four rams are brought to be registered by his scribes, as part of the stock of the deceased; implying an equal number of ewes, independent of lambs.

Beef and goose constituted the principal part of the animal food throughout Egypt; and by a prudent foresight in a country possessing neither extensive pasture Jands, nor great abundance of cattle, the cow was held sacred, and consequently forbidden to be eaten. Thus the risk of exhausting the stock was prevented, and a constant supply of oxen was kept for the table and for agricultural purposes. A similar fear of diminishing the number of sheep, so valuable for their wool, led to a preference for such meats as beef and goose; though they were much less light and wholesome than mutton.

A considerable quantity of meat was served up at those repasts, to which strangers were invited, as among people of the East at the present day. An endless succession of vegetables was also required on all occasions, and when dining in private, dishes composed chiefly of them were in greater request than joints even at the tables of the rich; and consequently the Israelites, who, by their long residence there, had acquired similar habits, regretted them equally with the meat and fish of Egypt. (Numbers, zi, 4, 5).

Their mode of dining was very similar to that now adopted in Cairo, and throughout the East; each person sitting round a table, and dipping his bread into a dish placed in the centre, removed on a sign made by the host, and succeeded by others, whose rotation depends on established rule, and whose number is predetermined according to the size of the party, or the quality of the guests.

As is the custom in Egypt and other hot climates at the present day, they cooked the meat as soon as killed; with the same view of having it tender, which makes northern people keep it until decomposition is beginning; and this explains the order of Joseph to slay and make ready for his brethren to dine with him the same day at noon. As soon, therefore, as this had been done and the joints were all ready, the kitchen presented an animated scene, and the cooks were busy in their different departments. Other servants took charge of the pastry which the bakers or confec tioners had made for the dinner-table; and this department appears even more varied than that of the cook.

That dinner was served up at mid-day, may be inferred from the invitation given by Joseph to his brethren; but it is probable that, like the Romans, they also ate supper in the evening, as is still the custom in the East. The table was much the same as that of the present day in Egypt-a small stool supporting a round tray, on which the dishes are placed; but it differed from this in having its circular summit fixed on a pillar, or leg, which was often in the form of a man, generally a captive, who supported the slab upon his head, the whole being of stone, or some hard wood. On this the dishes were placed, together with loaves of bread. It was not generally covered with any linen, but, like the Greek table, was washed with a sponge or napkin after the dishes were removed. One or two guests generally sat at a table, though from the mention of persous seated in rows according to rank, it has been supposed the tables were occasionally of a long shape, as may have been the case when the brethren of Joseph sat before him, the first-born according to his youth.' Joseph eating alone at another table where they set on for him by himself." But even if round, they might still sit according to rank, one place being always the post of honour, even at the present day, at the round table of Egypt.

The guests sat on the ground, or on stools and chairs, and, having neither knives and forks nor any substitute for them answering to the chopsticks of the Chinese, they ate with their fingers like the modern Asiatics, and invariably with the right hand; nor did the Jews (1 Sam. ii, 14) and Etruscans, though they had forks for other purposes, use any at table. Spoons were introduced when required for soup or other liquids. The Egyptian spoons were of various forms and sizes. They were principally of ivory, bone, wood, or bronze, and other metals-many were ornamented with the lotus flower.

The Egyptians washed after as well as before dinner, an invariable custom throughout the East, as among the Greeks, Romans, Hebrews, and others. It was also a custom of the Egyptians, during or after their repasts, to introduce a wooden image of Osiris, from one foot and a half to three feet in height, in the form of a humau mummy, standing erect, or lying on a bier, and to shew it to each of the guests, warning him of his mortality, and the transitory nature of human pleasures. He was reminded that some day he would be like that figure; that men ought to 'love one

another, and avoid those evils which tend to make them consider life long, when in reality it was too short;' and while enjoying the blessings of this world, to bear in mind that their existence was precarious, and that death, which all ought to be prepared to meet, must eventually close their earthly career. Thus, while the guests were permitted, and even encouraged, to indulge in conviviality, the pleasures of the table, and the mirth so congenial to their lively disposition, they were exhorted to put a certain degree of restraint upon their conduct: and though this sentiment was perverted by other people, and used as an incentive to present excesses. it was perfectly consistent with the ideas of the Egyptians to be reminded that this life was only a lodging or inn on their way, and that their existence here was the preparation for a future state.

