[CONTENTS]
[TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE]

Richard Lepsius

A BIOGRAPHY
BY
G E O R G E B E R S
TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN
BY
ZOE DANA UNDERHILL
WITH FRONTISPIECE
—AUTHORIZED EDITION—
NEW YORK
WILLIAM S. GOTTSBERGER, PUBLISHER
11 MURRAY STREET
1887
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887
by William S. Gottsberger
in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington

TO DR. JOHANNES DÜMICHEN,
REGULAR PROFESSOR OF THE EGYPTIAN LANGUAGE AND
ARCHAEOLOGY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF STRASBURG.

My dear Johannes!

To you shall this biography be dedicated. As the eldest pupil of our master you have in a certain sense a right to it. From many conversations with you, and from your letters since his death, I have seen with what cheerful alacrity you were always prepared to recognize the great qualities of our Lepsius; and how often, behind your back, has the departed spoken warmly to me of your enthusiastic and self-sacrificing devotion to our science.

Accept this offering, then, as a slight countervailing gift for the many donations which you have bestowed upon me and every Egyptologist. Imitating the master’s example you have followed him to Egypt, and there, like him, undertaken the task of disclosing to your colleagues at home the wealth of unexplored inscriptions in which the temples and tombs of the Nile valley are still so rich. From hundreds of walls you have copied the pictorial and hieroglyphic decorations, and made them accessible for investigation by collecting them in convenient volumes. A stately row of folios,—yonder they stand and each contains cordial words which assure me of your faithful remembrance,—bears witness to your industry, the acuteness of your eye and intellect, and the precision of your hand. But few know what great sacrifices of comfort, sleep, health, and your own property, lie hidden within these volumes, for without assistance worth mentioning, either from the government or its chiefs, you, relying upon yourself alone, have achieved great results. You were aided by no firmans to afford you protection, no powerful patron to assume the cost of publication, no helpful fellow-traveller, as for years you made your way up the Nile far into the Sudān. Month after month have you been a self-invited guest of the god to whom the sanctuary of your choice was dedicated, you have passed the nights on a hard couch in a chamber of the temple which you desired to examine, and shared their scanty meal with the Arabs. To me it will ever be incomprehensible whence you derived the endurance to copy, through weeks of labor, the inscriptions on the walls of the tomb of Petuamenapt, the so-called bat sepulchre, while those misshapen creatures which dread the day extinguished your lights, flapped about you in swarms, and entangled themselves in that magnificent beard which procured for you among the Arabs the name of Abu Dakn (Father of the Beard).

But your endurance has borne admirable fruits. Through you and your works the inscriptions of the time of Ptolemy, formerly neglected, have for the first time received due honor. The keys to many mysteries lie concealed within them, and with what sagacity have you established the value of the enigmatical signs with which the priests during the Lagid period knew how to withdraw from the understanding of the multitude the mysteries to which they gave freer expression than their predecessors of earlier epochs. Golden Hathor of the beautiful countenance, under whose protection you spent such long months of privation, has endowed you with her dearest sanctuary, that of Dendera, entirely for your own, and Tehuti has aided you to apprehend correctly the fractional reckoning of the Egyptians, to determine many of their measures, and to make clear the division of the Egyptian land in ancient time.

It is a delight to offer a gift to such a giver, and if mine, my dear Johannes, pleases you, I shall be happy.

I have allowed neither diligence nor care to be lacking in its preparation, but nevertheless I should not have attained the goal which from the first I have had in view, if the family of the deceased had not committed to my use, with such great kindness and noble confidence, all the materials at their disposal. Of the greatest service have been the diaries of Mrs. Lepsius, her husband’s letters to her, to his parents, to Bunsen and many others, and the master’s own memoranda in the form of note-books and diaries, or on scraps of paper and in little books of poetry, in which are also included the poems of Abeken, the family friend.

The heads of the school, especially the principal, Professor Volkmann, as well as Professor Buchbinder, willingly furnished me with such information as I desired; memoirs and collections of letters already published helped me to make good many deficiencies, and where I wished to consult the records of public authorities I have everywhere met with a courtesy which merits thanks. I owe special acknowledgment for the many communications, both by letter and word of mouth, which I have received from the eldest son of the deceased, Professor R. Lepsius of Darmstadt.

As is natural, the principle materials have been drawn from the works of the master, and my own vivid memories of his character.

The index to his writings will, I think, be welcome to you and to many colleagues. To bring it to the perfection which he had desired was a task attended with many difficulties.

You must yourself judge whether the old adage “a pupil’s praise is lame,” is applicable to this biography. I am conscious of having handled my brush with love indeed, but also with all fidelity. On account of the great abundance of material there was far less need of original research than of sifting and selecting, and this had to be done with special pains and prudence in regard to the twenty-seven volumes of Mrs. Lepsius’ interesting diary.

I hope that you, the master’s eldest pupil, will miss, in this likeness painted by the hand of friendship, no essential trait of the dead who was dear to us both, and that you will find that the artist has introduced into it no more of his own personality than may be permitted to an historian. He tenders you this book with affection, and knows that you will receive it in the same spirit from

Your very faithful,

Georg Ebers.

Leipsic, Easter, 1885.

CONTENTS.

RICHARD LEPSIUS,

the head master of Egyptology, closed his eyes during the past summer, and his departure has been deeply lamented, not only in our own country, but among scholars of all lands. The task of portraying his life has fallen to me, and this task I have willingly assumed, for I am—with the exception of my dear and excellent friend and colleague, Dümichen of Strasburg—the oldest of his pupils. Till his latter end an intimate untroubled friendship united me to the beloved master, the benevolent promoter of my studies, the colleague, the man who followed with sympathy my poetical as well as my scientific productions. His family have assisted me in the kindest manner by placing at my disposal everything left by the deceased which could possibly aid my purpose. Diaries, memorandum books, letters of great interest, were submitted to my inspection, and these abundant materials confirmed my conviction that the personality of a German scholar has seldom presented so rounded and happily balanced a whole as that of the man whose life it has devolved upon me to describe. In him are united all things which can be required of a scholar in the highest sense of the word, and hence his biographer, while depicting the development, the individuality, and the vast activity of the man, can at the same time present to his nation such a model, such a beautiful type, of the German master of science, as is worthy of imitation.

In that great community which we call “the cultivated world,” and which has its home in every civilized land, the name of Richard Lepsius stands among those which are well known. Everyone within this circle knows, too, that he was a great Egyptologist. As one holds the diamonds in a king’s crown for genuine, even if he sees them only from afar, so one believes in the value and importance of the works of the celebrated scholar, although one may not even so much as know their titles, and although it is scarcely granted to one amongst ten thousand to comprehend them, or even to study them deeply.

The brief obituaries and biographical sketches published in the papers and periodicals shortly after the death of the great master, could give but a general idea of his labors, and yet these extended over many important domains of science, and his strong and firm hand laid the foundations upon which a long and varied series of future researches can and must be based.

It will be ours to show, in a way accessible and intelligible to every educated person, of what nature were the scientific achievements to which Lepsius owed his high and well-deserved honor and renown, and what a man the nation lost in him.

Georg Ebers.

BOYHOOD AND APPRENTICESHIP.

Richard Charles Lepsius was born on the 23d of December, 1810, at Naumburg on the Saal, a pretty town which rises pleasantly from the grape-grown foothills of the Thuringian forest. Here he passed his childhood among circumstances than which none more favorable could have been imagined for the future scholar and antiquarian.

His father, afterwards President of the provincial court of justice and Privy Counsellor, was at that time Saxon Finance Procurator for the whole Thuringian district, and as such one of the leading men of the place and region. Naumburg is rich in fine buildings of the middle ages, and Charles Peter Lepsius, the father of young Richard, applied such leisure as his exacting occupations afforded him to searching out the history of these venerable monuments. It was he who founded the Thuringian-Saxon Archæological Society, the seat of which was subsequently removed to Halle, and the three volumes of his short papers testify to his zeal and ability as an investigator. He is represented as a strict and methodical official, of distinguished bearing, as well as an indefatigable worker; and precisely these qualities fell as a paternal inheritance to his son, and afterwards constituted the conditions of his greatness.

Among those remarkable men who have compassed high aims by means of marked qualities of temperament or of the imaginative faculty, the maternal influence has usually predominated, while in those cases where strength and acuteness of intellect have made a man great, the paternal character has commonly had most weight. A poet like Goethe, a man of faith like Augustine, a Napoleon Bonaparte, whose imagination transgressed all limits, owed what was best in them to their mothers; the mind of a Lepsius, severe, never seeking after uncertainties, but always inclined to profound research, must be an inheritance from the father.

Throughout Thuringia and Saxony all who were interested in antiquities were connected with the archæologists and founders of the society at Naumburg, the air of the house in which the boy grew up was permeated with historical and antiquarian interests, and its master early permitted his son to take part in those occupations which he himself could only pursue as an amateur, and yet to which his tastes so entirely inclined. Thus it is easy to understand how the Minister of Finance, as soon as he recognized the scientific bent of his son, did everything to further it and to make of his child what he himself, under more favorable circumstances, might have become: a great investigator to whom science should be all and everything, the end and aim of existence, in short, the vocation of life.

THE SCHOOL.

Circumstances facilitated the attainment of this purpose, for in the immediate vicinity of Naumburg was situated an excellent educational institution which, at the time when young Lepsius was received among its pupils, had already long attained that flourishing condition in which it still rejoices.

Private teachers had given him his first instruction under the direction of his father, and at Easter, 1823, he was already, as a boy of twelve, qualified for admission to the school, which begins with the third class of the Prussian gymnasiums. At that time Ilgen was principal of the school, but Professor Lange, his tutor, seems to have exerted a stronger influence than he over the pupils. The latter became principal after the departure of Lepsius in 1831, but unfortunately died a few months after assuming office. He is the only one of all his teachers whom Lepsius especially mentions in the biography attached to his “dissertation” and it is true that this man exercised a marked influence over his gifted pupil by his moral fervor, his great learning and spirited interpretations of the old classic writers.

Professor Koberstein had come to the school three years before Lepsius, and had introduced new life into the teaching of German. He understood how to interest the pupils in ancient and mediæval high German, and after the fashion of Tieck he read German and Shakespearian dramas at his own house in the evenings to a select circle. How greatly Lepsius was affected by the instruction of this able pedagogue and scholar may be seen from the so-called valedictory theme which he was obliged to compose and hand in before his departure, according to the custom in the school at that time. This painstaking essay, unusually mature for a lad of eighteen, handles the following subject, selected by himself: “On the Influence which must be Exerted on the Tendency of Philology in General, and Especially of Classic Philology, by the Most Recent Methods of Treating German Grammar, and the Universal Comparison of Languages Arising from this and the Wider Knowledge of Sanscrit.” It appears from the little sketch of his life appended to this essay that Koberstein had also given Lepsius special instruction in ancient German and Italian. “The time which I spent with you will ever appear to me the bright spot of my life here,” writes the pupil, on his departure from the excellent institution which he long remembered with affection and gratitude.

And he had reason to be grateful to Koberstein, for in the valedictory theme mentioned above and composed under his auspices we see indicated, as it were, the path which, after much groping and many essays, the studies of Lepsius were finally to follow.

With him, as with so many others, a vigorous individuality had, even in his school-days, exerted a decisive influence upon his subsequent intellectual tendencies. The elder Lepsius, the antiquarian, and Koberstein the accomplished linguist, indicated to their son and pupil from afar the goal for which he afterwards strove, it was reserved for others to be the guides who should determine and direct him thither.

At Easter, 1829, Lepsius, then seventeen years old, passed the final examination with the general certificate I., and left the school with a body invigorated by the merry games of boyhood on the gymnastic-ground and skating-pond and in the swimming-school, with a mind well prepared for every study, and a thorough mastery of the old classical languages.

How dear the school had been to him is shown by the following verses, taken from the farewell poem which he dedicated to it:

“A thousand times I’ve wandered
High on the mount above,
And gazed with quiet rapture
On the valley that I love.

“Beyond, the silver river!
And above, the shining skies!
While, beneath the mountain’s shadow,
What a happy dwelling lies!

“The gray walls seem to beckon,
They summon me to go,
And join the throng that gathers
In the garden there below.

“There many a youthful figure
Weaves the merry game, I wis,
But whence, ah whence, arises
In my heart, this pensive bliss?”

His father who, as president of the provincial court and commissioner for the examinations previous to matriculation, was a person of influence with the directors of the school, had desired that in the final scrutiny the performances of his son should be no more indulgently judged than those of every other alumnus. After Richard had been honored with the I., Ilgen wrote to his father in the following reassuring manner, having first announced the results of the examination: “You must on no account imagine that you are under obligations to any one. I assure you for my part that I would have done as I have, even if you were my worst enemy, and that I have only acted according to my conscience, as you may hear from Neue and Jacobi.”

It need not be said that young Lepsius was among the most prominent pupils of the institution. On the king’s birthday, on the third of August, 1826, the task of composing and delivering a poem in honor of the festival was imposed upon him. He chose for his subject “Albert of Babenberge,” and handled it, skilfully enough, in the Nibelungen stanza.

He derived great pleasure, in after days, from poetical composition, and although he ardently devoted himself to science from the very first, yet among the poems lying before us many a gay song bears witness to the vivacity of his youthful spirit.

LEIPSIC.

The elder Lepsius kept most of the letters which his son wrote him from Leipsic, where he began his studies. They show how earnestly he took hold of the matter from the start, and how attentively the president of the court at Naumburg watched not only the practical daily life, but also the scientific activity of his son. The methodical official wished to be informed as to the expenditure of every groschen which he allowed his son, and the accounts accompanying the student’s letters show us how cheaply it was possible to live in Leipsic some fifty years ago. A good dinner, with soup, roast, and salad or compote, cost three groschen, Richard thought the morning coffee too dear at a groschen, the beer at dinner for fourteen days came to seven groschen, a room at the inn for one night was three groschen, a pat (half-pound) of butter was two groschen, three pfennigs. However, the hard-working student seems to have been absolved from this exact rendering of accounts in the third term, but it had been of great advantage to him, for it would have been impossible for him to bring the greatest of his subsequent works to such a successful issue, or indeed to produce them at all, without the strict sense of order which he had acquired both by inheritance and training. For example, after his return from Egypt he was able without the slightest error to join and fit into their proper places the thousands of sheets of paper with which he had taken impressions of the inscriptions. This shows a painstaking exactness in the marking and numbering of each leaf such as had been practised by no previous traveller, not even by Champollion and Rosellini, in whose works errors are by no means rare.

From the first, it was clear to him that he wished to study philology, but he hesitated for some time as to what course he should pursue afterwards. He had presented himself at the proper time, but in those days the professors took things easily. Godfrey Hermann, of whom he had the highest expectations, only began to lecture after Whitsuntide, “most of the others, such as Beck, Rost, Nobbe, Weiske, only at the beginning of June.” The first course of lectures which he attended was Wachsmuth’s “Universal History.” “I was much pleased,” he writes to his father, “with his introduction, in which he expressed his views on the exposition of the general conception, on the division and proper treatment of history. He has besides an agreeable fluent delivery, and a very pleasant voice. Yet his public lectures on Roman History, which followed immediately, were almost more interesting to me. Here his discourse is perfectly unfettered, because he has already laid his foundations in the preceding lectures on Universal History. Roman History is a department to which he has given special attention, and in the treatment of which he repeatedly differs from those views of Niebuhr’s which have introduced a new epoch. On this account it is very interesting to hear him criticise Niebuhr, of whom, however, he speaks with the greatest respect.”

