well-ordered monarchy which, in the infancy of states, and in ages of semi-barbarism, is the only possible form of government under which prosperity and justice to the ruled are reciprocated by tranquillity and permanence to the rulers.

The monuments of Egypt of the ages that followed the times of Joseph, present a very remarkable contrast in this particular, to those that precede him. In these earlier periods, the only remaining memorial of Pharaoh is the pyramid in which he was buried. The great works were all executed by the princes and potentates that surrounded him. He is only named, while living, on the occasion of conferring some tract of land on one of his nobles. After his death they made an idol of him, worshipped him in his pyramid, and constituted themselves his priests and ministering attendants: offices which of course were well endowed both with revenues and political power. This is the occasion on which the names of the kings of primitive Egypt appear far more frequently than on any other.

Nothing can be more striking than the contrast to this state of things which is presented by the monuments of the times that succeeded the epoch of Joseph. Now Pharaoh is every thing: whereas before, he had been a mere pageant, next to nothing. The princes of Egypt, who had been supreme in the earlier period, become, in their turn, insignificant

and powerless, save through Pharaoh, in these later times. The titles of Abrach, Saris, Rapha-he, and other distinctions, which were all but universal in the court of the early Pharaohs, fell into utter desuetude in the times of their successors. The nobles of Egypt, in the post-pastoral period of her history, were contented with the offices of generals, admirals, superintendents of estates, judges, and other functions, all entirely subordinate to the royal power of Pharaoh; and date the great transactions of their lives by the year of Pharaoh's reign—a practice of which there is not a single example in the preceding times. The name of the reigning king is, in short, recorded every where, and nothing is done in Egypt, either in peace or war, but Pharaoh is at the head of the movement. Even in the tombs of the princes this contrast to the earlier epoch prevails as every where else. The princes of the pyramids were petty kings nearly independent of Pharaoh. The nobles of Thebes were as much the dependents on the will of Pharaoh as the slaves that ground his corn. The contrast in this particular of the two epochs, is as perfect as possible; and the institutions of Joseph, embodied in the passage of the inspired narrative before us, most satisfactorily account for it.

The institutions of Joseph extended over all Egypt. His patron was a most magnificent mon

arch. The memorials of his reign have been carefully defaced every where by the fanatic bigotry of his successors. His memory has likewise been reviled by them as a shepherd and a foreigner. But the few remains that have escaped them, betray their falsehood and their barbarism.

At Shech Said, Sowet-al Misdan, El Bircheh, and some other localities in the south of Middle Egypt, there are many tombs of the nobles who wrote his name He was evidently a rich and munificent king. The arts of design attained in his age a perfection certainly not surpassed, probably not equalled in any other epoch. Like the most eminent of his predecessors, he built a palace which must have been of magnificent dimensions, and richly endowed; for the princes of his court were all ambitious to fill offices connected with its construction or economy. This monarch was the Phiops or Aphophis of the lists, and the patron of Joseph; for there was but one Pharaoh of the name.

The institutions of Joseph, then, were coextensive with the kingdom of Aphophis ; that is, with Egypt Proper; and the changes he here introduced affected the entire monarchy, and were not confined to the Delta. It was on this account that they became permanent, and have left their traces upon the yet existing monuments of the country, which, at every

step of our enquiry, seems more strongly to vindicate its claim to be entitled the land of wonders. All these questions we shall presently consider.

"Only the land of the priests bought he (Joseph) not for the priests had a portion from Pharaoh, and ate the portion that Pharaoh gave them: wherefore Joseph bought not their lands." Gen. xlvii. 22.

If our identification of Pharaoh Aphophis on the monuments be correct, this is exactly the measure we should have anticipated from a monarch of his piety and munificence. He himself undertook the victualling of the temples during the famine, from the drafts which, as Pharaoh, he drew upon the magazines of Joseph. So that the land of the priests Joseph did not purchase, for it was never brought to market. The nobles and the priests of Egypt therefore were placed by the events of the famine in two entirely distinct categories. In the preceding times they had stood in the same position as landowners. This is the clear import of the sacred text, not one word of which, we repeat, has been written in vain.

"Then Joseph said unto the people: Behold, I have bought you this day and your land for Pharaoh. There shall be seed for you [when the famine is past] and ye shall sow the land. And it shall be [the law] that ye shall give a fifth part of the yield

to Pharaoh, and four parts shall be your own, for seed of the field and for your food, and for them of your households, and for food for your little ones. And they said, Thou hast saved our lives: let us find grace in the sight of my lord, and we will be the servants [slaves] of Pharaoh. And Joseph made it law over the land of Egypt unto this day, the fifth to Pharaoh, save the land of the priests alone, for that was not Pharaoh's." Gen. xlvii. 23-26.

The wisdom with which Joseph was endowed from God is very conspicuous throughout the whole record of his administration, and perhaps appears no where more clearly than in this the last transaction thereof, which has been preserved in the inspired narrative. He does not dispossess the princes of Egypt of their land unconditionally, notwithstanding their avowed willingness so to surrender it. This would have left the entire population of the country in the grasp of an autocrat; which would have infallibly ended in one of those iron tyrannies that afflict a nation for a few years, and then are swept away by the mercy of God. But with infinite sagacity he took advantage of the occasion accurately to adjust the question between the sovereign and his nobles, so that the authority of the one, and the privileges of the other, were both clearly defined. The expenses of the government of Egypt were defrayed by the impost; and then the