After dinner, music and singing were resumed; hired men and women displayed feats of agility. The most usual games within-doors were odd and even, mora, and draughts. The game of mora was common in ancient as well as modern times, and was played by two persons, who each simultaneoudly threw out the fingers of one hand, while one party guessed the sum of both. They were said in Latin, micare digitis. and this game, still so common among the lower order of Italians, existed about four thousand years ago in the reigns of the Osirtasens.

CHEVALIER BUNSEN-S. SHARPE.

The learned Chevalier BunsEN-lately Prussian ambassador in London, and a native of Corbach, Germany, where he was born in 1790-commenced, in 1848, the publication of his historical investigation, Egypt's Place in Universal History.' A second volume was published in 1854, and the third in 1859. The work was translated from the German, under the author's superintendence, by Mr. C. H. Cottrell. The object of M. Bunsen was to establish, by means of the language and chronology of Egypt, as recently investigated, the posi tion of the Egyptians as a nation in primeval history, or before the period of historical records. He gives them a vastly remote antiquity, assigning the date of the first king of Egypt to an era four thousand years before the Christian era. The Egyptians, he says, were an Asiatic race, who emigrated from Chaldea, and settled in the valley of the Nile about the eleventh millennium B.C.; the historical Deluge, which took place in a considerable part of Central Asia, cannot have occurred at a more recent period than the tenth millennium B.C., and man existed on the earth about 20,000 years B.C., or even earlier. These antediluvian and prehistoric conclusions of the chevalier have been generally disputed. We have not yet sufficient materials to enable us to fix positively the dates of the earlier period of the Egyptian monarchy. In 1852, M. Bunsen published another historical investigation, Hippolytus and his Age, or the Doctrine and Practice of the Church of Rome under Commodus and Alexander Severus;' and 'Ancient and Modern Christianity and Divinity Compared,' four volumes, 1852. This work of Hippolytus is certainly a literary curiosity. In 1842, a Greek manuscript was discovered at Mount Athos. It was printed at Oxford in 1851, and ascribed to the cele brated Origen. Chevalier Bunsen, however, clearly established that it was the composition of Hippolytus, and written about the year 225. The document thus remarkably preserved for above sixteen centuries, is highly valuable, as shewing what was the real Christian creed and liturgical practice exactly one hundred years Lefore the Council of

Nice. It gives no countenance to the prerogative of right claimed by the Church of Rome over others, nor to any sacred language in preference to the vernacular, nor to any indelible character or celibacy of the priesthood, nor to infant baptism, nor to any prop.tiatory sacrifice in the Eucharist, which Hippolytus considered to be an offering purely of a spiritual nature, a sacrifice of praise and thanks.' (Athenæum,' 1852). Chevalier Bunsen, who indulged in some mystical hopes and visions of the Church of the Future,' eloquently exclaimed:

Take away ignorance, misunderstandings, and forgeries, and the naked truth remins-not a spectre, thank God! carefully to be veiled, but an image of divine beauty, radiant with eternal truth. Break down the bars which separate us from the communion of the primitive church-1 mean, free yourselves from the letter of later canons, and conventional abstractions-and you move unshackled in the open ocean of faith. You hold fellowship with the spirits of the heroes of Christian antiquity, and you trace the stream of unity as it rolls uninterruptedly through eighteen centuries, in spite of rocks and quicksands..

A great work by Bunsen, God in History,' appeared in an English version, 1868-69. Its distinguished author had died previously in Germany, November 28, 1860. In 1868 was published A Memoir of Baron Bunsen,' drawn chiefly from family papers by his widow.

MR. SAMUEL SHARPE-a nephew of the late Mr. Samuel Rogers— has written a History of Egypt,' from the earliest times till the conquest by the Arabs in 640 A.D. This is a clear, succinct history in two volumes, the third edition, 1857. Mr. Sharpe has also written 'Historic Notes on the Books of the Old and New Testaments,' and an Historical Account of the Monuments of Egypt,' in one of the Crystal Palace Hand-books. Various other historical treatises have proceeded from his pen.