The philosopher Krug he had imagined as quite a different person and much younger. He writes to his father of him: “He has the face of an old philosopher, and it is so beset with solemn wrinkles that at first I could not reconcile it with the biting satirical wit which one finds in his writings. His eyes, however, are very brilliant, and they wander perpetually over the ceiling as if he were unaware of the presence of auditors, during the quiet almost monotonous, but pointed discourse, in which he never blunders or hesitates for a syllable.”

From what might be called the more fortuitous selection of the other courses of lectures which he attended, it is apparent with how little consciousness of his ultimate goal he began his studies, and he makes his father the confidant of his indecision. The interesting letter of the seventh of August, 1829, which we give herewith, shows the young aspirant for the right path in the best light, and proves that he had just discerned in the great philologist, Godfrey Hermann, the man in Leipsic from whom he had most to gain.

Before the end of his first term he writes to his father in this letter:

“It will naturally be far more difficult for me to give you a satisfactory explanation of my position regarding science, than regarding practical affairs, since I will not even boast of having come to fixed views on the subject myself. Indeed I consider it a main point during the first part of my stay at the University, and one by no means easily or quickly settled, to come to an understanding with myself about this, and to take a steady survey of my whole course in life, but particularly of my studies. For I feel more and more this important distinction between the school and the university, that here one is suddenly deprived of all guidance and special instruction as to the direction which one should pursue. The many beginnings made at school, without any definite aim in view, must be either continued or abandoned, either pursued more zealously or regarded as a side issue, according to one’s own choice and judgment. On this account, too, I do not reproach myself that as yet I have no unalterable plan nor perfect system in my studies, since scarcely anyone could have made such a decision so quickly, or, were such a hastily formed scheme adopted, it might lead to a one-sided development which should be most foreign to philology especially. Altogether, there is no science in which this question can be more important and at the same time more difficult, than in ours, since we have no positive series of lectures to observe, like the lawyers, doctors, and theologians, but each must choose and trace out his own road over the boundless field of philology, according to his own powers and individual character. Now, so far as my purely scientific education is concerned, from the very beginning two main paths present themselves, between which most students make a voluntary or involuntary choice; namely, philology proper and archæology. Naturally, they are so closely connected that one can never be entirely divorced from the other, but nevertheless every one devotes himself more to one than the other. Indeed either of the two departments alone is sufficiently extensive to demand all the powers of one person. This distinction between, and this independence of, the two branches have been most fully illustrated in our two greatest philologists, Hermann and Böckh, each of whom has formed his own school, entirely distinct from the other. I would think it rash and foolish at present to wish to decide in favor of either, since I know too little of either to make such a decision from my own conviction and independent judgment. In any case it is well for me at first, as far as possible, to attach myself to the school of Hermann, and apply myself entirely to languages, for an accurate knowledge of languages is an indispensable foundation in every other branch, and certainly there can nowhere be found a more accomplished teacher than Hermann, even if there actually are more learned men, which I will not dispute. I learn daily to admire more his incomparable clearness and acuteness in the exercise of the soundest criticism. I listen attentively and with pleasure to his lectures, and perhaps in time will try to become a member of his Greek club, which has already trained eminent philologists and given the first impulse to many learned works....

“Some time ago Graser[1] was in Leipsic, only in passing through, but he let himself be persuaded to remain here several days in order to have the pleasure of seeing Hermann. He went to Hermann’s lectures regularly, and was quite enthusiastic about him. At six o’clock he went as a guest to the Greek club, of which he had previously been an honored member. I too went as a guest. There was a discussion concerning a paper on several passages from Plato De legibus, and it was not long before Graser broke in, with a prodigious flood of compliments by way of preface, but with much learning and great acuteness, and gave his opinion on several of the passages. Hermann received it very well. Then they fell to making panegyrics upon each other, and Graser was so inspired by Hermann’s rejoinders that time after time he exclaimed, with every gesture of admiration: Admiror, admiror ingenii tui acumen praestantissimum, vir illustris, venerande, and so on, so that the members were all in a great state of amazement over it. But he spoke good, fluent Latin, and what he said was very scholarly and clever. Finally, Hermann made another little eulogium upon him. These two hours gave me far more pleasure than if I had spent an evening at the theatre, for it is not every day that one can see such enthusiasm as was expressed here for Hermann; it was so genuine, and yet in its whole essence so intelligent and clear.”

This letter, certainly unusually mature and thoughtful for a lad of eighteen, is followed by many others, from which we may see how judiciously Lepsius knew how to divide his time, with what diligence he not only attended lectures, but also twice a day read Greek and Roman classics with his friend Schweckendieck for hours, and still found time to practise music, play chess and visit socially, a welcome guest, among families of good standing in Leipsic. Shortly before the outbreak of the revolution of July, there was a significant fermentation among the German students. After the momentous Carlsbad Decrees, and in consequence of the “Executive Order” carried through by Metternich, the University was placed under political supervision “for the security of public order.” Thus it became not only dangerous to take an active share in the movement for liberty, but even to have any close intercourse with a fellow-student who was suspected of having taken part in “seditious intrigues,” and what were not so styled by the wretched oppressors of political liberty during the supremacy of Metternich’s influence?

How anxious must the Naumburg Landrath have felt when he learned that an older fellow-student of his son’s, of whom the latter wrote to him with great warmth, was involved in demagogic alliances in his native city of Brunswick, at that time a centre of the political dissatisfaction which was soon to lead to the expulsion of Duke Charles. This singularly talented man, named Silberschmidt, was ten years older than young Richard, and had interested him greatly. He had an eventful life behind him, and was so thoroughly at home in the most diverse departments of science, that Lepsius described him to his father as a “universal genius.” In his nine-and-twentieth year he began to study law, had essayed all possible branches of literature, had been page to the King of Westphalia in Cassel, huntsman and fencing-master, said he had studied in Giessen, written a dissertation “On the Immortality of the Soul,” a book on the art of fencing, many dramas, reviews, etc., and called himself also the author of a work on chess. Lepsius who, even as a student, was already an able chess-player, recognized in his fellow-lodger one of the greatest masters of this noble game, and when he visited Silberschmidt in his apartment the latter showed him a very remarkable testimonial. It contained a certificate from the parish of Ströbeck, in Halberstadt, that it had been beaten at chess by Silberschmidt. This was subscribed by the local town magistrate, and stamped with the seal of the parish. The parish in question enjoyed a wide celebrity on account of its chess playing, in which every peasant was a master, and in which even the boys had to pass an examination. Old electoral foundations had endowed the people of Ströbeck with great privileges and possessions on account of their skill in this game. They had never been beaten until Silberschmidt had appeared to conquer them. A Jew from Brunswick had also told Richard’s landlord that his remarkable new friend was the most famous of all living chess-players. As he also proved to be “pleasant, and anything but conceited,” and showed himself “an industrious man of excellent moral principles, and at the same time always cheerful and interesting in his conversation,” Richard supposed he could derive nothing but benefit from intercourse with him. All that he writes to his father of the Brunswicker proves the brilliant talents of the latter, but also shows that he tried to win his younger fellow-student by boasting. Silberschmidt had spoken to Lepsius about his demagogic associations, and as soon as the father had warned his son against this dangerous man, Richard knew how to withdraw from the connection with tact and address. Here, as in every similar case, the youth, scarcely past his boyhood, shows himself entirely submissive to the superior wisdom of his father, and at the same time he already evinces the discretion which he afterwards exhibited in every position in which he was placed during a long life in the midst of the world, where there could not fail to be conflicts and collisions of every kind.

At the end of the second term at Leipsic he debated with his father whether he should not exchange the Leipsic University for another, and in this consultation also we see him weigh the pros and cons with a clear head and great circumspection. To Leipsic he was attached by many a good comrade and many a pleasant family, from whom he had received kindness, and beneath whose roof he had sung and danced and been treated like a son of the house. Of the academic instructors, Hermann alone detained him on the Pleisse, and as the latter intended to travel during the coming summer term, he decided on a change of University. At first his father had some objection, we can no longer fathom what, to Göttingen, whither Richard most desired to go. He therefore weighed Berlin, to which he was particularly attracted by Böeckh, Lachmann, C. Ritter and Bopp, against Bonn, where he had the highest expectations of Welcker and Niebuhr. In his last letter from Leipsic the son decides for the Rhenish University, but during the vacation, which brought him and his father once more together, he seems to have succeeded in inducing the latter to accede to his desire to enter the Georgia Augusta, and so we see him, in the spring of 1830, proceed to Göttingen by way of Eisenach and Cassel, where he saw Spohr conduct a performance of “The White Lady.”

GÖTTINGEN.

On the eight of May Lepsius arrived in Göttingen, and found good lodgings with the tailor, Volkmann, 129 Kurze Street. For fellow-lodger he had again his friend Schweckendieck of Leipsic, with whom he continued to work and to read Greek and Latin classics. He took with him excellent letters of introduction to those professors of whom he expected most, Otfried Müller, Dissen, and the Grimms, and was thus received by them in the kindest manner. During the first term he attended the lectures of Dissen, on Universal Science; of Müller, on Archaeology and Thucydides; of J. Grimm, on Ancient Law, and of Beneke, on the Poems of Walter von der Vogelweide.

All that he writes to his father concerning the more illustrious of his teachers, is interesting enough. It shows us how here in Göttingen, and especially through listening to and associating with Otfried Müller, Dissen, and the Grimms, science was revealed to him in a new and clearer light. We observe, too, how his mind became accustomed to take cognizance of a subject as a whole, and to its fullest extent, and yet preserve due regard to details; how he acquired his esthetic ideals, and how he laid the foundation for those works which were afterwards to make him famous, not only in philology, but also in history, the history of art, and mythology.

His first visit was paid to the excellent scholar and sufferer, G. L. Dissen, the illustrious editor of Pindar, Tibullus and Demosthenes.

“I can give you briefly,” he tells his father, “what I noted down of Dissen’s views on my return from him. ‘Above all else,’ he said, ‘the time has come to elevate hermenentics, the advanced science of exegesis, for the old poets as well as prose writers, to a higher standard. Up to this time scholars have usually been content to expound the words in their grammatical connection, and according to their significance in the dictionary or by the rules of syntax. They have sought to discover the meaning of detached passages, or perhaps the nexus sententiarum. But they have neither recognized nor expressed in a sufficient manner the inestimable superiority of the Greek language especially, in the perfect correspondence between thought and form,—in the possibility of easily reproducing the least modulation of thought by an appropriate adaptation of the expression. Nor have they known how to detect the deep technical design, the economy of words, of poems, of choral songs, which can be shown everywhere, and which is executed with admirable poetical perfection, as well as with severe logical art. Yet the superiority of the ancients consists precisely in this, that in their works they develop in admirable harmony these two powers, lofty poetic inspiration in the conception, and clear, penetrating judgment in the execution. It is just this that separates them from the poesy of to-day, in which one side is almost always cultivated at the expense of the other. Classic poetry and the whole of classic literature is not yet, by any means, valued as it should be, and it is now incumbent upon hermenentics to instruct us therein, and to exhibit in detail all the treasures of classical literature to their profoundest depths. Such commentaries as are at present written upon the ancients usually contain explanations of isolated words, and matters which often have but a very slight connection with the text. They consist for the most part of general remarks on grammar, and are compiled from collectanea. Such dull and lifeless handiwork should at least be abandoned to those who can attain no higher standpoint of science; but the higher hermenentics must proceed from the basis of grammatical knowledge, which is requisite in every case, to point out in their works the genius and art of the ancients. A correct understanding of the separate parts can only be attained by steadily keeping in view the essential order, the fundamental idea, and it can be proved repeatedly with regard to Hermann that he has neglected this in his writings and commentaries, or he would have perceived that often, in a chorus, the notes to strophe and anti-strophe contradict each other. Pindar especially must be treated in this way.” Lepsius then describes the law which Dissen thinks he has found to be observed, in an analogous manner, through all the poems of Pindar.

“I was also received very cordially,” writes Richard to his father, “by O. Müller. He is just such a man as I had expected, and that is saying a great deal; his whole external appearance, even, corresponded amazingly to the idea which I had formed of him. This morning he depicted himself most aptly in describing the Greek character. He is at the same time earnest and vivacious, enthusiastic and calm, imaginative and lucid. This is, of course, most applicable to the manner in which he expresses himself in his lectures, yet his whole character is so transparently manifested in them, especially in the first lectures on the archaeology of art, that it is safe to draw conclusions thence as to all other relations. He has besides an almost ideally fine figure, an expressive countenance which exhibits real humanity, and a distinct, sonorous voice. His lectures are almost entirely extemporaneous, as far as the subject permits, enthusiastic, yet calm too, clear and convincing.”

Jacob Grimm he calls a “very kind-hearted, unaffected man. This is apparent in everything. He is also prodigiously learned in every possible direction, but yet, it seems, very easily embarrassed in expressing himself, perhaps because he does not yet feel at home among the affectations of Göttingen life.” Later he learned to esteem the brothers Grimm more and more highly, and met with the most cordial reception in their house. “Eight days ago,” he writes to his father, “I dined with the Grimms, and I cannot praise the family enough to you. The whole family are simplicity and affection personified, and it is especially funny to see these two men forget all their immense learning, and play with their little Hermann, until the mother really becomes quite troubled lest he should be spoiled. William, the husband, is still more agreeable and easy in conversation,” (than Jacob).

In Otfried Müller’s Seminary, to which he, as well as his friends Schweckendieck and Gravenhorst, was admitted, he reaped an abundant intellectual harvest, and the Göttingen Philological Society, into which he had been received as a member, was also of great benefit to him. This consisted of seven or eight of the best young philologists, elected by vote, who met once every week (on Tuesdays, at half past seven o’clock). They began by discussing some critical paper presented by a member, often in the presence of O. Müller. This was submitted for inspection to each member, who was free to make remarks upon it, and defend his own views. The business of the society was then transacted, and finally they all sat sociably together, engaged in pleasant and serious conversation, and cosily enjoyed their beer and tobacco, both of which the society was bound to furnish. Lepsius informs his father that he, who always before expected to play the persona muta, to his astonishment here became a homo disputax, which he did not indeed, in its full sense, exactly desire, but which still appeared to him a much more interesting role than that of the persona muta.

Upon the whole, Müller, in Göttingen, exerted the deepest and most lasting influence over him. Thus while, in Leipsic, he had still hesitated whether he should devote himself to the grammatical or the archaeological division of philology, he here decided in favor of the latter, although without entirely losing sight of the former. No other scholar of that time had such a lofty and far-reaching apprehension of archaeology as Otfried Müller, and hence we see Lepsius allow himself to be locked in daily for hours, in order to trace on transparent paper the copper-plates from all the works which had at that time appeared on the architecture and plastic art of the ancients. He wished to make their forms his own, and to retain them in his possession, even if in the unsatisfactory shape of copies. The architectural pictures thus traced he afterwards copied at home.

All that Müller had to offer the students, whether in the lecture-room, in the seminary, or by personal intercourse, was received by Lepsius with enthusiasm, and at the close of the term, he wrote to his father: “To-morrow Müller will finish the historical portion of his archaeology, and thus once more lies fully extended before my vision a new branch of science, which, if any so deserves, should be called the very flower of science. It is fostered, too, with such unusual care as none other receives, and rejoices in such noble foundations as the Institute for Archaeological Correspondence, which, for two years, has been under the patronage of our Crown Prince (afterwards Frederick William IV.). The Central Board of Directors are in Rome, and thence it extends over the whole of northern Europe, with the co-operation of almost all eminent scholars and experts. Its results in the various departments of science are recorded in several languages, and within a few weeks are spread abroad from Syracuse to Belt, from Paris to Petersburg. So that any one should indeed be accounted fortunate who is in a position to obtain even a superficial comprehension of the whole of this immeasurable field, whose boundaries cannot even be discerned, if we have regard only to the material yet to be obtained. For even such comprehension will furnish the means for a more thorough understanding and farther progress.”

