ontented with his condition,
without aspiring to one more elevated, from interest, vain-glory, or
levity.

From this source flowed numberless inventions for the improvement of all
the arts, and for rendering life more commodious, and trade more easy. I
once could not believe that Diodorus was in earnest, in what he relates
concerning the Egyptian industry,(377) _viz._ that this people had found
out a way, by an artificial fecundity, to hatch eggs without the sitting
of the hen; but all modern travellers declare it to be a fact, which
certainly is worthy our investigation, and is said to be practised also in
Europe. Their relations inform us, that the Egyptians stow eggs in ovens,
which are heated to such a temperament, and with such just proportion to
the natural warmth of the hen, that the chickens produced by these means
are as strong as those which are hatched the natural way. The season of
the year proper for this operation is, from the end of December to the end
of April; the heat in Egypt being too violent in the other months. During
these four months, upwards of three hundred thousand eggs are laid in
these ovens, which, though they are not all successful, nevertheless
produce vast numbers of fowls at an easy rate. The art lies in giving the
ovens a due degree of heat, which must not exceed a fixed proportion.
About ten days are bestowed in heating these ovens, and very near as much
time in hatching the eggs. It is very entertaining, say these travellers,
to observe the hatching of these chickens, some of which show at first
nothing but their heads, others but half their bodies, and others again
come quite out of the egg: these last, the moment they are hatched, make
their way over the unhatched eggs, and form a diverting spectacle.
Corneille le Bruyn, in his Travels,(378) has collected the observations of
other travellers on this subject. Pliny likewise mentions it;(379) but it
appears from him, that the Egyptians, anciently, employed warm dung, not
ovens, to hatch eggs.

I have said, that husbandmen particularly, and those who took care of
flocks, were in great esteem in Egypt, some parts of it excepted, where
the latter were not suffered.(380) It was, indeed, to these two
professions that Egypt owed its riches and plenty. It is astonishing to
reflect what advantages the Egyptians, by their art and labour, drew from
a country of no great extent, but whose soil was made wonderfully fruitful
by the inundations o