SIR FRANCIS PALGRAVE.

This distinguished archæologist, formerly deputy-keeper of the Public Records, was an indefatigable student of our early history. He was born in London in 1788. His father, Meyer Cohen, was a Jew; and the son, on the occasion of his marriage in 1923, changed his name to Palgrave, that being the maiden name of his wife's mother. The year preceding this he was employed on the Record Commission, and all his tastes were historical and antiquarian. In 1831 he published a History of the Anglo-Saxons'-a popular work contributed to Murray's Family Library.' In the following year appeared his 'Rise and Progress of the English Commonwealth' the term commonwealth' being employed by the historian, as by Locke, to signify an independent community, not a democracy. This work contains a mass of information regarding the most obscure part of our annals, with original records, and details concerning the political institutions of ancient Europe. Sir Francis afterwards projected a more elaborate history, tracing the Normans from the first establishment of the Terra Normannorum' as a settle

ment on the coast of Gaul under the Danish chicftains, till their union with England by William the Conqueror. Of this work, entitled The History of Normandy and of England,' two volumes appeared-one in 1851 and the other in 1857. Some fanciful positions and generalisations have been adopted by Sir Francis Palgrave, but few have dug so deep in the dark mines of our early history, and the nation owes him gratitude for the light he has thrown on the origin of the British people and institutions. He thinks that the great truth on which the whole history of European society and civilisation depends, is the influence of Rome, even when she had fallen, and was tattered, sordid, and faded as was her imperial robe. The chieftains of the barbarian dynasties each assumed the semblance of the Cæsars, and employed their titles and symbols. To Charlemagne this infusion of the imperial principle into the Teutonism of the West is chiefly due. Sir Francis wrote several less important works- Calendars of the Treasury,' Documents illustrative of the History of Scotland, Hand-book for Travellers in Northern Italy,' &c. He was also a contributor to the ' 'Edinburgh' and 'Quarterly Reviews.'

.

Sir Francis died in 1861.

The Battle of Hastings, October 14, 1066.

William had been most actively employed. As a preliminary to farther proceedings, he had caused all the vessels to be drawn on shore and rendered unserviceable. He told his men that they must prepare to conquer or to die-flight was impossible. He had occupied the Roman castle of Pevensey, whose walls are yet existing, flanked by Anglo-Norman towers, and he had personally surveyed all the adjoining country, for he never trusted this part of a general's duty to any eyes but his own. One Robert, a Norman thane, who was settled in the neighbourhood, advised him to cast up intrenchments for the purpose of resisting Harold. William replied, that his best defence was in the valour of his army, and the goodness of his cause.

In compliance with the opinions of the age, William had an astrologer in his train. An oriental monarch, at the present time, never engages in battle without a previous horoscope; and this superstition was universally adopted in Europe during the middle ages. But William's clerk' was not merely a star-gazer. He had graduated in all the occult sciences-he was a necromancer, or, as the word was often spelled, in order to accommodate it to the supposed etymology, a nigro-mancer-a sortilegus'-and a soothsayer. These accomplishments in the sixteenth century would have assuredly brought the clerk to the stake; but in the eleventh, although they were highly illegal according to the strict letter of the ecclesiastical law, yet they were studied as eagerly as any other branch of metaphysics, of which they were supposed to form a part. The sorcerer or sortilegus, by casting sortes or lots, had ascertained that the duke would succeed, and that Harold would surrender without a battle, upon which assurance the Normans entirely relied. After the landing, William inquired for his conjurer. A pilot came forward, and told him that the nnlucky wight had been drowned in the passage William then immediately pointed out the folly of trusting to the predi tions of one who was utterly unable to tell what would happen unto himself. When William first set foot on shore, he had shewn the same spirit. He stumbled, and fell forward on the palms of his hands. Mal signe est ci!' exclaimed his troops, affrighted at the omen. 'No,' answered William, as he rose: I have taken seizin of the country,' shewing the clod of car h which he had grasped. One of his soldiers, with the quickness of a modern Frenchnon instantly followed up the idea; he ran to a cottage, and pulled out a bundle of reads from the thatch, telling him to receive that symbol also. as the seizin of the realm with which he was invested. These little anecdotes display the turn and temper of the Normans, and the alacrity by which the ariny was pervaded.