To secure these very means, he continued to work hard under O. Müller’s direction. Yet he could not, at that time, foresee that he himself was destined, first to enter into close connection with that Archaeological Institute at Rome of which he writes to his father, and finally to be chosen one of its directors.

In Göttingen also he was a welcome guest in some of the best professors’ families, and his refined and reticent nature led him, as he wrote to his father, to prefer social intercourse in pleasant families, and profitable communion with one or two friends, even to the assemblies of the Philological Society, where he took little pleasure in the rough comradeship and the enforced intimacy with many a young fellow with whom he had really little in common.

Whenever a superior artistic performance was produced, he know how to profit by it here, as he had done before during his stay in Berlin. When Paganini came to Göttingen, he and Schweckendieck took a seat together (it cost a thaler and a half), and he went to the second half of the concert after his friend had enjoyed the first. “It would be useless,” he writes, “to try to describe in any way Paganini’s playing. One can only comprehend the nature and method of such playing while he is actually playing; afterwards one loses sight of nearly every measuring scale that could be applied to it, in order to retain it in the imagination.”

His interest in politics had also been excited by the revolution of July, and in order to follow political events and changes, he subscribed, at that time, to the Hamburg Correspondent. He prudently keeps out of the way of the Brunswicker Silberschmidt, who was involved in “seditious intrigues,” when he meets him again in Göttingen, and mentions that by his fellow-students, who almost universally called themselves “Republicans,” he was accounted a Conservative and aristocrat, on account of his well-known monarchial tendencies.

During a pedestrian tour in the long vacation of 1830, which took him into the Hartz, to Hanover, etc., he was to become witness of an historical incident, and soon afterwards, at Göttingen, to be an onlooker at a revolution.

Unfortunately, the limits of this biography forbid our giving in full the letters addressed to his father by the active young wanderer through the Hartz, so susceptible to all that was beautiful or remarkable. We can only mention here his experiences in and around Brunswick. He had been invited thither by Gravenhorst, his fellow-student at Göttingen, whose parents were to be his hosts. His travelling-companions separated from him at Blankenburg, and he had still nine post-miles to travel alone. “As I walked on the ‘Faust’ which I had brought with me luckily occurred to me, and for the rest of the way I occupied myself with learning some of the scenes by heart, which shortened the road wonderfully. Meanwhile the Brocken was brewing behind me, soon the whole range was enveloped in thick mist, and thick rain clouds gathered, which were driven towards me by a violent wind. It was indeed a splendid sight as the storm came on, but it inspired me with no very pleasant anticipations of the time when it should reach me, and now I regularly began to run a race with the rain, which came more from one side; twice it actually caught me, another time I could only escape it by hard running. So it happened that I got over four post-miles in four hours without once stopping, and I should soon have finished the fifth when a postilion called to me to ask whether I would not like to ride back with him to Brunswick in an hour.” The young traveller accepted the offer, and sat down in the inn to wait for the conveyance. “While I,” he writes, “sat with a glass of beer at the big oaken table, knapsack and stick beside me, reading this poem of all poems (Faust), this poem which unites the heights and depths of human life, conceived and represented by such a genius, one by one there assembled at this and a neighboring table some wagoners, a tipsy shopkeeper, and some mechanics, who entertained themselves after their own fashion, talked politics, railed, and so formed an incomparable foreground to some of the scenes in Faust. The events at Brunswick particularly were represented and criticized in the most glaring and original colors; in short, my Faust played upon a stage such as could scarcely be found again.”

After this prelude, he was himself to take part, at Brunswick, in the conclusion of the tragic-comic revolutionary drama which occurred there. The father of his friend, Gravenhorst, was chief of police, and in the hospitable house of this man, who had been concerned as an active participant in all the phases of the expulsion and reinstatement of the Duke, Lepsius had a good opportunity to obtain an authentic account of all that had happened.

“Naturally,” writes the young traveller, “the conversation fell chiefly on present events, which, however, interested me none the less, because I had long been well acquainted with them, and was now here on the very spot, besides being in the house of the chief of police, where we received each of the fresh reports, which crowded in every hour, at first hand and in the most trustworthy manner. No excess had occurred beyond the burning of the castle (at the expulsion of the Duke Charles in 1830), ... but all the lamps had been smashed and several of the windows. I will copy for you some of the lampoons, of which Gravenhorst has fifty or sixty, as they all have to be handed in here. You may see from them the universal feeling against ‘Charley,’ as he is called, the former Duke. The rage against him was, and still is, indescribable, but it is completely justified against such a scum of all humanity. Fortunately (and a sign, too, that the burning of the castle did not proceed from the mob, which is notorious here), there was rescued from the fire one chest alone, with private papers and books, amongst which the black and the blue book are especially noticeable. In one are recorded all the officials, and beside the names are remarks by the Duke in his own handwriting, such as ‘dog,’ ‘blockhead,’ ‘must be worried to death,’ ‘he shall be invited, allow to stand for three hours in the ante-chamber, and then told it was a mistake,’ ‘he is to be provoked to a duel until he sends a challenge, then dismissed,[2] etc.’ Beside all the police officials stood three crosses, beside Gravenhorst and his brother-in-law, Langerfeldt, four. Gravenhorst’s successor had also already been decided on. In the other book was the record of the secret police, and an autograph essay on the best mode of tyrannizing, in which there are the most abominable things, such as one would not credit if the majority of the maxims had not been already carried out in detail. I could repeat a hundred anecdotes of him which are all notorious here, but are not known abroad; they all show that the Duke, in his miserable, tyrannical life, was not only a man devoid of all heart, but also actually without common-sense. By this you may measure the fury with which all the inhabitants of Brunswick were filled when it came at last to acts of violence, and the rejoicing with which William,[3] the brother of the banished Charles, and the last scion of the house, is received here.”

The reception which was prepared for the new Duke seems indeed to have been especially cordial. While the deputies delivered the address to the new prince, Lepsius saw the populace rejoicing and singing the LaFayette hymn, and Götte,[4] “with all his coarseness, a very droll man,” quietly submit to the honors which were heaped upon him. “They wanted to go back to Richmond in crowds, and Götte gave out songs which were to be sung there. The Duke’s answer to the address was read amid great rejoicings. Every one was carried away by the happiest hopes of the future. Then they flocked to Richmond. The Duke was still at dinner. Permission was requested to sing the song: “Hail to Thee, William.” The Duke came out with General Hertzberg and several others, and remained standing during the whole song, which was sung by the crowd to a musical accompaniment. He then caused several citizens of consideration, who stood near, to be summoned, conversed graciously with them, etc. The rejoicing is indescribable, and the Brunswick ladies especially take the most active part in it all.”

An illumination was announced for the evening, and as Lepsius’ friends, who were members of the city militia, had to patrol, he also, to his delight, took a gun over his shoulder, and as an impromptu soldier, accompanied them through the brightly-lighted streets, unobserved and unmolested. The main guard, where the patrol finally came to anchor, was stationed on the old market-place, just opposite to the very beautifully-illuminated town-hall. Here he first listened to several remarkable narratives, and then heard them sing the so-called “ballad,” a satirical poem on the banished Duke Charles. The author himself, a goldsmith, sang the verses, and the whole chorus joined in the refrain, “Go ahead slowly!” It sounded very well. The first verse of this song, which in every respect was very moderate, ran thus:

“For a little while things went ill that day,
For they taught him manners, they taught him right;
They hunted him shamefully far away,
And his flaming castle they gave him for light.
But go ahead slowly, go ahead slowly,
So that we may all hear it well.”

The last stanza greets the new Duke thus:

“And not long after another man came,
That can rule the land far better than he;
So hurrah with me for that man’s name,
That frees us from the yoke of tyranny.
But go ahead slowly, go ahead slowly,
So that we may all hear it well.”

Richard copied off this song of nine stanzas, as well as all the documents relating to the Duke’s expulsion which he could get possession of, and sent the copies to his father. He was in the habit of thus collecting and writing out in his letters all that he thought could possibly give pleasure to his family in Naumburg. He maintained throughout his whole life this affectionate endeavor to show his gratitude to his father and to requite his love with deeds. He wished him not only to sympathize with his serious labors, but also to participate in everything amusing which he encountered, and to this category belonged the following verse, which he found on a sandstone pillar in the mill-stone quarry at Mansfield:

“If any man doth damage to
This quarry or its products, do,
He shall be punished according to law
And the state of the circumstances.”

During his fourth term (the second at Göttingen), Lepsius attended the lectures of O. Müller on Grecian Antiquities, Persius and Juvenal; of Dissen, on the oratio pro corona of Demosthenes; of Heeren, on the History of the European States, and of Ewald, on the Elements of Sanscrit. This language, indispensable for the linguist, and whose importance for the philologist also he had recognized even when at school, he had wished to study in Leipzig, but had not before been able to find time for it. He became one of H. Ewald’s most industrious pupils, though at first only with a view to general comparative philology, to which he now intended to devote himself with special zeal, in addition to his archaeological and historical studies. “Ewald,” he writes, “reads his Sanscrit Grammar in his room before five or six hearers, a great advantage for us, for he has an extremely low voice, though at the same time he speaks with extraordinary clearness and correctness. As I have always taken special interest in general comparative philology, I am so much the more delighted that Ewald enters into this largely, and does not always confine himself to Sanscrit. He by no means adheres strictly to Bopp’s Grammar. A great deal he gives in a more general way, and many things more briefly, and, as is always the case in oral teaching, everything more plainly: in Bopp, too, one finds nothing of comparison with other languages.” When Lepsius wrote these words, and even after his first meeting with Bopp in Berlin, he did not foresee that this was the scholar to whom he should afterwards be indebted for his own method in this very science of comparative philology.

The winter term, begun with great enthusiasm, was to meet with an unexpected interruption, for in December, 1830, the noted Göttingen revolution broke out. Richard, indeed only witnessed it as an impartial spectator, but it was followed by the closing of the lecture-rooms and the expulsion of many students. Even Lepsius could only escape this order with difficulty, under many conditions, and after his patrons and instructors had interceded for him. He naturally describes the “Göttingen Revolution” most minutely to his father, and his first letter on this subject we annex as an appendix to these pages.[5]

During the time that the government prohibited the professors from lecturing, Lepsius pursued the studies which he had commenced with undiminished assiduity, and he says in his letters that the closer personal intercourse with the instructors amply compensated him for the suspended lectures.

In the following summer term of 1831, his fifth, he attended, and always with the same enthusiasm, O. Müller’s lectures on Archaeology, on Grecian Antiquities, and on Tragic Art among the Greeks and its interpretation of the Homeric Hymns. He continued to follow Mitscherlich’s exposition of the Pharsalia of Lucan, and pursued Sanscrit with Ewald. He advanced the study of this important language so far into the foreground of his scientific labors that he placed himself in open opposition to the old philological school. This he did in conjunction with the two friends who, with himself, composed the clover leaf of Ewald’s auditory. In the spirit of F. A. Wolf, and encouraged by O. Müller, he wished to become acquainted with ancient humanity, not only in its entity but also in its development. He was no longer contented with learning Greek and Latin, and although his admiration was still excited by Hermann’s rational presentation of the grammar according to the principles of Kant, the elegance and acuteness of his criticism, and his original investigations in the domain of metric art, yet he nevertheless desired to follow his lead no longer, but had turned his attention to antiquity in its universal and interdependent evolution. His object was to trace out the origin of the ancient languages and their relation to each other, and the growth and blossoming of the art and intellectual life of the ancients. Therefore, under Ewald’s tuition, he became a Sanscrit scholar and a comparative linguist, under the guidance of O. Müller, an archaeologist who was also interested in comparative mythology, and, powerfully influenced by Heeren and Dahlmann, a historian. If we picture to ourselves the nature of the scientific aspirations of our friend, and the advances which he had made, we can only wonder that even at Göttingen he had not already turned his eyes towards Egypt, where many a branch of the art and learning of the ancients has its root.

Nevertheless, as we shall see, he was to be led thither by external circumstances, which at the time, however, coincided with his own inclinations.

He attended Dahlmann’s course on “Ancient History,” and wrote of him to his father: “He pleases me extremely; he is just as far from giving a dry skeleton of the chief events, without grasping history in its higher significance, as he is from serving up generalities and conclusions based upon theories instead of facts. An upright mind, and an earnest nature which must inspire respect, are united in him to the clear penetrating sagacity which sifts a subject and seizes its essential points. This makes him as skillful and pre-eminent in scientific research in the domain of ancient history as he is in the study of the politics of the most recent times, with which he principally and most successfully occupies his remaining time. His mode of presenting his theme is especially distinguished by a perfect command and critical examination of the very extensive subject-matter, whose most important periods he understands how to characterize and place in the proper light in brief yet apposite phrases. His discourse is distinguished by quiet, clear, singularly fine, indeed classical language, not a word too much or too little.”

We know no more happy sketch of the excellent Dahlmann as an academical teacher.

Dissen, whose influence had especially attached Lepsius to classical philology at Göttingen, had become so ill that he could offer him but little more. Besides, the pupil had been more and more alienated from the excellent, but irritable and feeble scholar, by his doctrinary and over-subtle mode of systematizing. “Unfortunately,” he writes, “Dissen is not yet at all restored to health; he suffers from excessive weakness and sleeplessness. As he often feels very lonely and depressed through the night, he frequently has some of the students with whom he is more intimately acquainted to sit up with him. He lies on the sofa with his clothes on and has something read aloud to him, or converses with them, till now and then he catches a little nap. I shall go there to-day or to-morrow, and Kreiss, who has offered to do the same, is in great distress about it, because he inevitably falls asleep about ten o’clock, even when he is reading aloud. Dissen considers himself sicker now than he really is, by which he only makes his sickness worse.”

This opinion was mistaken, and was proved to be so by the painful end of the distinguished scholar.[6]

In the autumn of 1831, at the conclusion of this fruitful summer term, Lepsius begged his father for permission to follow his best friend, Kreiss, to his home at Strasburg, in Alsace, and to pass the holidays there in the house of Kreiss’s parents. Just at this time the court president had incurred great expenses, yet he was willing to comply with his son’s wish, if the latter could assure him that he expected to derive substantial scientific advantages from the proposed journey.

“As I am well acquainted,” runs the answer, “with your present circumstances of which you write, and how all your expenses accumulate just at this time, it would be foolish and very wrong of me to expect from you any considerable sum for a pure pleasure trip. You yourself make your permission dependent upon your firm conviction that I shall derive from this trip great, and not trifling, gains for my scientific as well as for my general education, and indeed on a moderate sum. Of the former I cannot say so much, since the literary advantages will be confined to the diligent, and let us hope, more intelligent and judicious consideration of the treasures of art on the way, and whatever chance may possibly throw into my hands at the library in Strasburg. But I cannot overlook the indirect benefit, dependent upon forming the acquaintance of so many learned men, which must conduce to advancement in my general culture. For I may well say that this lies no less near to my heart, and has always done so, than purely philological progress; indeed, I have always regarded them as quite inseparable, one completing and sustaining the other. But if I can say of none of my former excursions that they were mere pleasure trips, from which I derived no substantial benefit, still less would it be true of this next one, to which I should address myself with better preparation and more knowledge than to any previous journey. Besides, I could neither make up for it in the future, during my final years of study, when my time will be still more limited, nor could I ever again expect to meet so good an opportunity.”

Lepsius remained faithful to this desire for general culture throughout his later years, and it preserved the indefatigable investigator, who was often obliged to devote the best part of his time and energy to apparently trivial scientific problems, from becoming, even in the remotest degree, what is called a closet scholar.

