oraries are intended in
due season to perform their requisite duties. The interest felt in the
Egyptians is from their having led the way, or having been the first
people we know of who made any great progress, in the arts and manners
of civilization; which, for the period when they lived, was very
creditable, and far beyond that of other kingdoms of the world. Nor
can we fail to remark the difference between them and their Asiatic
rivals, the Assyrians, who, even at a much later period, had the great
defects of Asiatic cruelty--flaying alive, impaling, and torturing
their prisoners, as the Persians, Turks, and other Orientals have done
to the present century, the reproach of which can not be extended to
the ancient Egyptians. Being the dominant race of that age, they
necessarily had an influence on others with whom they came in contact;
and it is by these means that civilization is advanced through its
various stages; each people striving to improve on the lessons derived
from a neighbor whose institutions they appreciate, or consider
beneficial to themselves. It was thus that the active mind of the
talented Greeks sought and improved on the lessons derived from other
countries, especially from Egypt; and though the latter, at the late
period of the 7th century B.C., had lost its greatness and the
prestige of superiority among the nations of the world, it was still
the seat of learning and the resort of studious philosophers; and the
abuses consequent on the fall of an empire had not yet brought about
the demoralization of after times.

The early part of Egyptian monumental history is coeval with the
arrivals of Abraham and of Joseph, and the Exodus of the Israelites;
and we know from the Bible what was the state of the world at that
time. But then, and apparently long before, the habits of social life
in Egypt were already what we find them to have been during the most
glorious period of their career; and as the people had already laid
aside their arms, and military men only carried them when on service,
some notion may be had of the very remote date of Egyptian
civilization. In the treatment of women they seem to have been very
far advanced beyond other wealthy communities of the same era, having
usages very similar to those of the modern world; and such was the
respect shown to women that precedence was given to them over men, and
the wives and daughters of kings succeeded to the throne like the male
branches of th