Some fruitless attempts are said to have been made at negotiation. Harold despatched a monk to the enemies' camp, who was to exhort William to abandon his enterprise. The duke insisted on his right; but, as some historians relate, he offered to submit his claim to a legal decision, to be pronounced by the pope, either according to the law of Normandy, or according to the law of England; or if this mode of adjustment did not please Harold, that the question should be decided by single combat, the crown becoming the meed of the victor. The propositions of William are stated, by other authorities, to have contained a proposition for a compromisenamely, that Harold should take Northumbria, and William the rest of the AngloSaxon dominions. All or any of these proposals are such as may very probably have been made; but they were not minuted down in formal protocols, or couched in diplomatic notes; they were verbal imessages, sent to and fro on the eve of a bloody battle.

Fear prevailed in both camps. The English, in addition to the apprehensions which even the most stout-hearted fee on the eve of a morrow whose close they may never see, dreaded the papal excommunicat on, the curse encountered in support of the unlawful authority of a usurper. When they were informed that battle had been decided upon, they stormed and swore; and now the cowardice of conscience spurred them on to riot and revelry. The whole night was passed in debanch. Wes-heal and Drink-heal resouuded from the tents; the wine-cups passed gaily round and round by the smoky blaze of the red watch-fires, while the ballad of ribald mirth was loudly sung by the carousers.

In the Norman Leaguer, far otherwise had the dread of the approaching morn affected the hearts of William's soldiery. No voice was heard excepting the solemn response of the Litany and the chant of the psalm. The penitents confessed their sins, the masses were said, and the sense of the imminent peril of the morrow was tranquillised by penance and prayer. Each of the nations as we are told by one of our most trustworthy English historians, acted according to their national custom;' and severe is the censure which the English thus receive

The English were strongly fortified in their position by lines of trenches and palisades; and within these defences they were marshalled according to the Danish fashion-shild against shield, presenting an impenetrable front to the enemy. The men of Kent formed the vanguard for it was their privilege to be the first in the strife. The burgesses of London, in like manner. claimed and obtained the honour of being the royal body-guard and they were drawn up around the standard. At the foot of this banner stood Harold, with his brothers, Leofwin and Gurth, and a chosen body of the bravest thanes.

Before the Normans began their march, and very early in the morning of the feast of St. Calixtus, William had assembled his barons around him, and exhorted them to maintain his righteous cause. As the invaders drew nigh, Harold saw a division advancing, composed of the volunteers from the county of Boulogne and from the Amiennois, under the command of William Fitz-Osbern and Roger Montgomery. It is the duke,' exclaimed Harold, and little shall I fear him. By my forces will his be four times outnumbered!' Gurth shook his head, and expatiated on the strength of the Norman cavalry, as opposed to the foot-soldiers of England; but their discourse was stopped by the appearance of the combined cohorts under Aimeric, Viscount of Thouars, and Alan Fergant of Brittany. Harold's heart sunk at the sight, and he broke out into passionate exclamations of fear and dismay. But now the third and last division of the Norman army was drawing nigh. The consecrated Gonfanon floats amidst the forest of spears, and Harold is now too well aware that he beholds the ranks which are commanded in person by the Duke of Normandy.

Immediately before the duke rode Taillefer. the minstrel, singing, with a loud and clear voice, the lay of Charlemange and Roland, and the emprises of the Paladins who had fallen in the delorous pass of Romcevaux. Taillefer, as his guerdon, had craved permission to strike the first blow, for he was a valiant warrior emulating the deeds which he sung; his appellation. Taille-fer, is probably to be considered not as his real name, but as an epithet derived from his strength and prowess; and he fully justified his demand, by transfixing the first Englishman whom he attacked, and by felling the second to the ground. The battle now became general, and raged with the greatest fury. The Normans advanced beyond the English lines, but they were