Unfortunately we have before us only the lesser half of the account which he sent his father of this autumn journey to Strasburg and his sojourn there. This, however, is sufficient to show with what vigilance he seized on everything that was noteworthy, what a keen appreciation he had acquired, under the tuition of O. Müller, for art and all that is classed under the head of relics of antiquity, and how indefatigably he searched the libraries for their stores of knowledge. Wherever he went, too, he considered it especially desirable to make the acquaintance of eminent men, and to establish relations with them. Of books, characteristically enough, he took none with him but Müller’s Handbook of Archaeology and Ewald’s work on Sanscrit. He was an active pedestrian, but the hard work of the last term was visible on his originally robust physique, for after he had claimed at Mainz the hospitality of a cousin of his father’s the latter wrote to the president of the court at Naumburg: “Moreover, I cannot conceal from you that friend Richard looks thinner now than he did three years ago.[7] His pedestrian tour from Göttingen here cannot be to blame, therefore I have made inquiries of H. Kreiss as to the cause of it, and learned from him that he (Richard) is in the habit of studying far into the night. This never answers, and undermines the best constitution; so warn him against it, for it would be a great pity if with all his talents and the learning which he has already acquired, he should carry away an infirm body.”

Lepsius fortunately escaped this danger, in spite of rather increased than diminished application during the final terms, which were devoted to the completion of his studies.

The journey to Strasburg also took him through Heidelberg. Here he sought out those scholars who had inspired him with interest, and described them to his father in concise and pointed language. Excellent is the likeness which he sketched of Creuzer, the author of the “Symbolism and Mythology of Ancient Nations.” This work was at that time highly esteemed, but was really inaccurate and worthless, in spite of the pains spent upon it, and an imaginative faculty which was unfortunately too easily excited. Not in vain had Lepsius enjoyed the teaching of the author of the “Prologomena to a Scientific Mythology” (O. Müller). “Dr. Hitzig,” he writes, “we did not find at home. We found Creuzer, though, whom I had fancied quite a different sort of person; he left an unpleasant impression upon me, with his peruke and snuff-box. I could not discover a single intellectual trait in the expression of his countenance, nothing in his eye, which could have helped me to excuse his well-known presumptuous and mystifying treatment of mythology. I found in his character a certain frivolous pedantry, and far too much self-confidence. We talked of archaeology; he put on great airs, without manifesting much wisdom; he found fault with O. Müller’s hand-book for having too much in it!”

BERLIN.

After his return from Strasburg, Lepsius went back to Göttingen, and in the spring of 1832 he removed thence to Berlin, there to conclude his studies. The testimonials which he received at his departure did him the highest honor. Otfried Müller said, that he had attended his lectures with remarkable diligence, and an unmistakable love for the subject; that he had participated with “philological intelligence and talent” in the exercises of the school of philology, and had, in general, given to that subject “arduous study, guided by scientific ideas.” Jacob Grimm commended him as having gained a comprehensive survey of philology, and already acquired much well-grounded knowledge of that science. Ewald said he had followed his lectures with praiseworthy diligence and zeal, and had made great progress in the study of Sanscrit. Dahlmann praised his industry warmly, and added that Lepsius had also become known to him as making most laudable progress on the path of scientific and moral culture.

With such testimonials, and thus excellently equipped, he came to Berlin in the beginning of May, 1832. Here he had the pleasure of again meeting his friends and fellow-students of Göttingen—Kreiss and Ehrhardt. The three now clubbed together to keep house.

At first he gave but qualified approval to the leaders of philological life in Berlin, Boeckh and Lachmann, and even to Bopp. With the latter, however, in the course of time he entered into closer relations, and afterwards, in our own presence, called him the founder of his linguistic method. He had been spoiled at Göttingen by Müller, Dahlmann and Heeren, who united the most brilliant eloquence to profound and far-seeing intellects. His reverence for the immortal achievements of Boeckh had been shaken, first in Leipsic by Hermann, who was always glad to give a cut at his Berlin colleagues in his lectures,[8] and afterwards by Dissen. Later, he entirely regained his respect for the great erudition, the sound criticism, the statesmanlike views, the excellent method, and the noble character of this rare scholar and man. Even Schleiermacher did not fully answer his expectations. He only attended the lectures on the History of German Literature because Lachman was dreaded as an examiner in this branch of study, and it was said that he was accustomed to “chaff” those students who were not well prepared. “He reads very disagreeably, but he gives good things, and fortunately I had previously formed a still worse idea of him—from the description of others.” He attended the lectures on the History of Greek Literature by Boeckh, “and because one really misses the best less among bad than among good, I miss our Otfried Müller especially in this course. For I am firmly convinced that Boeckh, although his teacher, does not by any means approach him. Yet they are, as they are reputed to be, good lectures. In the afternoons from four to five I hear Comparative Grammar by Bopp, a lifeless, dull discourse, in which the arrangement of the material is never clear and workmanlike. In many fundamental views however, on the formation of the main stem, I have always been much more of his than of Grimm’s or Müller’s opinion, and on this account he interests me greatly, although Müller’s lectures on the History of the Greek and Latin languages were infinitely more copious and satisfactory than these can ever be. But in his own house Bopp is an agreeable man, by whose vast and profound learning I hope to benefit farther.”

This Lepsius did, and to his great advantage, for at that time Bopp, whose lectures were indeed lifeless and tiresome (we too were among his pupils), was at the acme of his great activity, and had raised comparative philology to the rank of a science. We should rather call him the promoter than, as is commonly done, the father of this branch of study, which had indeed an existence, although an irregular one, before his time. His method, which was determinative for subsequent works in the same field, set aside, as idle pastime, the attractive search for and comparison of accidental resemblances between the sounds in different languages, and taught that the common origin of allied idioms should be sought for in a radical manner by examination of their grammatical construction.

When Lepsius came to Berlin, Bopp was working with his whole energy on his imperishable colossal work, the “Comparative Grammar,” and exercised far greater influence over such well-equipped young scholars as sought personal acquaintance with him, than through his stiff academic discourses. Lepsius first learned to thoroughly appreciate him and to benefit by his exuberant learning after he had entered into intimate private relations with the master, to whom, as far as comparative philology is concerned, young Lepsius’ teacher at Göttingen was also greatly indebted.

From his letters to his father it appears that it was chiefly the lack of that method of exposition to which he had become accustomed in Göttingen, and which was in every respect consummate, that led Richard more than once to undervalue the Berlin professors, and even the excellent Boeckh. He attended Schleiermacher’s lectures on the “Life of Jesus,” in order to have heard at least one theological course, and to learn to know the man. But these lectures too, although for other reasons, found little favor with him. “Schleiermacher,” he writes, “gives in his Life of Jesus nothing but negative dialectics, and to me he is a living contradiction from beginning to end.”

He speaks most unfavorably of the school of philology as it existed at that time in Berlin, under the management of Boeckh and Lachmann. “A frightful confusion is the order of the day here, and it is scarcely to be compared with that at Göttingen. So that it would not have occurred to me to enter, if in spite of all this they did not think so highly of it here. They translate Herodotus (in my opinion a very unsuitable choice for such a school), and the odes of Horace, and hold discussions over papers which are handed in, and difficult passages which are propounded.”

In truth the lectures had little more to offer him, for he already stood firmly upon his own feet, and had learned both how to avail himself of the works of his instructors and to labor independently in an assured and methodic manner. Besides, his time was much taken up with his dissertation for the doctor’s degree. He had found for this a theme as interesting as it was difficult, and we may be permitted to point out how he came to select it, and to whom he was indebted for special assistance in the execution of his task.

First let it be noted that the famous Eugubian Tablets are seven plates of copper, which were found in 1444 in a subterranean vault (concameratio subterranea), and are now preserved in the town hall of Gubbio (the Eugubium or Iguvium of the ancients). The inscriptions with which the tablets are covered are partly based upon the Umbrian and partly on the Latin language. Where the latter is employed as the language of the text Latin letters are used, but otherwise the letters of a peculiar alphabet. These inscriptions are the oldest of all ancient Italian monuments of language, and with their help it has become possible to reproduce a good part of the old Umbrian language. Their contents furnish important disclosures as to the forms of worship and the sacrificial customs of the heathen Umbrians. The liturgical fragments make us acquainted with the hymns and liturgies which were to be recited or sung by the priests. The Saturnian metre and many alliterations have been found again in them. The old dialect which forms the basis of the Umbrian inscriptions seems to belong to the fourth century before Christ.

Bonarota and Lanzi (1789) had given their attention to these tablets, and they were afterwards treated by O. Müller in his “Etruscans,” and there for the first time handled in a critical though by no means exhaustive manner. On the 30th of December, 1831, Lepsius, while yet at Göttingen, writes to his father: “I have found an excellent subject for investigation. Müller first drew my attention to it, and if I can make anything out of it I will perhaps choose it for my doctor’s dissertation. It is the seven Eugubian Tablets, the sole but important relic of the Umbrian language. So far, no one understands them, but they would be of the greatest consequence for the old Italian forms of worship and sacrificial customs, since it is easy to conjecture that the inscriptions upon them are sacrificial formulas. Müller has already attempted to determine the terminations of some of the declensions in his “Etruscans;” a considerable resemblance to the Latin and also to the Greek, is unmistakable, and I am convinced that a great deal can yet be made out, though it would cost much time and labor. With regard to this, it is of great moment that five of the tablets are in Etruscan characters, and two in Latin, which gives a clue to the relations of many of the sounds in Umbrian, especially since there are an extraordinary number of repititions, and both the Latin tablets, as I have already discovered, are only the farther continuation of an Etruscan, so that I have already made out almost all the words of this Etruscan tablet on those in Latin, and written them over the Latin words. I have also already discovered two new alphabetical characters which were known neither to Müller nor the earlier commentators on the ‘Eugubian Tablets.’” Thereupon he gives his father a specimen, in which he writes the Latin text in black ink and the Etruscan above it in red.

While in Berlin he became more and more deeply absorbed in the Eugubian Tablets, and from the letters at our disposal it appears that even before going there he had decided positively to discuss these remarkable monuments of language in his doctor’s dissertation. A few days after his arrival on the Spree he appeals to the legal knowledge of his father and his familiarity with the form of mediaeval contracts, to decide a question which seems to him of importance for the work on which he is engaged. In the town hall at Gubbio there was preserved a contract of sale of the year 1456 which set forth that the city had acquired seven tablets from the owner, at a high price. Since the contract was concluded only twelve years after the discovery, it seemed to follow that no more than seven tablets had been discovered; and as Lepsius now believed that more than seven tablets had been originally found, he took the contract for one of those counterfeits which were not uncommon in Italy. He now wished to know whether any marks of a counterfeit could be detected in the form, and on this account sent a copy of the contract to his father.

Amongst the professors of his faculty there was none whose advice Lepsius wished to ask in this matter, but he received welcome assistance from a lawyer. This was C. A. K. Klenze, an unusually talented scholar and noble philanthropist who, besides important works on law, had also written those excellent philological “Dissertations,” which were afterwards published by Lachmann. Lepsius had already made the acquaintance of Klenze in Göttingen, he sought him out in Berlin, and could soon write to his father: “He handles Oscan subjects as I do Umbrian. The two are nearly related, and he has had the courtesy to let me see in manuscript a treatise which is shortly to appear in print, and to allow me to make use of as much of it as I think best. In return I am to give him my opinion of his work, which is very flattering for me.”

The arrival in Berlin of the distinguished archaeologist, Gerhard, at that time Secretary of the great Archaeological Institute at Rome, was of great advantage to Lepsius, not only with regard to the progress of his dissertation, but also in many other respects. He met Richard’s friend, Kreiss, at Professor Steffens’, and told him that on his (Gerhard’s) way through Göttingen, Otfried Müller had spoken to him of the Eugubian work of a very promising young scholar, to whom he would gladly be of service. In consequence of this Lepsius called on him, “and he,” so Richard writes to Naumburg, “kindly gave me much interesting information, showed me his drawings, and promised to attend to any inquiries that I might wish to have made in Gubbio. Of these there were of course plenty. I wrote them all out in Latin on a sheet of paper, and as soon as I brought it to him he sent it to Vermiglioli in Perugia, which is only a few hours distant from Gubbio. I may have an answer in six weeks. But if they take an entire new transcript of the tables, which I asked for afterwards, it cannot be so soon.”

The further intercourse which he at this time enjoyed with Gerhard was afterwards to prove most useful to him. But he could not yet know how favorable it was also to be for his material prosperity, when he wrote after a three hours visit to the celebrated archaeologist, just before the examination, “Truly very precious time just now, and yet well spent.” In the middle of January, 1833, Gerhard invited him to assist him in the publication and exposition of his copious collections for the Archaeological Institute. He also engaged him as assistant on a review concerning the history of art which he intended to publish in Germany. Lepsius’ work was to consist mainly in reading over the epigraphic department of archaeology, and selecting what was noteworthy, which he would have done at any rate on his own account. He was to put it in readable shape, and let himself be paid. This prospect of lucrative literary employment after the close of the examination delighted Lepsius as much as did the invitation to write short papers for the Bulletino of the Institute, chiefly on Umbrian coins and mythological subjects, which he could consider as a side-work to the more important work on the Eugubian Tablets.

What Lepsius showed Gerhard of his dissertation[9] pleased the latter exceedingly, and after it was finally completed and handed in to the Faculty it was received by that body also with such commendation and unqualified approval that it won for the candidate the highest testimonial. This work, as solid as it is ingenious, is dedicated to his father, and it soon contributed, more than anything else, to attract the attention of eminent men to the son, and prove him qualified to continue the labors of the great decipherer of hieroglyphics, Champollion.

In the prescribed disputation his opponents were the DR. JUR. Goeschen, the DR. PHIL. Kaempf, and the CAND. PHIL. Gottheiner. In his eleventh thesis, he honored Godfrey Hermann, his old teacher at Leipsic, by maintaining that his was the only correct interpretation of the three hundred and fifty-seventh verse of the Agamemnon of Aeschylus.[10]

On the twenty-third of April his uncle Glaeser wrote to his father, “To make up for these cares (concerning the practical matters of the graduation) I have had the greatest pleasure, one of the most delightful moments of my life, when, after two o’clock, my Richard came home accompanied by one of his friends and opponents, and I could greet him as Doctor, and embrace him with the happiest emotions. We sat down together and drank a bottle of the very best. Yesterday evening I gave him his doctor’s banquet, and we were all as merry as possible together till two o’clock. Believe me truly, my dearest brother, if Richard, in addition to his scientific training, had not this practical savoir faire, he would never have made his way so easily and quickly through this wilderness of cares of all sorts.”

Lepsius had now completed his life as a student, and with the highest honors which the greatest of the German universities could bestow. He was a sound philologist, archaeologist, Sanscrit scholar and linguist, but at no time had he given any thorough study to the Oriental-Semitic languages, and he had paid no attention whatever to the Hamitic (ancient Egyptian, Coptic, etc). His neglect of the former was often afterwards an embarrassment and matter of regret to him; of the latter he became an expert master after the formal completion of his studies, in consequence of notable circumstances with which we are about to become acquainted.

THE JOURNEYMAN.
PARIS.

Before the close of the examination Richard had already written admirable letters to his father, in which he consulted with him, as one friend would with another, as to what he should do after graduating. Paris was at that time still esteemed the centre of learning, and to work for a time in Paris was to give one’s studies the final polish and to place the crown upon them. Even Lepsius had yet much to gain there, and therefore we see the father grant his consent that the young doctor should bring his apprenticeship to a final close upon the Seine.

