in open rebellion against Moses, regretting the fleshpots of Egypt, some of them might have returned to Egyptian settlements on the peninsula of Sinai, and thence to Egypt itself. There is a special interest, in this connection, attached to that part of this remarkable inscription which states that there were two hundred fishermen in the industrial colony of Hammanat, as this may explain the words of the Hebrews, when their multitude' fell a lusting' and cried out, 'We remember the fish which we did eat in Egypt freely, the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlic.' (Numbers xi. 5.) These are the only three documents which science has as yet been able to recover, in which unmistakable reference is had to the children of Israel and to certain experiences of theirs mentioned also in the Bible; but there is good reason to hope that the new discoveries almost daily made in the land of the Pharaohs and the zealous researches now going on in all the Mss. of European collections will lead to the finding of many more traces of the sojourn of the Hebrews in the valley of the Nile.

This hope is all the better founded, as even the gigantic in dustrial enterprise which has recently met with such brilliant success, the Suez Canal, has, under Providence, been made to serve as a confirmation of biblical records. M. de Lesseps, a man of eminently practical tendencies and bending the whole force of his energetic mind upon the accomplishment of the greatest of modern works, still had scarcely begun to break ground on the sacred soil, when biblical reminiscences arose all around him. Thus he had but just arrived at Kanlara, a station on the great road, which had been followed from time immemorial by all travellers going from Egypt into Syria, when found in the neighborhood the ruins of Daphne, the Tahapanes of the Bible, the place where Jeremiah predicted in such terrible words the ills which Nebuchadnezzar would bring upon Egypt. Thus came they even to Tahapanes... Take great stones in thine hand and hide them in the clay in the brick-kiln, which is at the entry of Pharaoh's house at Tahapanes.' (Jer. xliii. 9.) Now, M. de Lesseps not only found here traces of these ancient brick-kilns still distinctly visible, but they were re-opened by the French engineers, and work was re

he

sumed on them almost at the very point at which the children of Israel had left them when they fled from the land of bondage!

At another time Lesseps had twenty thousand fellahs, which the Khedive had placed at his disposal, at work excavating the ground near El Guix, between Lake Ballah and Lake Timsah. He was greatly struck, while watching the work, with the similarity of the labor going on before him to that described in Holy Writ. His Egyptian laborers still lived on a few onions and lentils, receiving a trifling pay or no pay at all, and yet were forced to do very hard work, without the slightest attention being paid to their health. The mortality was frightful, and the system exactly the same as in the days of Moses; forced labor, relentless requisitions, immense levies of men for public works, and not the slightest regard for their welfare.

When Moses left Egypt, four hundred and thirty years after the arrival of Jacob, he departed from the town of Rameses, where those brick-kilns were in which the poor Israelites suffered so much. The Bible tells us that his second station was Succoth, which in Hebrew means tent. When the French expedition reached this place they found that the modern Arabic name Oumriam still meant Number of tents. The third station was Etham, and the tribes of wandering Arabs who now come to graze their flocks on these pastures are in like manner still known as the People of Etham. Then the children of Israel were ordered to turn and encamp before Pi-hahiroth, the Bay of Reeds, and again the Arabs of our day still call the place Ouet-bet-el-bouse, the Bay of Reeds!

The place is described as lying between Migdol and the sea,' (Ex. xiv. 2,) and the children of Israel were ordered to encamp by the sea,' because the valley opens upon the lake of Timsah-a name which at once suggests an Egyptian tradition. On the walls of Karnak, at Thebes, a hieroglyphic inscription tells us that in that region there was a canal, running east and west, which was famous for the number of crocodiles with which it abounded. Now the basin which ends the valley and into which the canal must have necessarily opened, could be none other than the lake which is now called Timsah-and Timsah in Arabic means crocodile!

These remarkable coincidences prove conclusively with what marvellous fidelity tradition has in the land of Goshen preserved the most ancient events and names through centuries after centuries. Not a step can be taken in these renowned regions but some new light is thrown on biblical history and the authenticity of the sacred record is confirmed in the most conclusive and at the same time the most unexpected manner.

ART. III.—1. The Iliad of Homer. Rendered into English Blank Verse. By Edward, Earl of Derby. In two volumes. Third Edition. From the Fifth, Revised, English Edition. New York: Charles Scribner. 1869.

2. The Iliad of Homer. Translated into English Blank Verse. By William Cullen Bryant. Volume I. Boston: Fields, Osgood & Co. 1870.

