallen at the origin, one, two, or three years later than the day named; and would, in 1767, B. c., as in all preceding years, have fallen on the same nominal day of the year; but whatever number of years was taken from the epoch of the wandering year, the same would have to be taken from the subtrahend; so that the remainder, or date of the almanack before Christ, could not be affected. Now, the day of the computed summer solstice is virtually given in the almanack. It is expressly stated by Champollion, that the palaces of both the Memnonium and Medinet Habou contain bas-reliefs, representing the panegyry of the summer solstice; and that one of the principal features in these sculptures was the coronation of Horus. Mystical birds are Such being the nature of an Egyptian almanack, our readers will now be inclined to ask for what quaternion was that now before us composed? This question may be understood in two senses; and in one of them it is easily answered. At the back of the almanack, there is a date of the 20th Pharmuthi, in the fifty-sixth year of Rame-despatched to the four quarters of the ses the Great. heaven, and are told to tell the gods of those quarters, that "Horus, the son of Isis and Osiris, has assumed the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt; and that (his earthly type) King Rameses has assumed the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt." In accor dance with this, on the ceiling in the Memnonium, where the several months are represented with their normal characters, the coronation of the king, as Horus, is represented as falling in the month Pachon, the normal month of the summer solstice. We think, then, that no doubt ought to exist as to the connection between the summer solstice and the mystical cornation of Horus. It is, however, noted in this almanack, under the 14th Paophi, or 44th day of the year, "G. G. G. This is the day of the assumption of the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt by Horus." out; yet no incense was to be burned, and no hunting or fowling to be carried on. There were other restrictions; and it is in the end foretold that any child born that day will not live. On the following day, the child that should be born would have a prosperous life. The 25th, already noticed as prosperous in the two first portions of the day, and middling in the evening, was the day of the exode of the Lioness to the Eastern mountain. It was to be a day of eating of beef and drinking of wine; and offerings were to be made to Osiris. On this day, we suspect that in the present The solstice had then advanced from the quaternion a collision of a fixed and a 245th day of the year to the 44th of the moveable feast took place. The lioness of following year, or 164 days, from 1767 B. Memphis, whose exode, that is, the carryc. which gives 1111 B. C., as the year when ing of her statue from the temple and back the quaternion commenced. From this it again, is mentioned as to take place on this follows that the first year of Rameses the day, was not the goddess of Bubastis, as all Great began in 1167 B. c.; and as it is ex- recent writers on Egyptian mythology have pressly stated in an inscription at Silsilis made her. The name of the latter was that his 31st year, and of course his first Bast, and she was cat-headed. The Pekhe, year, was the year of the great festival of or lioness, whose proper name appears to thirty years; which implies that the inter- have been Menhi, is clearly distinguished val between the epoch of the calendar and from her in this almanack. The word Pethe commencement of his reign was an ex-khe is etymologically connected with fähe, act multiple of thirty years; we have thus a the German name for a female wild beast; new argument for the epoch of the calendar being in 1767 B. C., and not in any of the neighboring years. On this subject, we will only add, that it would not at all avail the advocates of a more extended chronology to suppose that the actual solstice was intended to be indicated in the calendar rather than one computed by quaternions. The actual solstice would not fall on the 14th Paophi until about twenty years after the date above mentioned. and possibly with an English word, which we should be sorry to apply to so venerable a goddess. The 26th of Thoth is bad throughout. "Do nothing at all this day. This is the day of the combat of Horus and Typhon." It is added that three days and three nights were to be passed as travellers, in commemoration of the wanderings of Isis. From this and other passages in the almanack, it is plain that the legend of Osiris, Typhon, Isis, and Horus, was reIt would be highly desirable that some ceived by the Egyptians in the age of the other almanack, intended for a different great Rameses; contrary to what some quaternion, should be compared with this. have conjectured on account of the honors It would then clearly appear, which of the paid at this time to Typhon. The honors Egyptian festivals were attached to certain paid to this god were probably confined to days of particular months; and which, be- the military caste. He was the god of war, ing connected with certain