He arrived in Paris on the fourteenth of July, 1833, a year after the death of Champollion, the first decipherer of hieroglyphics. The diary which he kept during his residence there, (in after years he only made occasional short notes in memorandum books arranged as calendars), as well as the letters to Bunsen which were kept to the very last fragment, and the less perfectly preserved letters to his father, all testify to the zeal, the discretion, the cheerful courage, and the alert attention with which he made use of his long sojourn in what was then the “focus of the intellectual life of the world.”

The period spent in Paris had a still more decisive influence upon him than that at Göttingen. During this time the youth matured into a settled man; his scientific inclination received a new bias, and its objects became plainly defined.

Champollion had said, in his introductory lecture, that the science of archaeology was a beautiful maiden without a dower. This aphorism was at that time entirely appropriate, yet not only the young scholar himself, but his father also, knew the wonderful charms of the bride, and every possible exertion was made by both, to win her for the ardent wooer. The “court president” in Naumburg was an official of the higher class, in good standing, with moderate property, and many children, nevertheless he allowed his highly gifted son the necessary means with which to remain for a time in Paris and devote himself, free from care, to his scientific education. But the young investigator felt that he would not have attained his purpose at the end of the “several months” which his father had originally contemplated. He did not wish to leave France or its capital, until he had gained all that was there to be won, and especially (this he insists upon repeatedly), not until he had acquired perfect command of the French language. In order to earn the necessary means for a longer stay he at first thought of translating into French his vademecum, Otfried Müller’s Handbook of Archaeology, which, to him, was such a dear and familiar friend. But this undertaking was not carried out, and he began by giving German lessons to two renowned scholars. From one of them, Dureau de la Malle, membre de l’Institute, whom he calls a specimen of a dissipated, frivolous Frenchman, he received five francs an hour, from the excellent De Witte only four. “He learns more for his four francs than the other for his five.” Meanwhile the desired opportunity soon presented itself for earning in a suitable manner the necessary addition to the yearly allowance from his father. The learned Duc de Luynes, “such a duke as is seldom seen, a ἀυὴρ καλὸς κἀγαθὸς in the fullest sense, who is also well-versed in the classical languages,” commissioned Lepsius to collect for him from the Greek and Latin authors the material which he needed for his archaeological-philological work. “On the Weapons of the Ancients.” Lepsius received a handsome monthly salary for this work, which he could easily manage in addition to his other studies, and he executed it so entirely to the satisfaction of the duke that the latter afterwards awarded him special remuneration.

Lepsius was now in such a position that he could conveniently, and without material anxieties, profit by all that Paris offered in the way of instruction, and at the same time participate in all the intellectual pleasures of life in the capital. We see him working indefatigably in his pleasant apartment, and in his leisure hours enjoying the society of his friends and playing on his own good piano. He was very musical and sang well and correctly. The public libraries and museums are at his disposal, and he makes diligent use of them; private collections are also opened to him, and he attends the lectures of the most eminent professors at the university. Those of the great philologist and archaeologist, Letronne, appear to him particularly attractive, and among them one especially “On the Ancient History of Egypt.” He praises these lectures for their great critical acumen and clearness, and declares that Letronne takes pleasure in contradicting everything not capable of proof, and in denying all earlier influence of Egypt upon Greece, (before Psammetik. Twenty-Sixth Dynasty.) Letronne only accepted what was indisputable of Champollion’s discoveries, and it was he who especially roused and fostered in Lepsius the distrust which he too bore towards the great investigator, and which caused him to hesitate about entertaining Bunsen’s proposition that he should devote himself to Egyptology.

Alexander von Humboldt, with whom he had become acquainted in Berlin, had commended him warmly to the celebrated philologist, Hase, and from him and others he had received excellent introductions. He was highly esteemed also by the members of the Institute, on account of his admirable first work. Thus he was enabled to make the acquaintance of the greatest Orientalists, philologists and archaeologists of France, and was most cordially received by Silvestre de Sacy, Quatre-Mère de Quincy, Raynouard, Raoul-Rochette, the Duc de Luynes, etc. He became intimate with Panofka, and the learned Stahl, secretary of the Asiatic Society, invited him to drink German beer in his apartment. This man he calls “a paragon of the learning of the whole world.” “He may be called greedy in regard to time and knowledge. He sleeps seven hours, cooks his dinner,—a little rice,—himself, spends almost no time at all on all the externals of life, such as eating, dressing, shaving, visiting, etc., and all the moments thus gained he spends in study. He knows a host of Asiatic languages, Chinese among others, and almost all the European, is incredibly conversant with the history and geography of all countries and times, as well as with all literatures, swims and fences very well, is a sturdy pedestrian, conducts the whole Asiatic correspondence, etc.” Yet, “this phenomenon of learning” had been in nowise distinguished at school, and had usually occupied the lowest places there. A genius he cannot call him, for his power of original production has suffered from his erudition, and with all his attainments he has never written any complete work. But Lepsius understood how to learn from him, and obtained through him an insight into the construction of Chinese. Stahl’s opinion, that among the Chinese as also among several uncivilized nations, intellectual conceptions were developed before sensuous, seems to Lepsius entirely contrary to reason; and he only apprehends from this that we have become acquainted with the intellectual culture of the Chinese at a very late, and consequently intellectually abstract, period.

He seeks to profit by the learning of other Parisian scholars, as well as by Stahl’s surpassing erudition. Amongst the noted Germans with whom he associated on the Seine, he names Wagen, the historian of art from Berlin, Müntz, Himly, Urlichs, the painter Bonterweck, Tix, Dübner, Stickel, Spach, the Alsatian Lobstein, and the historian Zinkeisen.

He also devoted many precious hours to learning engraving on copper and lithography. He used his first independent attempt in the art of engraving on copper, (the central portion of the plan of Paris), to adorn the sheets of letter paper on which he wrote home to his family, and on this neat engraving he marked in fine writing the houses which he most frequented, the museum of the Louvre, the Library, the Institute, the two restaurants where he usually took his meals, and even the dwellings of Panofka, Müntz, and Count de Bouge, between whose wife and himself a charming friendship existed, and whose salon he often visited on Sunday.

As if he already foresaw at that time to what an extent he would afterwards have to call upon these reproductive arts for his scientific work, he wrote, after taking home with him the first lithographic stone for the purpose of drawing upon it: “There are many advantages in investigating the technique of every prominent branch of art and science, even if I do not need to make use of lithography later for my own inscriptions.”

But this he did, and if the publications which were prepared for him by this method of reduplication surpass all others in neatness and beauty, it should be credited to the score of the technical knowledge which he acquired in Paris.

There, also, he committed to paper his first musical compositions. A song, written by himself, which he set to music with an accompaniment, was followed by others, for at that time he everywhere kept up his proficiency in this art, and particularly while in Paris. Not only the antiquarian collections, but also the exhibitions of new paintings and statuary were constantly visited, and, no less frequently, the theatre. His diary shows with what quick sympathy and keen judgment he listened to tragedies, comedies, and opera. The representation of French tragedy is most severely censured. “The performance of Corneille’s Cid was bad beyond measure, and fearfully French.... The players of to-day, who act Corneille and Racine, have preserved nothing of the tragic art but the tragic mask, and this they fasten on behind instead of in front, so as not to hide their lovely French faces.” The only one who compelled his unlimited admiration was Mars, who, as an old woman of sixty-eight, at that time filled the most youthful roles with admirable sweetness and naiveté. Montrose and Mademoiselle Dupont he also rates very highly. He bestows the warmest encomiums on the Cirque Olympique, conducted by Loiset. “Here is actual art, not only feats of skill. Painters and sculptors should come here to study, as Phidias and the Grecian sculptors did in their gymnasiums. Superb figures are displayed here, and strength, dexterity, freedom and ease are combined with real beauty of form, such as one vainly seeks in the ballet. Our ballet has almost lost rank as an art; the sole laudable exception is Taglioni, whom I have seen here in the Sylphide, and admired, as I did in Berlin. If any one wished to fashion a worthy statue of Terpsichore it might perhaps be possible from Noblet, Foncisy and all the rest of them, to construct a passable pair of legs: it would only be necessary to take a cast of Taglioni, and there you would have it in perfection.”

All that is beautiful and remarkable in Paris passes under the vigilant eye of this indefatigable scholar. He is active as collector, student and investigator, and during the latter part of the time in a department of science which had till then been as good as unknown to him. But he is also busy with both hands and brain in earning meat to go with his bread, and in producing a new and difficult original work. We see him attend public festivals, ride out into the country, examine every corner of the city, give his attention to the industries of the Parisians, go to parties and salons as a welcome guest, sing and play with friends, and through all this we can trace the progress of an essay on Sanscrit palaeography from which was afterwards developed the excellent treatise on “Palaeography as a Means of Etymological Research.”[11] For this,—an almost unheard-of honor,—the youth of three and twenty receives the Volney prize.

He says, at a later period, that Paris was always to him a city rich in interest, instruction and manifold benefits. During his first sojourn there it appeared to him “in one respect” (undoubtedly in respect to the animation and refinement of social life,) “the capital of the world.” But in spite of his youth Lepsius in no wise allowed himself to be dazzled by the glittering aspects of French life. It was in the public libraries that he first became sensible of the drawbacks in the conditions of the Parisians. “The management of the libraries is abominable,” he writes, “no zeal, no knowledge, not even good-will. Miserable officials, lack of everything that is not French. It is true that I am spoiled by the Göttingen and Berlin libraries, etc.”

Since that time many improvements have been made in these institutions. The special attention given to them by Lepsius was of use to him as “Chief Librarian,” in the evening of his life.

From the first he had devoted himself with great ardor to the study of the French language. But, although he was pleased with his progress, he did not allow himself to be blinded in this regard either, and, after he had spent four months in the cultivation of his French style, he wrote, “A Frenchman only needs to think correctly and truly, and he is sure to write properly and well; in German a good style is far more difficult, for there one must know all the deeps and shallows not to steer crookedly or clumsily, or even run aground. The French language is a level surface, and one slips along as if skating on ice; the German language has depths over which it is more dangerous and requires more skill to steer, but one can go farther on it. When water is deep and moves rapidly it never freezes, and neither does the boundless sea. So the German with his language can make the whole world his own; the Frenchman is restricted to his mirror-like surface. One must cherish one’s hatred against everything French not to lose one’s own depth. As soon as one takes pleasure in French things one’s spirit rests on enervating down feathers. Yet one should always learn, even from one’s enemies.”

Lepsius took the most lively interest in every event of importance that occurred during the time of his sojourn in Paris. He devotes a large space in his diary to the great popular festival, celebrated on the anniversary of the Revolution, from the twenty-seventh to the twenty-ninth of July, 1843, and to the unveiling of the statue of Napoleon on the Vendôme column. This took place on the second day of the grand festival. The statue was enveloped in a green cloth, besprinkled with stars. “The impression made by the unveiling,” he writes, (and we gladly make room here for the account, both for its own sake and as a specimen of the German style of young Lepsius,) “the impression, especially amidst these surroundings, was very striking. Above this seething mass, these convulsions of a struggling mob, this shouting and quarrelling, this motley throng, this glittering of military display, there suddenly appeared, not like a rock in the sea, (to which possibly the column might have been compared,) but like a supernatural power, the calm, majestic presence of Napoleon. What can produce a greater impression than the power of a mind which manifests itself in a composed bearing and a commanding expression, face to face with the unruly passions of similar human spirits?”

In these words he presents to us the ideal of his life, and we shall see how well he himself ever succeeded in preserving such a commanding attitude towards unruly passions. “This expression of command,” he continues, “is still grander than the great yet inanimate nature, which is sometimes admired in contrast with nature, or even humanity, in a state of excitement. A like impression, too, was unconsciously depicted on every face, and a general shout, ‘Vive l’Empereur! Vive Napoleon!’ burst from the innumerable throng, which really seemed for a moment entirely to forget the oppressive present. For one moment every lineament expressed admiration, pleasure, satisfaction.” Then he describes how Louis Philippe conducted the review, and continues, “However, not the least enthusiasm was manifested for him, which, in my opinion, is mainly owing to his personality. His external appearance presents nothing that is at all imposing, nothing attractive; no intellectual power of any sort is expressed in his figure or his face; he impresses you as a stout citizen, returning thanks for the great honor which is done him. And yet here in France, if anywhere, at least a semblance of intrinsic greatness is needed for the eyes of the people, since the mystic vail of royal greatness has so entirely fallen from the head of the citizen king. As the king rode past one only heard a clamor, such as springs from gratified curiosity.” From this festival, as Lepsius describes it, can be inferred the historical events which must of necessity occur later: the expulsion of Louis Philippe and the acclamation of a Napoleon to the French throne.

With the appearance of the citizen king Lepsius’ exalted frame of mind is dissipated, and he tries to fix the note which he can designate as prevalent in the general din. With the aid of the interval between the lowest note of his own voice and the sound which formed the key-note of the clamor, he found it to be the treble e. Thus does the spirit of research ever demand her due of him. The linguist everywhere scrutinizes the value and significance of sounds and tones. He does not disdain to amuse himself with them occasionally, and to determine the relation between them and other perceptions of the senses. “O,” he writes at one time in his diary, “seems to me brown, a, light blue, e, colorless, a clear faint color, i, bright yellow.” At that time, while writing his essay on Sanscrit palaeography, he thought he discerned that in all languages the vowels had formed themselves by degrees, like colors, from the a, but that originally there had been no distinction between vowels and consonants. The words, he thought, had been divided according to their sounds, in such a way that each consonant with the vowel which followed it constituted an inseparable whole. Hence in Sanscrit a originally was even considered as a consonant, or rather as a combination of the Greek Spiritus lenis and the a which necessarily followed it.

In Paris Lepsius is at first a linguist solely, and does not concern himself with Egyptological studies. But by the end of October, through Panofka, he is first invited to come to Italy in the name of Gerhard, who had kept him in mind since their meeting in Berlin, and then he receives a letter from the Alsatian Lobstein, who had met him in Paris, and who has been authorized by Bunsen and also by Kellermann to make him a serious proposition to come to Rome. There he is first to busy himself with a collection of Umbrian, Oscan, and Etruscan inscriptions, for which his dissertation would seem especially to qualify him, and secondly to devote himself seriously to the study of the writing and language of the ancient Egyptians. The first proposal is entirely acceptable to him from the beginning, although it is only for the sake of completeness that he will include in his corpus inscriptionem the Etruscan inscriptions, on the deciphering of which “many a man may yet wear out his teeth.” The second proposition, on the contrary, causes him the most serious deliberation. It is true that Gerhard, through whom he had been most warmly commended to Bunsen, had already in Berlin urged him to the study of hieroglyphics, and had assured him that he should himself undertake it if he were but younger. It is also true that he felt his own powers had now become fit to cope with the greatest difficulties, but yet it seemed to him advisable to await the appearance of Champollion’s grammar, in order to learn how the matter actually stood. He could thence gather and decide whether the foundations had been so well laid that by rational and scientific investigation he should really be able to accomplish something substantial on a field which, with the exception of Champollion himself, had up to that time been almost exclusively occupied by bunglers and incompetent dilettanti.

The prudence with which the youth of three and twenty proceeded in this important question of his life, is most remarkable. In the letters which he addressed to his father, in order to obtain his advice, he sets forth clearly and exhaustively all the reasons on both sides. Bunsen, from whom these proposals emanate, is a person of great influence, and if he, Lepsius, finds Champollion’s preparatory work satisfactory, and it is possible to realize his patron’s plan of finally entrusting him with the direction of the fine Egyptian collection at Berlin, there then opens before him the prospect of an assured future, as far as the material circumstances of life are concerned. This it is usually far more difficult for an archaeologist and philologist to secure than for a grammarian and teacher. He would not be content, he writes, to gain his livelihood by book-writing. He had already written to his father from Berlin, March thirteenth, 1833, “I do not know whether I should have any special talent for the profession of teaching, since I have never yet tried it, and even if I should adopt it, from inclination, and with the expectation of finding contentment in it, yet, in truth, it is not a great career.” If he can hope, (thus he continues to write to his father, after Bunsen’s invitation,) to find in Egyptology a satisfactory field for research, and if Bunsen can give him in advance the most positive prospect of the patronage of the Prussian government, and the hope of afterwards obtaining an appointment in the fine Egyptian collection at Berlin, then he will decide to go to Rome, and to turn his studies in the new direction which Bunsen desires; but otherwise not.

