but it was not well executed, and though a continuation was promised, it
never appeared. When the work was sent to Mr. Gifford, he wrote to Mr.
Murray that it was not at all what he expected, for it contained nothing
of Pitt's private history. "He seems to be uneasy until he gets back to
his Parliamentary papers. Yet it can hardly fail to be pretty widely
interesting; but I would not have you make yourself too uneasy about
these things. Pitt's name, and the Bishop's, will make the work sell."
Gifford was right. The "Life" went to a fourth edition in the following
year.

Among Mr. Murray's devoted friends and adherents was Giovanni Belzoni,
who, born at Padua in 1778, had, when a young man at Rome, intended to
devote himself to the monastic life, but the French invasion of the city
altered his purpose, and, instead of being a monk, he became an athlete.
He was a man of gigantic physical power, and went from place to place,
gaining his living in England, as elsewhere, as a posture-master, and by
exhibiting at shows his great feats of strength. He made enough by this
work to enable him to visit Egypt, where he erected hydraulic machines
for the Pasha, and, through the influence of Mr. Salt, the British
Consul, was employed to remove from Thebes, and ship for England, the
colossal bust commonly called the Young Memnon. His knowledge of
mechanics enabled him to accomplish this with great dexterity, and the
head, now in the British Museum, is one of the finest specimens of
Egyptian sculpture.

Belzoni, after performing this task, made further investigations among
the Egyptian tombs and temples. He was the first to open the great
temple of Ipsambul, cut in the side of a mountain, and at that time shut
in by an accumulation of sand. Encouraged by these successes, he, in
1817, made a second journey to Upper Egypt and Nubia, and brought to
light at Carnac several colossal heads of granite, now in the British
Museum. After some further explorations among the tombs and temples, for
which he was liberally paid by Mr. Salt, Belzoni returned to England
with numerous drawings, casts, and many important works of Egyptian art.
He called upon Mr. Murray, with the view of publishing the results of
his investigations, which in due course were issued under the title of
"Narrative of the Operations and recent Discoveries within the Pyramids,
Temples, Tombs, and Excavations in Egypt and Nubia."

It was a very expensive book to arrange and pu