on the appearance of a scanty supply of water, being far more sensibly felt than in countries which depend on rain for their harvest, where future prospects not being so soon foreseen, hope continues longer; the Egyptian, on the other hand, being able to form a just estimate of his crops even before the seed is sown, or the land prepared for its reception.*

Other remarkable effects may likewise be partially attributed to the interest excited by the expectation of the rising Nile; and it is probable that the accurate observations required for fixing the seasons, and the period of the annual return of the inundation, which was found to coincide with the heliacal rising of Sothis, or the Dog-star, contributed greatly to the early study of astronomy in the valley of the Nile. The precise time when these and other calculations were first made by the Egyptians, it is impossible now to determine; but from the height of the inundation being already recorded in the reign of Morist, we may infer that constant observations had been made, and Nilometers constructed, even before that early period; and astronomy‡, geometry, and other sciences are said to have been known in Egypt in the time of the hierarchy which preceded the accession of their first king, Menes.

* Seneca says, "Nemo aratrorum (in Ægypto)" adspicit cœlum;" and quotes this from Ovid, "nec pluvio supplicat herba Jovi." He adds," Quantum crevit Nilus, tantum spei in annum est, nec computatio fallit agricolam; adeo ad mensuram fluminis respondet, quam fertilem facit Nilus; majorque est lætitia gentibus, quo minus terrarum suarum vident." Quæst. Nat. iv. 2.

Diodor. i. 16., and Clem. Alex. Strom. 6.

We cannot, however, from the authority of Diodorus and Clemens of Alexandria, venture to assert that the books of Hermes which contained the science and philosophy of Egypt, were all composed before the reign of Menes; the original work, by whomsoever it was composed, was probably very limited and imperfect, and the famous books of Hermes were doubtless compiled at different periods, in the same manner as the Jewish collection of poems received under the name of David's Psalms, though some were composed after the Babylonish captivity. Nor was Hermes, or Mercury, as I have elsewhere observed, a real personage, but a deified form of the divine intellect, which being imparted to man had enabled him to produce this effort of genius; and the only argument to be adduced respecting the high antiquity of any portion of this work is the tradition of the people, supported by the positive proof of the great mathematical skill of the Egyptians in the time of Menes, by the change he made in the course of the Nile. It may also be inferred, from their great advancement in arts and sciences at this early period, that many ages of civilisation had preceded the accession of their first monarch.

At all events, we may conclude that to agriculture and the peculiar nature of the river, the accurate method adopted by the Egyptians in the regulation of their year is to be attributed; that by the return of the seasons, so decidedly marked in Egypt, they were taught to correct those inaccuracies to which an approximate calculation was at first subject; and that the calendar, no longer

suffered to depend on the vague length of a solar revolution, was thus annually brought round to a fixed period.

It is highly probable that the Egyptians, in their infancy as a nation, divided their year into twelve lunar months*; the twenty-eight years of Osiris's reign being derived, as Plutarch observes †, from the number of days the moon takes to perform her course round the earth; and it is worthy of remark that the hieroglyphic signifying "month" was represented by the crescent of the moon, as is abundantly proved from the sculptures and the authority of Horapollo. From this we also derive another very important conclusion; that the use of hieroglyphics was of a far more remote date than is generally supposed, since they existed previous to the adoption of solar months.

The substitution of solar for lunar months was the earliest change in the Egyptian year. It was then made to consist of twelve months of thirty days each, making a total of 360 days†: but as it was soon discovered that the seasons were disturbed, and no longer corresponded to the same months, five additional days were introduced at the end of the last month, Mesoré, in order to

The moon's revolution round the earth is evidently the origin of this division of the year into months. The German monat signifies both moon and month, from which our own words are derived; the Greek μny and μŋŋ, a 'month' and the moon,' the Latin mensis, and the Sanscrit mâs, month,' mâs or mâsa, moon,' are from the same origin. Vide Plut. Tim. p. 498. Transl. Taylor.

+ Plut. de Is. s. 42.

The 360 cups filled daily with milk at the tomb of Osiris at Phila, appear to show that the year once consisted of 360 days. Dio

remedy the previous defect in the calendar, and to insure the returns of the seasons to fixed periods.

The twelve months were Thoth, Paopi, Athor, Choeak, Tobi, Mechir, Phamenoth, Pharmuthi, Pachons, Paoni, Epep, Mesoré: and the year being divided into three seasons, each period comprised four of these months. That containing the first four was styled the season of the water plants, the the next of the ploughing, and the last season was that of the waters. The 1st of Thoth, in time of Julius Cæsar, fell on the 29th of August; and Mesoré, the last month, began on the 25th of July; as may be seen in the accompanying woodcut,

where I have introduced the modern names given them by the Copts, who still use them in preference to the lunar months of the Arabs; and, indeed, the Arabs themselves are frequently guided by the Coptic months in matters relating to agriculture, particularly in Upper Egypt.

A people who gave any attention to subjects so important to their agricultural pursuits, could not long remain ignorant of the deficiency which even the intercalation of the five days left in the adjustment of the calendar; and though it required a period of 1460 years for the seasons to recede through all the twelve months, and to prove by the deficiency of a whole year the imperfection of this system, yet it would be obvious to them, in the lapse of a very few years, that a perceptible alteration had taken place in the relative position of the seasons; and the most careless observation would show, that in 120 years, having lost a whole month, or thirty days, the rise of the Nile, the time of sowing and reaping, and all the periodical occupations of the peasant, no longer coincided with the same month. They therefore added a quarter day to remedy this defect, by making every fourth year to consist of 366 days; which, though still subject to a slight error, was a sufficiently accurate approximation; and, indeed, some modern astronomers are of opinion, that instead of exceeding the solar year, the length of the sidereal, computed from one heliacal rising of the Dog-star to another, accorded exactly in that latitude (in consequence of a certain concurrence in the positions of the