His father could only assent to his doubts and deliberations, and so, on December twelfth, 1833, the son wrote to Bunsen the following letter, which was to give both to his studies and his life a tendency so peculiarly propitious for his character and talents.

“The kind confidence which, judging by an invitation lately sent me through H. Lobstein, you appear to feel in my abilities, has aroused in me no less pleasure than serious doubts as to how far I may myself confide in my own powers. I in no wise mistake the importance of these doubts, especially at my age and in my circumstances. How I shall solve the problem of life depends chiefly on their right or wrong solution, and therefore, as long as they are still unsettled, every impulse from without is of infinite moment to the whole inner life and aspiration. You could neither be aware of the soil on which your words, perhaps but carelessly meant, had fallen, nor still less of the connection in which they stand with my own inclinations and mental tendency. It is not as if I had previously entertained the idea of attempting the deciphering of hieroglyphics; rather, till now, I have been chiefly attracted towards archaeology and general comparative philology, upon the broader field of that science to which, in any case I had resolved to devote myself. Although these did not give me much prospect of an assured livelihood for the future, yet I wished to prosecute the two studies together in Paris, because they have so many points in common, and indeed seem to me in their essential substance to form a more perfect whole. Then latterly I was led by chance to a subject which attracted me more the farther I pursued it, and at last prompted me to collect the results in a short treatise which I am about to have published in Berlin. This treatise is immediately concerned with palaeographic researches into Sanscrit writing, but I was soon led from the peculiarities of this writing, which in many respects is wonderfully consonant with nature, to more universal palaeographic laws. I found myself forced at last, by the subject itself, to express my views on the organic and essentially necessary connection between writing and language considered in their broadest relation, and on the value of a scientific palaeography in the investigation of language. Indeed, I could not refrain, at the close, from referring to Egypt itself, where there seems to open such a splendid and fertile field for this new science as never before in Europe, or even in Asia. Thus, on one hand, I am attracted by the idea of an Egyptian palaeography which cannot possibly be sought for except in accordance with the universal laws of writing and language, and therefore must be capable of rational scientific treatment. Yet, on the other hand, I cannot avoid noticing the special obstacles, of other than a scientific kind, which present themselves, and particularly the precarious direction which might be permanently given to my studies by an over-hasty decision. It is true that on this path also archaeology and comparative philology would be the guides and companions whom I should most desire. But in their Egyptian costume they would probably be still less able to secure me a settled position in life, than in their Greek and Roman dress, unless, in that case, I might consider myself assured of substantial assistance from the government, and of a situation in the public service in case I succeeded in fulfilling all reasonable expectations. But if this were possible, and, above all, if I had become convinced by examination of the authorities hitherto accessible, and especially of Champollion’s grammar, that the foundations had been so laid as to give hope of greater results to be attained by conscientious and scientific treatment, then I would gladly devote all my ability, time and energy to a subject, the advancement of which may rightly lay claim to the most universal interest, although the handling of it at present can only fall to the lot of a favored few.”

Bunsen sent an encouraging answer to this letter, which, like the diary and the letters to Father Lepsius, did not deviate by one hair’s breadth from the true circumstances and inclination of the writer. After the young philologist and archaeologist had satisfied himself that new researches might indeed be profitably based upon the preparatory work of Champollion, and that great results could perhaps be attained in the field of science thrown open by him, he decided thenceforth to devote himself with all his energy to the study of Egyptology.

It is now time for us to cast a glance at this new science, and to point out how far it had progressed, at the time when Lepsius first commenced to devote himself to it and to continue the labors of Champollion, who had died shortly before his arrival in Paris.

EGYPTOLOGICAL STUDIES,
AS LEPSIUS FOUND THEM IN 1834.

For nearly fifteen hundred years all direct knowledge of the hieroglyphic writing of the ancient Egyptians had been lost, and nothing more was known of the monuments of the time of the Pharaohs than was incidentally mentioned by classic authors, or travellers who had visited the Orient. It is true that in Rome and Constantinople stood obelisks which had been transported to the imperial residences from the temples of the Nile, while mummies and smaller Egyptian relics were preserved as curiosities in the libraries and museums of Europe. But the interest in the life of the ancient Egyptians, as well as in their art and science, which had enjoyed such a high degree of esteem amongst the Greeks, had been lost. And although, after the prime of the humanities had faded, an Athanasius Kircher,[12] and after him other scholars such as the Dane Zoega or Barthélemy, ventured to attempt the deciphering of the inscriptions with which the Roman obelisks were covered, yet they were soon forced to desist from their fruitless endeavors, for want of any fixed basis from which they might have prosecuted their difficult operations with success. Then the First Consul of the French Republic, General Napoleon Bonaparte, undertook that adventurous march into Egypt by which he hoped to break up English influence on African soil, to cut off the nearest route to India from the British armies, and also to gather laurels for himself. “For,” he had said, “the greatest glory in the world is only to be won in the Orient.”

Every one knows the course of this campaign, which indeed ended in favor of England, but brought far greater fame to France than to her opponent. History does not forget such battles as that beneath the pyramids, and in the annals of science a place of honor will ever be accorded to the intellectual achievements of the French scholars who, during the end of the previous and the beginning of our own century, followed the French armies amidst a thousand hardships, dangers, and adverse circumstances. It was by means of this expedition that the life of the old Egyptians was to celebrate its resurrection. No one in Europe had suspected what a wealth of monuments of the time of the Pharaohs had been preserved upon the Nile. People watched with astonishment the arrival in Paris of great folios full of superb drawings in which these were depicted, and numerous volumes containing the descriptions of them. Excellent reproductions of both afterwards found their way all over the world.

In 1799, in the course of excavations at the fort of St. Julienne at Rosetta, in the northern Delta, the French officer of engineers, Boussard, had found the remarkable tablet which was to become so famous under the name of the Rosetta stone. The fortunes of war carried this one monument alone, not to Paris, but to London, where it is worthily conserved in the British Museum. It contains a sacerdotal decree, which awards high honors to the fifth Ptolemy, Epiphanes, for his great worth, and the benefits which he conferred on the country. It is written in three different characters and languages.

Let us imagine, instead of the Egypt of that period, an Italian province of the Austrian monarchy, and let us suppose that the clergy of the place had drawn up a decree in honor of the imperial house; this might perhaps be published in the old ecclesiastical language, Latin, in Italian, and in the German language of the ruling house and its officials. Precisely thus was the decree of Rosetta written; first in the sacred language of the church, habitually rendered in the ancient hieroglyphic character, and only employed in ecclesiastical writings, next in the dialect current among the people, the demotic, which was recorded in a special abbreviated character in which the original form of the hieroglyphics is no longer to be recognized, and finally in the Greek language and character of the Lagid ruling house and its functionaries. Thus the Rosetta stone offered for investigation three tolerably long texts, the first two of which had for foundation a dialect of the ancient Egyptian language. These were in the two kinds of writing, the distinction between which had already been noted by the Greeks, (Herodotus, Diodorus, Clemens of Alexandria, etc.) and beneath them stood the Greek translation. In a special treatise,[13] to which the reader is referred, we have endeavored to show how two scholars, working independently, arrived simultaneously at the same result of correctly deciphering the principal hieroglyphic groups by a comparison of the names of the Ptolemy, of Cleopatra and of Alexander,[14] which were distinguished by being enclosed within elliptical ovals (cartouches), and appeared on the bi-lingual tablet in both hieroglyphic and Greek text. These two scholars were the gifted Frenchman, Champollion, and the Englishman, Thomas Young, an investigator of the first rank, whom difficulties served only to allure, and whose labors in the domain of physiology and optics would have assured him an immortal name. But Young arrived at results which were inaccurate in detail, chiefly by means of mechanical and arithmetical comparison, and then pursued his acquisitions no further, while Champollion applied all the energies of his lifetime to the prosecution and development of his epoch-making discovery. For this reason we ascribe it to him more willingly and with greater justice than to Thomas Young, who, however, undoubtedly presented his conclusions a little in advance of Champollion. Each had arrived at his results quite independently of the other, but, from the first, Champollion’s were the more correct, and what with Young remained a splendid but incomplete exploit of the most magnificent sagacity, was by the Frenchman prosecuted in the most brilliant manner, and reduced to a correct system which, taken as a whole, is still valid at the present day. The great master-pieces of Champollion, the Grammaire égyptienne, (1836-41), and the Dictionnaire égyptien en écriture hiéroglyphique, (1842-44), were first published after his death (1832), and subsequently to Lepsius’ sojourn in Paris. They give an idea of the profound insight into the ancient Egyptian language which had been attained by this scholar who died so young. Had Fate granted him a longer life his great works would have gained immensely in value, for his brother, Champollion-Figeac, who had undertaken to edit a portion of the manuscripts[15] of the deceased, which filled two thousand pages, although he fulfilled the task conscientiously and gladly, was yet obliged to take in hand much that was only half completed, and did not prove entirely equal to the undertaking.

It is true that François Champollion, in his Précis du système hiéroglyphique des anciens Égyptiens, (Paris, 1824), had presented a scheme of the hieroglyphic system of writing which, in its general features, was correct. But this work, though extraordinary for that time, was somewhat of the nature of a sketch, and criticism could find in it sufficient grounds for entertaining sundry doubts and scruples. Other scholars especially, who likewise styled themselves Egyptologists, attacked the system of Champollion, and brought forward other systems of their own in opposition to it. Amongst these guides to the labyrinth, whose errors have long since been refuted and lapsed into utter forgetfulness, Seyffarth of Leipsic lifted his voice most loudly. Sickler, also, wished to explain the hieroglyphics by paranomasia. He maintained that each one was intended to represent a whole series of words of similar sound. Klaproth adhered firmly to his acrological system, according to which each hieroglyphic could express all those Coptic words that begin with the same sound with which the name of the hieroglyphic begins.

What was a critically trained linguist to think of a science which had not yet positively decided how to read or explain the characters of that writing, which it was incumbent upon it to interpret, and which could not even declare, with the concurrence of all its collaborators, what language was the basis of the text which it nevertheless sought to translate and expound?

It is difficult to understand how, after the appearance of the Précis du système hiéroglyphique, these card-houses could have stood their ground for a single month beside the well-founded edifice of Champollion. But the more dubious the condition of affairs was with the authors of these false systems, the louder did they raise their voices, while Champollion, without regarding them, worked on with admirable tranquillity, and added stone after stone to his great construction. The principal parts of this he completed, but he was destined to bequeath it to posterity without roof or ornaments.

At the time when Lepsius was invited to make the investigation of the ancient Egyptian the occupation of his life, he had heard as much in favor of Seyffarth, Klaproth and Sickler as of Champollion. From the beginning he placed greater confidence in the latter. Yet he did well to inform himself exactly as to the true state of Egyptology at that time before placing at its disposal his energy, his ability, and his time. He was of too prudent a disposition to embark for the journey through life on a paper boat.

A deeper insight into the system of Champollion reassured him, and soon led him to a decision. He might undertake the work with favorable expectations, for Lepsius could feel himself far superior in thoroughness of preparation and synthetic acumen to those intellectual imitators of the giant Champollion, who, even during his lifetime, had ventured forth with their own works. We shall have to tell with what blunt sickles they destroyed the grain which they thought to reap. Destiny had forbidden the master to train up worthy disciples, for after the first professorship of Egyptology in the University of Paris had been conferred upon him, and when he had scarcely entered on his office as a teacher, the fine vigorous man of forty-one was overtaken by death.

Prior to this, however, he had already found disciples in Salvolini and Rosellini. The latter had followed him to Rome, Turin and Naples, after having taught at Pisa as Professor of Oriental Languages. The extraordinary talent of E. de Rougé was developed later. Birch in London and Leemans in Leyden were indeed his contemporaries, but should be called his successors, not his pupils, and published their first Egyptological works after his death, and after Lepsius had decided in favor of this science.

When our friend entered the arena of Egyptological research the nature of the demotic writing was as yet entirely undetermined, for although the greatest Orientalist of this century, Silvestre de Sacy, had addressed his attention to the demotic portion of the Rosetta stone, and it had been examined not only by Thomas Young, but also by the sagacious Swede, Åkerblad, neither they nor Champollion had been able to come to any satisfactory understanding of it. Lepsius, also did little towards a more thorough comprehension of the nature of the demotic dialect and writing. It was H. Brugsch and E. Revillout who first discovered the significance of the demotic, and proved the importance of this “writing and language of the people” as a middle term between ancient Egyptian and Coptic.

As far as this, (the Coptic), is concerned, it was the language used by the Egyptians in speaking and writing, after the introduction of Christianity into Egypt. It was written in Greek letters, with some additional alphabetical characters for sounds which the Hellenic alphabet would not reproduce. It represents the most recent dialect of the Egyptians, replete with many borrowed and alien words from the Greek, and it succeeded the demotic as this sprang from the ancient Egyptian language which was written in hieroglyphics. As we possess many of the Scriptural books in Coptic translations, and more recent Coptic manuscripts with an Arabic version in the margin, it is scarcely less intelligible for us than Greek and Arabic themselves. The church of the monophysitic Coptic Christians on the Nile employs it to-day in the liturgies according to which divine worship is conducted. The founder of a scientific knowledge of the Coptic language in Europe was the same Athanasius Kircher who attempted the deciphering of hieroglyphics without success. To him we are, however, indebted for the first Coptic vocabularies and essays at grammar, (these were taken from the Arabic, and written in Latin.)

A succession of European scholars afterwards extended and perfected his work, which, although fundamental, was full of defects and errors. When Lepsius began the study of Coptic it had already been treated by Lacroze, Wilkins, Scholz, Woide, Tuki, Quatremère, and Zoega, in part grammatically, and in part lexicographically. Peyron’s lexicon was also approaching completion.

No one had yet ventured to assign this language its proper scientific philological rank. Its three dialects had long been known, and not only Champollion, but Seyffarth also, had made use of them in the interpretation of the most ancient hieroglyphic words.

There was no lack of Coptic manuscripts and books[16] in Paris, but there was a very obvious want of old Egyptian hieroglyphic writings, well published. The inscriptions[17] reproduced in the great Description de l’Égypte, had been copied previous to the deciphering of hieroglyphics. They had been transcribed at random, without accuracy or intelligence, and were useless for the philologist. Rosellini’s work on monuments[18] was prepared as the combined result of the expedition sent to Egypt by France, under Champollion, and that sent by Tuscany under Rosellini. The publication of it had scarcely been commenced when Lepsius obeyed the summons of Bunsen. The same is true of Champollion’s Monuments de l’Égypte, etc.

In the following pages we shall have to show all that had been achieved by Egyptological research in the provinces of history and mythology, and what Lepsius found there, both to clear away, and to build up.

LEPSIUS IN PARIS AS AN EGYPTOLOGIST.