seasons, wan- identified with the Phoenician Baal, and dered through the different months. It is like him symbolized by an ass, and reprevery probable that some such almanack may sented in the form, or at least with the head, exist among the yet unexamined treasures of that animal. The father of Rameses the of many European museums. The owner Great bore a name implying devotion to of the present almanack had, no doubt, him, Setei, the attached to Set; which the others; and nothing is more likely than that priests who prepared his sepulchre changed they were buried with him along with this, to Osirei, the attached to Osiris. This and that they have found their way to some was, no doubt, by his own desire. He was or other of the great collections of papyri. willing enough to be a votary of the benefiWe will now give a few specimens of the cent god after his death; but while he entries made in this almanack in connex-lived he would be a warrior, in the service ion with different days. The 23d of of the malevolent devil! So long as this Thoth is marked as a fortunate day through-warlike family retained the crown, the Phamenoth was "the day of the Exode of Neith in Sais. They see the good things of the night at the third hour." Probably, this was the feast of lamps which Herodotus mentions, ii. 62. The assembly, he says, at Sais is held by night. They suspend before their houses, in the open air, which a wick floats and burns through the night. This, we may suppose, was lighted at the third hour. Herodotus says, that on this night all Egypt was illuminated; as those who did not attend the feast observed this part of the ceremony at their dwellings. The 18th of this month is marked as the panegyry of Netpe, the 23d of Horus, and the 28th of Osiris. The 5th of Pachon was that of Osiris, the Lord of Tattou. But we must not exhaust the patience of our readers. Enough has been said to show the nature of this almanack; and while it remains the only one of its kind no information of any value can be expected from it, beyond the fact, which we have set out with establishing, the true date of the reign of Rameses the Great. This, we think, it fixes on sure grounds; and, in that respect, but in that only, it is an important as well as a curious document. name of Set was held in honor; but after their fall, the priests showed their aversion to it by defacing it wherever they found it. as on the Flaminian obelisk, and on the statue of Setei II. in the British Museum. On the following day, persons are directed not to pursue any game, it being one of the days of Horus and Typhon; i. e. the comlamps filled with oil, mixed with salt, over bat between them was still going on. Offerings, it is said, should be made to their names on this day. On the 28th of Thoth a remark is made, which occurs very frequently. "If thou seest any thing at all this day, it will be fortunate." The 4th of Paophi was particularly unfortunate. A journey was not to be commenced; and a child that might be born would die on that very day. A person born on the 23d Paophi would be killed by a crocodile, and on the 27th, by a serpent. One born on the 28th, would have a happy end. The 13th of Athyr was the day of the exode of Isis. A person born on the 14th would die by the sword. The 28th, a middling day throughout, was the exode of Bast; a child then born would die within the year. The 21st was throughout fortunate. It was the day of the panegyry, or festive assembly of Mu the son of Ra, i. e. Light, the son of the Sun. It was the day when Mu and Neith were together in the cabin of the barge of the sun. The second of Chosac was a fortunate day throughout. Every thing would turn out well. All the gods and goddesses were rejoicing in the celestial panegyries. The 4th of Tybi was another fortunate day. A child then born would die a prince of the people. This is a proof that the Egyptians were not, as generally supposed, restricted to the rank or profession to which they were born. Occasionally, they might rise to an elevated rank. The 12th of Tybi was middling throughout. Persons were cautioned against looking at a rat on this day. On the 17th 4. Algunas Consideraçoes Politicos. 12mo. persons were not to wash themselves with Lisboa, 1844. water. The 20th Tybi was another exode 5. of Bast, two months from the preceding one; and was, like it, a middling day 6. throughout. Nothing was to be done the whole day. The 1st of Mechir was a for-7. tunate day to its close. The gods and goddesses had a panegyry on it. The 11th was a good day throughout. It was the day of the panegyry of Neith at Sais. The 14th is marked "B.G.G. Don't go out of doors before daylight. This is the day of looking at the crocodiles pursued by Typhon before the great boat." The 5th From the Foreign Quarterly Review. 1. A. B. da Costa Cabral. Apontamen- 2. 3. tom. Portugal. Recordaçoes do Anno 1842. Costa Cabral em Relevo. 12mo. Lisboa, 1844. Discurso de Senr. Deputado Manuel THE publications above referred to, are calculated to cause some mistrust in the nature of those organic changes which have taken place in the Peninsula, during the last quarter of a century. We rise |
