reat
glory until we come down to the time of the Ethiopians, Shabak and
Tirhakah. He reigned as sole monarch for thirty-one years, during the
earlier portion of which period he carried on a number of important
wars, while during the later portion he employed himself in the
construction of those magnificent buildings, which have been chiefly
instrumental in carrying his name down to posterity, and in other works
of utility. Lenormant calls him "the last of the great sovereigns of
Egypt," and observes with reason, that though he never ceased, during
the whole time that he occupied the throne, to labour hard to
re-establish the integrity of the empire abroad, and the prosperity of
the country at home, yet his wars and his conquests had a character
essentially defensive; his efforts, like those of the Trajans, the
Marcus Aurelius's and the Septimius Severus's of history, were directed
to making head against the ever rising flood of barbarians, which had
already before his time burst the dykes that restrained it, and though
once driven back, continued to dash itself on every side against the
outer borders of the empire, and to presage its speedy overthrow. His
efforts were, on the whole, successful; he was able to uphold and
preserve for some considerable time longer the territorial greatness
which the nineteenth dynasty had built up a second time. The monumental
temple of Medinet-Abou, near Thebes, is the Pantheon erected to the
glory of this great Pharaoh. Every pylon, every gateway, every chamber,
relates to us the exploits which he accomplished. Sculptured
compositions of large dimensions represent his principal battles.

There are times in the world's history when a restless spirit appears to
seize on the populations of large tracts of country, and, without any
clear cause that can be alleged, uneasy movements begin. Subdued
mutterings are heard; a tremor goes through the nations, expectation of
coming change stalks abroad; the air is rife with rumours; at last there
bursts out an eruption of greater or less violence--the destructive
flood overleaps its barriers, and flows forth, carrying devastation and
ruin in one direction of another, until its energies are exhausted, or
its progress stopped by some obstacle that it cannot overcome, and it
subsides reluctantly and perforce. Such a time was that on which
Ramesses III. was cast. Wars threatened him on every side. On his
north-eastern frontier the Shasu or Bedouins of t