From the very first Lepsius devoted himself with ardent zeal and indefatigable industry to Egyptological studies. Before us lie the letters which he addressed at that time to his new patron and subsequent friend, Bunsen. They show with what benevolent, indeed fatherly, sympathy, the famous scholar and statesman watched the progress of his protégé in the field to which he had invited and introduced him; what pains he took to smooth the way for him both by word and deed, and how perfect was the understanding with which he followed the scientific efforts and achievements of the new Egyptologist. Bunsen also exerted himself to assure the pecuniary position of the young scholar; but as the emperor above the senate, so did Alexander von Humboldt stand above Bunsen. Where the influence of the latter proved insufficient, and his good wishes could not be carried into effect, it became necessary to appeal to the power and benevolence of the man of world-wide fame, who was always ready for vigorous action when it was a question of furthering important scientific endeavors, or helping promising and able young scholars. As Lepsius in the first place was infinitely indebted to Bunsen, so was he in the second instance to A. von Humboldt. It is singular how many of the later German masters of science, besides our friend, were aided by this great and truly humane man as by a Providence. He removed obstacles from their path, built bridges for them, and opened to them portals which no other hand than his was in a position to unfold.

From the letters to Bunsen we learn that Lepsius at first was absorbed in Coptic, and, as might have been expected, as a comparative philologist. At the beginning he was discouraged by the entire linguistic isolation in which this interesting idiom stood, but he soon thought to detect a certain fundamental relationship between it and the Indo-Germanic and Semitic families of languages. On the twentieth of January, 1835, he already invited Bunsen to consider with him, in a quite superficial and cursory manner, the affixes of the pronomen personale, in Coptic and Hebrew, and the relationship of the two formations.[19]

He next exerted himself to place before the public a specimen of Coptic grammar. He wished to begin by publishing a comparative division, which should be chiefly based upon the pronominal stems, and should establish the basis upon which the Coptic language had developed. It was further intended to show what position this should hold among the better known tongues. He had taken the bull by the horns, and was soon to find that little could be accomplished by giving prominence to such similarity in the terminal suffixes as struck the eye, or by the comparison of Indo-Germanic and Semitic numeral words with the Egyptian, between which also many conformities existed.

As the first results of these new studies there appeared two papers on the alphabet and numerical words, which were submitted to the Berlin Academy in 1835, and were printed at the press of that learned institution. The apothegm, that even the loftiest speculation only teaches us to comprehend what is already in existence, occurs in the first of these papers.[20]

By means of this treatise the knowledge of the true principles of the most ancient alphabetical order was advanced by a long step, and what was new therein was combined with the most thorough regard for all that had been previously attained.

In the second treatise[21] he considerably extended previous investigations, and at the same time imposed upon himself voluntary restrictions which offer the most favorable testimony to his early acquired method and critical rigor. He would have been able to arrive at still more important results with the present knowledge of ancient Egyptian numerical words, and the numerical signs in hieratic and demotic.

He never followed up “the manifest connection between the Semitic and the Egyptian-demotic alphabet” which he then thought to have discovered. We entertain no doubt that during his apprenticeship he took certain Parisian hieratic texts for demotic, and if this was the case, then at that time, with the intuition peculiar to him, he had already hit upon the truth which was established many decades later by de Rougé, Lenormant, and ourselves; namely, that the Semitic, and indeed, primarily, the Phœnician alphabet, must be traced back to the Egyptian hieratic. He also worked enthusiastically over the principles of sound in the Coptic. This language, which at first seemed to him quite “chaotic” on account of the “cumulative vowels” which it presents, became more attractive to him after he had learned, by comparison of the manuscripts written in the different dialects to distinguish between them, and to penetrate more deeply into their wonderfully subtle syntactical construction. It was of great advantage to him in these studies that Peyron’s Coptic Lexicon was published just at this time, and that he was able to procure each proof-sheet as it left the press. After he had obtained a good insight into the Coptic he ventured to attack the demotic and ancient Egyptian written in hieroglyphics. As, in the works then published on the ancient Egyptian language, deduction and hypothesis appeared far too much alike, he was extremely glad to receive the ready assistance of Salvolini, the disciple of Champollion mentioned above. This very talented Italian, under the direction of the master, Champollion, had occupied himself with Egyptology exclusively for ten years, and Lepsius was able to inspire him with such interest that he wrote to Bunsen of the young scholar in the warmest terms. But after Lepsius was permitted to examine the literary legacy of Champollion he perceived that Salvolini had secretly made reckless use of another’s labors, and that precisely those things which the younger Egyptologist had considered the most important discoveries of Salvolini, had been made, not by him, but by the master, Champollion.

Biot’s book[22] on the vague year of the Egyptians, which had been published shortly before, led Lepsius also to the study of the calendar and chronology of the Egyptians, and prompted him to make Bunsen fully acquainted with his views on the year of Sirius and the Sothiac cycle. He sent the work mentioned to his patron, and in consequence of a request made by him, furnished him with everything that appeared in Paris in the way of new literary productions.

Bunsen meanwhile was solicitous for the material welfare of his protégé, and it is not a little to be ascribed to his and Gerhard’s influence,—Boeckh too was a zealous advocate,—that the Academy of Sciences at Berlin awarded Lepsius five hundred thalers for his farther improvement in Egyptology, and that Gerhard,—although not officially,—could offer him the prospect of the same amount for a second year.

Before this assistance had been promised him he had written to Bunsen: “It is easy to understand that there may be much opposition to furnishing aid for such a special object, as every one will not regard the importance of it in the same way ... but I am especially anxious because I have not yet been able to present to the Academy anything which could give me an ostensible claim to the assistance which I desire. On this account I have thought that it might be of advantage to my affairs if I should put in order and send to the Academy my treatise on numerical words and arithmetical figures. It seems to me that I have indisputably found the key to this interesting subject in the Egyptian figures and Coptic numeral words. If all this meets with your approval, I would first send this treatise to William von Humboldt, who is most interested in special investigations of this subject, and probably, also, in the method of treating it. The extremely friendly letter, and the favorable opinion (far beyond my expectations), which he sent me, when I forwarded to him my little pamphlet on Sanscrit paleography, have given me hopes of a kind reception from him.”

In fact, the treatise was despatched to Berlin, but when it arrived there William von Humboldt was no longer among the living, and it was with great difficulty that Lepsius was able to recover his manuscript. The Berlin Academy awarded him the sum mentioned without it, for they knew that the recipient was worthy, and that it would produce good fruit to science.

“The death of William von Humboldt,” Lepsius wrote to Bunsen on the thirtieth of April, 1835, “has greatly grieved me, as well on account of the personal kindness which he repeatedly manifested towards me, as on account of the irreparable loss which the science of language has suffered thereby. It was he especially by whom I most hoped to be understood in my philological aims, and whose verdict I had always in mind throughout this last work. You must be aware that he leaves two works in manuscript, one on the Sanscrit languages of the Indian Islands, another on languages in general.”

The handsome stipend of the Berlin Academy smoothed Lepsius’ way to Italy, whither Bunsen summoned him with ever increasing urgency.

Up to that time, Panofka and de Witte, out of scientific enthusiasm, had taken charge of the editorial work for the Institute in Paris. When they retired, Bunsen appointed Lepsius in the place of de Witte, who initiated him into the business. After his predecessor had left Paris, Lepsius took charge, in his absence, of the printing of the annals of the Institute and of the correspondence. These affairs claimed a large portion of his time, and he would have gone immediately to Rome, the headquarters of the Institute, had he not felt that his work in Paris was not completed as far as Coptic was concerned. He also devoted himself with special ardor to ancient Egyptian and hieroglyphics. In these he continued to profit by the assistance of Salvolini, whose rapidly progressing interpretation of the Rosetta stone interested him greatly. Yet Lepsius already began to feel a slight mistrust of him, especially on account of the unfavorable manner in which he expressed himself regarding the industrious Egyptologist Rosellini, whom Champollion had esteemed highly. From Bunsen, too, Lepsius had heard nothing but praise of the latter, and moreover, Rosellini’s historical works served him as a starting point for his own chronological investigations, which began to interest him the more, the better he succeeded in deciphering for himself the names of kings and little historical hieroglyphic texts. For the great rapidity and certainty of his progress he was indebted to the excellent linguistic training which he had enjoyed. He had already exercised his talent for deciphering in handling the Eugubian Tables. The critical method of his philological guides had so become a part of his flesh and blood, that Bunsen could justly describe him as safe against the danger of publishing anything uncertain or untenable, or of announcing good results prematurely.

Before Rosellini had become personally acquainted with Lepsius he magnanimously confided to the promising new disciple of his science all of his notes that the latter desired to see, and gave him by letter whatever explanations he wished. This he did in such an amiable manner that Lepsius wrote to Bunsen: “I have taken extraordinary pleasure in the inestimable liberality and courtesy of Rosellini. One meets with the contrary among the French scholars here. If the French were better etymologists they would perceive that in science as in life liberté and liberalité come from the same root.”

The letter which our friend sent to Bunsen on the twenty-fourth of June, 1835, as a draught of a paper to be addressed to the Berlin Academy of Sciences,[23] contains more detailed information as to the history of his first attempts in Egyptology while at Paris. With this communication he also submitted to the Academy the treatises mentioned above on numerical words and the oldest alphabetical systems (see page 81). The allowance of five hundred thalers which we mentioned was only granted for one year, but Boeckh had kindly prevented a motion that the stipend should be granted only once, from coming to a resolution. Thus Lepsius, who knew the state of affairs, wrote confidently to Bunsen: “I cannot think that the Academy will leave me in the lurch later, if, with God’s help, I have made some progress in this fruitful science, and shown them that I am as good a husbandman as another with my plow and ox. Therefore I will henceforth specially aim to deserve the confidence of the Academy, and I believe that I shall best compass this by keeping them informed of my operations on the field upon which I have entered.”

At that time there were, as we have already observed (See page 78), very few good inscriptions published, and in August he had already advanced so far in hieroglyphics that he was constantly looking about for new texts, in order to copy and afterwards study them. To attain the highest ends he felt that it was necessary to know and own all the inscriptions that had been preserved from the time of the Pharaohs. In Göttingen he had endeavored to obtain both material and intellectual possession of all the treasures of the plastic art of the ancients by making copies of them. Thus also in Paris he wished to acquaint himself with all the monuments of the time of the Pharaohs which had reached that city, and either to transcribe the inscriptions upon them, to copy them by tracing, or to obtain them in the form of impressions taken on paper. Copies of such as were accessible had long lain in his portfolio, but he had heard that there was a magazine in which was stored, in utter confusion, a great abundance of Egyptian monuments, especially the larger ones. Yet it seemed impossible to obtain admission to these hidden treasures. “It is the universal complaint,” writes Lepsius, “that Louis Philippe does nothing in any way for the monuments of antiquity, his taste is all for modern works of art, and he now employs all the artists and officers of the Museum on the historical picture gallery in Versailles. Just now, also, several guardians of the Louvre are occupied there, and therefore they represent that it is impossible to detail a guardian for me in the magazine.” He impatiently awaited the decision from day to day, but it did not come; indeed it was still withheld even after Herr von Werther, the Prussian Ambassador, had interposed on behalf of Lepsius, and had procured him permission to copy the Egyptian collection in the Musée Charles X. But this was of far less importance to Lepsius than what was hidden in the magazine, for there were all the sarcophagi and statues, and an exceedingly rich collection of stelae, besides a hundred and fourteen tablets of plaster casts from the walls of Karnak, and a great number of other matters. The time of his departure from Paris drew near, and it would have seemed almost intolerable to the ardent young investigator to leave France without having seen these extremely important monuments. Just then Alexander von Humboldt came to Paris, Lepsius complained to him of the difficulty, the most influential of all men of that time interceded for him, and he was immediately allowed access to the storehouse, at first with a guardian, but afterwards without one.

Lepsius now spent the last weeks of his sojourn in Paris in taking the most careful paper impressions from all the monuments there. About fifty quires of blotting paper were soon consumed, and many a night of vigil did he spend in making fair copies of the descriptions of the monuments from which the impressions were taken, and of the results of his own measurements. These treasures, so laboriously acquired, were of great service to him later, and accompanied him from Rome to Berlin, where they now are.

Furthermore, through Humboldt’s mediation, he had an opportunity to inspect all the drawings and manuscripts of Champollion, and he found them “surprisingly copious and interesting.” He was able to take the first of the forty numbers of Champollion’s great work on monuments, ready printed, to Italy with him. Champollion’s grammar was also soon to be published.

Something had been neglected in regard to Lepsius’ military obligations, which might have been momentous to the farther progress of the ardent investigator, but this oversight did him no injury either, in consequence of the warm commendation which Alexander von Humboldt had given him to the Governor of Mentz, General v. Müffling. It cannot now be ascertained on what grounds the robust and well developed young doctor was released from military service, but before us lies a letter written immediately after he had presented himself, which says, in reference to his military duties: “And now in Mentz I have been relieved of all farther anxiety in this respect.”

“In the latter part of my stay in Paris,” he writes to Bunsen in the same letter, “I have learned to regard Barucchi, the director of the Turin Museum, as a very excellent and courteous man. He has promised me every possible facility and convenience in the Turin Museum for study, so that now I can go there with great confidence of good results.”

Gladly and hopefully he crossed Mont Cenis to Turin; and yet the parting from Paris had become hard for him. He had gained much there, and acquired a fixed aim in life; there he had come to mature manhood, and his whole personality, as well as his scientific activity and solid abilities, had awakened the same good will on the Seine as previously in Germany, at Leipsic, Göttingen, and Berlin. And no wonder! For nature had endowed the youth, intellectually so highly gifted, with a tall and imposing figure, and crowned it with a head whose beauty was to outlast the years. The noble and sharply cut lineaments of his countenance reflected the earnestness, the force, and the acuteness of his mind, and wherever he showed himself in the circle of the leading literati of Berlin, where there was no lack of impressive heads, all eyes were drawn to him, and even strangers were attracted to inquire about him. When his abundant hair had become snow-white he was one of the handsomest of old men. He told us, in an hour of social relaxation, that he was once climbing one of the Swiss mountains in very hot weather—I believe it was the Faulhorn,—and had sat down near the summit, with dripping brow. A strange gentleman, who had joined him, had sunk down beside him, and had responded to his observation that it was frightfully hot: “You ought to be accustomed to that, Professor. When one has climbed the pyramids and made excavations in Ethiopia, as you have—.” Lepsius asked the stranger how he came to know him, and received from the other—as it turned out afterwards, a medical colleague from Heidelberg,—the answer, “How can one forget your medallion-countenance after once seeing it?”

His profile was, in truth, singularly fine. I, myself, first met Lepsius in his forty-ninth year, 1859, as his pupil, but the impression which he made on me at that time was such that I willingly credited the assurance of a Leipsic friend, whose parents’ house Lepsius had frequented as a student, that he had been one of the handsomest young men of his day. The same bearing which he retained throughout his life, and which entirely corresponded to his essential nature, must also have been peculiar to him as a student. It was quiet, yet not stiff, well-bred, and equally appropriate in all circumstances of life. Moreover, with all his industry and earnestness, he was at that time always glad to go into society, and he long preserved and cherished his musical gifts and pleasure in singing, as well as his fondness for chess.

ITALY.

The route which Lepsius took to Rome was entirely determined by the Egyptological studies to which he had devoted himself with such great zeal and success during the latter part of the time in Paris. It led him first to Turin.

There he might hope to find all that was best and of most importance, for the Egyptian museum at Turin is now, and was at that time, one of the largest and richest in the world, and so far exceeded Lepsius’ expectations that instead of several weeks he allowed himself to be detained there for more than three months.