We wish that Matthew Arnold, in his Essay on Translating Homer, could have embraced these, the latest translations. The critic who so summarily disposes of Pope, Cowper, and Chapman, makes Dr. Maginn so ridiculous, and so tortures Dr. Newman, might have drawn abundantly from Lord Derby and Mr. Bryant, fresh illustrations in breach and observance of his three (he calls them four) dogmatic canons of rapidity, directness, and nobleness.

It is a curious piece of philosophy to note the antagonism of action and reaction, often exhibiting itself between the literary taste and the business life of a given period. Here, now, is the world, everywhere, in a ferment of what seems to it to be reality; worshipping the material, flouting everything old, and furiously experimenting upon government, religion, and social life, with an undisguised fondness for radicalism. While, on the other hand, our poets insist that we have too much neg

lected Homer and Horace; and are furnishing us all manner of help, in the way of translations, to remedy our short-comings. So too, Mr. Morris calls us to listen to him singing beside the old fountains, away out of the reach of the roar of modern Babylon; and Tennyson gives us relief from Woman's Rights, by picturing for us the shame and sorrow of Guinevere; and Browning carries us back to the consideration of a crime three centuries old. This is well. Poets are prophets by name, and sometimes are unconsciously so in reality. We trust that our descendants are not to be called, hereafter, to fight around another Troy, for another Helen's sake; but we gladly accept from the work of our poets the omen that all the wisdom of the past is not to be submerged in the present deluge. Professing, therefore, a profound admiration for the audacity of the present age, but conscious, at the same time, of a secret feeling of discontent with it, and, if we dared to say so, of disgust at the coarseness of its boldness, we are ready, with Horace, to let great Lollius roar away at Rome, while at Præneste we read over again the story of the Trojan war.

We had not thought it possible that, at our age, we could sit down and read through, without stopping and without skipping, Bryant's first half of The Iliad, and immediately thereupon, the whole of Lord Derby's translation, and no inconsiderable portion of Worseley's Spenserian stanzas, as a dessert; but so we did, tasting the original meanwhile. Ah, it is a trifle sad to be able to realise the truth of the couplet,

'On revient toujours

A ses premiers amours.'

But it is a matter for gratitude to have early delights to remember, and a taste to relish them still. How pleasant a thing is it to see such men as Mr. Bryant and Lord Derby, at seventy and seventy-four respectively, throwing off from their wearied shoulders the toils of daily journalism and the responsibilities of office, face the breezy horizon of their far-off youth, and walk backward, for a little space, the darkening path of life's decline.

The almost cotemporaneous appearance of the two translations invites a comparison between them. We so delight in

the Republic of Letters, and so prize the humblest claim to citizenship in it, that we could not, wittingly, be influenced by national, much less by sectional, feelings, in judging or relishing any worthy work of a master. Nevertheless, when, by fair comparison, the palm is awarded to our countryman, we feel at liberty to be glad that he is our countryman.

The critics have praised Lord Derby's Iliad; so do we, as far as our judgment is worth anything. Just so far, again, as it is worth anything, we give it as against Lord Derby conscientiously in favor of Mr. Bryant. We think we would do it as readily, if the latter lived in the Feejee Islands, and we could relish Feejee blank verse as we can English.

Having so decided, we feel much more exultation at the result, than if the Harvards had won the Thames boat-race. Whatever critical reputation we may have achieved, we should be loth to lose; but we would freely stake it all upon the three propositions, that, as compared with Lord Derby's, Mr. Bryant's translation will more interest the ordinary reader, will more charm the poetical taste of the cultivated, and will be pronounced by the scholar, more faithful to the original. This does not imply that Lord Derby has failed in any of these particulars, but only that in all of them Mr. Bryant has succeeded better. We feel confident that every reader of the two, will agree with us; but we should like to establish our propositions by giving the reasons upon which our own opinion is based. yet, how to do this? We admit that Lord Derby's translation is excellent; and further, we think that as compared with earlier translations (one excepted), its excellences, and indeed its superiority, are precisely those of Mr. Bryant's; and yet we hold that to this latter must be awarded the palm. It is a question of degree; and to determine a question of degree, nothing less than a comparison of the two throughout can be held to be conclusive.

And

We shall not, of course, attempt such a comparison. We will, however, present to the reader a brief passage as given in each translation, and will subject it to an examination somewhat minute, with the expectation of justifying our opinion.

Naturally enough, we turn to the locus classicus-the meet