of men, written by their mistresses or
their children. The sculpture which adorns the graves of modern races
in this country, generally represents urns, or weeping cherubims,
broken flowers, or fractured columns, or grieving angels. These
symbols of death and grief contrast often oddly with the hopeful
scriptural sentences which they surmount. In some instances the
occupation or calling of the deceased is typified on his tomb--the
unstrung lyre telling the whereabouts of a dead musician; and a
palette indicating the resting-place of a defunct painter. Little that
is great in sculpture has of late marked burial-places.

The Egyptians, on the contrary, employed their choicest workmen to
decorate their tombs. The visitor may, gathering together the
scattered fragments from this saloon, picture to himself one of the
massive solemn vaults of the old Egyptians--the walls decorated with
sepulchral tablets, and beneath each tablet a massive sarcophagus,
containing the mummy of the deceased whose actions the tablet records.
Not altogether unlike the vaults of the present day, save that
perishable materials suffice for modern notions; whereas the Egyptian
provided comforts for the long, long rest, that, according to his
creed, would elapse, before the mummy would shake off its bandages,
and walk forth bodily once more. The Egyptian tablets, of which there
are a great number scattered about the saloon, are, as the visitor
will perceive, of small dimensions, but crowded with mystic
hieroglyphics, and ornamental groups of the funereal deities and other
subjects. The writing records the actions and the name of the
deceased, together with various religious sentiments; and is
therefore, in form and spirit, not unlike the modern epitaph. This
resemblance is not so wonderful as it at first appears, seeing that
the same circumstances acted upon the dictator of the old Egyptian
epitaph, as those which make the modern widow eloquent. The most
modern of the tablets in the present collection are those executed
while Egypt was a Roman state, many are of the time of the Ptolemies,
and one is believed to be of a date before the time of Abraham. This
tablet is to the memory of a state officer: it is marked 212. The
examination of the sarcophagi, will have led the visitor to the
southern end of the saloon; and from this point he should once more
turn to the north, and examine the sepulchral tablets on the eastern
and western walls. He will notic