On the twenty-fourth of February he wrote to Bunsen: “I have not thought it necessary to hurry, as Turin is without doubt the most important point of my journey as far as the collection of materials is concerned. One realizes this thrice as strongly when one has staid here awhile and become familiar with the situation. I leave this excellent museum very unwillingly, but one would have to stay for years to exhaust it, and I do not think that I have employed my time ill. You will enjoy the rich harvest which I bring you from here. I have taken paper impressions of all the inscriptions engraved on hard stone; part of them with starch, which makes them indestructible. Unfortunately, I could not continue my Parisian collection of a hundred and twenty stelae in the same way, for they were unnecessarily afraid here of injury to the limestone from the damp paper, so that the most important stelae and many other objects in limestone I have partly counterdrawn with pith paper and partly copied, and have done this to some extent in the colors, the value of which I first learned to appreciate properly here. The greater part of the time, though, I have spent upon the rich stores of papyrus, almost the whole of which, with all the important fragments of every kind, I have counterdrawn or copied. I have taken special pains with the large perfect ritual, which can be found here and nowhere else.” He had not yet seen the stores of papyrus in London and Leyden. “It was a matter of special importance to me to possess some common basis for all the other fragments of the ritual (which are to be found everywhere; a portion of them are at Rome), for the special purpose of beginning an extensive collection of the different readings; very necessary for the study of hieroglyphics. Therefore, I have spared no pains to compare the whole Parisian papyrus, a copy of which I have, with that here. I have noted all the different readings, in the text as well as in the vignettes, and counterdrawn all that is lacking, which amounts to about twice as much as the Parisian copy. So that I now possess the most perfect ritual, in a volume of more than sixty sheets of paper, of half-folio size, stitched together, besides the collation of the Parisian ritual, a preparatory work which will be very valuable for future studies.”

In fact all the material that he so laboriously acquired at Turin formed the foundation for his celebrated edition of the Book of the Dead, of which we shall have to speak hereafter. Many historical dates, which are contained in the monuments preserved at Turin and the famous papyrus of the kings were also collected by him in 1836; yet he found, on his second journey to Turin in 1841, that in his first visit to the museum many of the treasures preserved there had been purposely withheld from him.

From Turin he went to Pisa, partly to make the acquaintance of Rosellini, with whom he had long been in scientific correspondence, partly to study the monuments which the latter had brought with him, and the papyrus and other written records which were intrusted to the care of the Italian Egyptologist.

“Rosellini,” he writes on the twentieth of March, 1836, “received me very cordially, and I find myself well off in this excellent family, where I spend the whole day, from nine o’clock in the morning till nine at night.” The monuments here had less to offer him, “but so much the more do I learn,” he writes, “from Rosellini’s Lexicon of Hieroglyphics. This also contains the accumulations of Champollion, and I shall copy it out in full. Besides this, I derive great benefit from the oral instruction and communications, which Rosellini gives me on all possible subjects without the least reservation. I quickly perceived, that I should not be able to leave this place as soon as I had expected.” The following verses, with which he took leave of the Rosellinis, may show how intimate the relation had become between the young German and the family of the Italian scholar:

From the South to the South
I am driven away;
From the North to the South—
Yet fain would I stay.
———
From country to country,
From dome unto dome;
From Strasburg to Pisa,
From Pisa to Rome.
———
Wert thou in the South land,
Thou home of my heart,
No farther I’d wander,
I’d never depart.
———
Yet linger I may not,
And so I prepare
In my heart a warm shelter,
And cherish thee there.
———
Then when farther I’m roaming
I’ll bear thee with me,
And Heaven, protecting,
Will guard me with thee.

Pisa, April 19, 1836.

After Pisa he visited Leghorn, where was lodged the Drovetti collection, which was afterwards purchased for the Berlin Museum, by the special advice of Lepsius. The owner had asked sixty thousand francs, and got thirty thousand. Amongst the monuments was the Colossus of Rameses II, and the valuable fragment of the statue of Usurtasen I. (throne and legs). This is now restored and is the great ornament of the Egyptian collection in the capital city of the empire. It may be seen, from a letter which Lepsius wrote to Bunsen about the collection, that the fragment of the statue of Usurtasen I. had only been brought to Europe by Drovetti in order to restore with it the slightly injured colossus of the same king. The fragment consisted of the same “black granite” (properly graywacke) as the better preserved statue of Rameses II.

In May, 1836, Lepsius at last arrived in Rome, richly laden with treasures. There, for the first time, he met Charles J. Bunsen, who had directed his attention towards Egyptian antiquity, and had assisted him with fatherly kindness during his residence in Paris. Bunsen was at that time living on the Tiber as Prussian Ambassador, under the title of Minister Resident. He presided as chief secretary over the Archaeological Institute, which had been founded by Gerhard, with his assistance, in 1829. Ten years before the arrival of Lepsius, Champollion had visited Rome, and found there an enthusiastic admirer and disciple in Bunsen. Absorbed in numerous affairs, and in other branches of research,[24] the latter could devote but a small portion of his time to Egyptological studies. In Lepsius he believed that he had found the right man to continue the work of Champollion with greater success, and in a more profound and independent spirit, than the Master’s two disciples, Salvolini and Rosellini. He also hoped that Lepsius would be specially fitted to take charge of the business of recording secretary of the Institute in conjunction with Braun. For this he had already proved his ability in Paris.

The affairs of this learned society were at that time in a very bad condition. The most necessary pecuniary means were wanting, differences of opinion, which seemed entirely irreconcilable, divided the Parisian and the Roman-Prussian sections, and indeed there was serious question as to the continued existence of this beneficient Institute. But, as Michaelis, its historiographer, expresses himself, “Danger stimulated Bunsen’s elastic spirit,” and at the right moment Lepsius, together with Braun, “who was delighted with his expert colleague,” stepped into the breach. We will not say that it was Lepsius alone who averted the threatened danger, but it is certainly to be partly ascribed to his warm personal relations with Panofka, de Witte, and the noble Duc de Luynes, who was so influential in France, that the relations of the society to Paris, and its affairs in general, improved soon after his participation in the management. What impression he made on his appearance in Rome may be shown by the following passage from a letter which Bunsen’s wife wrote to her mother on the twelfth of May, 1856: “Lepsius,” says this estimable lady, “has been here since Monday. He makes a very pleasant impression in regard to character as well as talents; in short, he fulfills the expectations roused by his letters, which were clear, upright, intelligent, copious, but not excessive. He has naturally refined manners, but no stiffness, and is neither presuming nor shy. It is incredible, what material he has collected for his study of Egyptian antiquities, and his drawings are wonderfully executed. You can fancy that Charles (Bunsen) is delighted to talk of hieroglyphics with him; yet it does not make him idle,—he is busily occupied the whole day, and only at meal times and in the evenings does he enjoy such a great pleasure.”

At that time Bunsen was already contemplating the execution of his great work “The Place of Egypt in the History of the World,” and from the first was disposed to confide many of the special researches for it to Lepsius. Soon, however, (indeed long before his recall from Rome), he felt inclined to offer him the honor of being his collaborator. “Bunsen and Lepsius” were to appear upon the title-page as the authors; and if the elder scholar and statesmen furnished the great leading ideas, the young doctor, with bee-like industry, collected everything in Rome that might prove useful for the details of the work.

Bunsen knew how to value the labors of the new member of the board of directors and editing secretary of the Institute, and Lepsius soon felt at home in the inspiring atmosphere of his house.

The Ambassador and Gerhard both successfully exerted their influence in Berlin to induce the Academy, which was already well disposed towards the first critically trained German Egyptologist, to grant him additional assistance. It would be impossible to imagine help more energetic, more disinterested, or more efficacious, than that which Lepsius thus received from Bunsen. The hundreds of letters before us, addressed by the former to his patron, show how the relation between them became continually more intimate and cordial. The superscription changes by degrees from “Highly Honored Herr Minister,” to “Dearest Herr Privy Counselor,” “My Dear, Fatherly Friend,” and finally, “Most Highly Esteemed Friend.” When the young scholar writes to his beloved patron on special occasions, his letters, usually calm and confined to the matter in hand, acquire a heartiness and warmth otherwise alien to them. He once wrote to Bunsen on his birthday (1839): “My heartiest thanks for your splendid letter of August twenty-second, and for the delightful lines which I received yesterday. May the Lord grant you his most abundant blessing in the new year of your life just beginning, as in all that follow, and preserve to me your fatherly affection, which has already so often strengthened, encouraged, and refreshed me. I have far greater need of you, and am more dependent on you than it may appear to you. I feel it with every sheet that I receive from your hand, and that surprises me unawares in my disposition to triviality, timidity, and every sort of narrow-mindedness. Your words, even the most unimportant, fall like pearls upon my poverty, and I feed upon them from one letter to another.”

With what sincerity these ardent phrases were meant is evident from Lepsius’ letters to his father and mother, in which he always speaks of Bunsen with enthusiasm and child-like affection.

Even in after years Lepsius’ eye would still kindle, his measured speech grow fervent, when he recalled Charles Bunsen, the inexhaustible wealth of his ideas, the depth of his knowledge, the purity of his character, and the friendship which united the statesman and investigator, though twenty years the older, with the aspiring scholar; which only gained in strength from year to year, survived the death of the one, and was borne to the grave with the other.

Bunsen had the advantage of Lepsius in a rich, poetic, soaring imagination, otherwise they had many great qualities in common.

Frederick William IV. had honored Bunsen with the title of baron. Apart from this, however, he, like Lepsius, deserves to be designated as a genuine noble German freeman; that is, a man of unalterable intrinsic superiority, who derives the right to carry his head loftily, not from external circumstances, but from honest, indefatigable, difficult, and conscientious work. To such labor they both remained faithful through all the circumstances of life, and when we see the leaders of a turbulent party claiming the name of “workman” exclusively for the man with horny hands, and exerting themselves to restrict within the narrowest limits the hours of employment for the day laborer, we would point to these two men, who free from every material solicitude of life, turned their nights into day, bade defiance to bodily fatigue, and only sought refreshment in change of occupation, in order to fit themselves for the exalted enterprise which they had imposed upon themselves.

His first purely Egyptological paper presents the most brilliant evidence of the zeal and sagacity with which Lepsius, from the beginning, devoted himself to the study of the Egyptian writing and language. It appeared in the annals of the Roman Archaeological Institute, in the shape of a letter to his Pisan friend, Rosellini,[25] and ranks among model works of this kind on account of its wonderful succinctness, clearness and comprehensiveness. Lepsius gives in it a complete summary of the whole system of writing of the ancient Egyptians. He distinguishes, with clearness and acuteness, the elements of which this is composed, and from the Master’s list of sound symbols, which was much too large, he singles out those elements which do not properly belong there, and fortunately rejects one of the fundamental errors of Champollion’s system. As we now know, the phonetic part of hieroglyphics, that is the part relating to sounds, consists simply of letters which were sounded,—our matres lectionis,—and syllabic signs. These by themselves alone can represent a syllable. Thus, the mere picture of a mirror is to be read ‘anch,’ but to this picture may also pertain all the sounds of the syllable which it represents: thus, in our case, an ‘a, n, and ch.’ Champollion, on the contrary, had known nothing of syllabic symbols, and thus regarded the mirror as a mere abbreviation of the word ‘anch,’ which he had also met with written out in full.

This error was done away with by Lepsius,[26] and through him that immensely important element of writing, the syllabic symbol, received its due. The observations contained in this treatise on the relation of Coptic (See page 76) to ancient Egyptian, are also of fundamental value.

Lepsius’ letter to Rosellini gives a critical recapitulation of the discoveries of the Master. It is the first really methodical and scientific work of an adherent of the Champollionic system, and although after this Lepsius only returned incidentally to the linguistic and grammatical side of Egyptology,[27] yet in this work, as everywhere where he planted the lever, he has pointed out the right way and method. In the Nubian Grammar, which was one of the chief works of his life, and which was completed at a late date, he showed how firmly he stood upon the grammatical foundation so early won, and how faithful he remained thenceforth to grammatical studies. He did not cease, too, to work at those studies, regarding the sounds of languages and the alphabet, to which he had early devoted himself. His “Standard Alphabet,”[28] which originated long afterwards and amidst great opposition, was intended chiefly to enable missionaries and travellers to reproduce correctly in our own language the sounds of the foreign tongues examined by them. This was to be done by means of letters, easily and conveniently modified by dashes and dots. It became of great practical importance, as it was adopted by the English “Church Missionary Society” as the most available universal alphabet to be employed, according to their directions, by their emissaries. No one can deny that it is also of scientific value. Its applicability has been specially proved with the African languages, and in this department it has been most successfully employed in a great number of grammatical and lexicographical works, as well as biblical translations and the reproduction of narrations, legends, and proverbs in the various idioms. Of the Hamitic branch of the African languages, which is distinguished by grammatical genders, there are seven side-branches, from the ancient Egyptian to the Haūsa- and Nama- (Namaqua-) languages, which have been thus examined. Of the more remote native African idioms there are not less than twenty-two. In 1874, during the Congress of Orientalists at London, we ourselves were permitted to hold council with him and other leaders of science, concerning an acceptable universal method of transcription for hieroglyphic writing. Many of his propositions were adopted at that time, but the method of transcription agreed on in the British Museum did not become current, and it is undoubtedly in need of much improvement.

Lepsius had already given particular attention to the two special departments in which he was to achieve the greatest and most fruitful results; first at Göttingen, under the superintendence of O. Müller, then in Paris after the publication of Biot’s work, and finally at Rome, in the company of Bunsen. These departments were first, history, with its numerical groundwork of chronology, and in the second place, mythology.

Here, everything was still to be achieved, for before the hieroglyphics had been deciphered, scholars had been obliged to depend solely upon Grecian accounts of the Egyptian kings and gods, especially upon those given by Herodotus, and therefore had often relied on reports which were most inadequate, and which in many cases were misunderstood. The power recently acquired of reading the writing of the Egyptians disclosed a wealth of original material, which was unexpected, new, and authentic. The incontrovertible importance of this was self-evident, and even during Champollion’s lifetime many rushed upon the freshly discovered mines, and sought to rifle them for historical and mythological purposes. But, although at the outset many mistakes and uncertainties were rectified, and much that was incontestably new was established, yet on the other hand, error after error was introduced into the science by the rash course of the immediate successors of Champollion. They received on faith that which they only half comprehended, and applied it without care or criticism. They instituted comparisons upon bases either false or insufficiently established, and by means of them arrived at conclusions that we can now only regard with scorn and dismay. In place of the imperfect knowledge of former time, there appeared as its evil successor a disorder without parallel. The grateful, but difficult task undertaken by Lepsius, was to clear this away, and compel Egyptological research to conform to the same critical method which has become obligatory for other branches of study, and without which there can be no soundness in science.

Out of vague and unregulated fancies concerning Egyptian history and mythology, he formed a true Egyptian history and science of Egyptian divinities. By his strong hand were restrained the more or less ingenious and active divagations of Champollion’s successors, and he pointed out the path by which alone Egyptology could succeed in winning the name of a science.

His course was at the same time bold, prudent, and dexterous. He considered the whole extent of the monumental material collected by himself, or otherwise attainable, separated it into groups, sifted these, and treated the essential constituents which he thus extracted according to the same critical method to which he had become accustomed in other departments of science, under the tutelage of Hermann, Dissen, Müller, Bopp, Lachmann, and Boeckh.

After his journey to England and Holland, of which we shall soon have to speak, he possessed a sovereign comprehensive view of all of the written relics of the Egyptians to be found in Europe. But he carefully guarded himself against drawing conclusions from them which had not been thoroughly worked out, or from using them, like many other followers of Champollion, in the building of card houses.

In the historical group of his collectanea, which were arranged with the orderliness peculiar to himself, he brought together all the kings’ names which it was possible to obtain, and all texts provided with dates, as well as all writings on stone or papyrus which concerned the genealogical relations of the Pharaonic families. Thus, too, during his sojourn at Rome we see him chiefly occupied in collecting the building stones only for that chronological-historical edifice to be reared in more tranquil days, and which he expected to erect in common with Bunsen.

This self-control was to be well rewarded, for on his first and most important expedition to Egypt there flowed in upon him an affluence of new material, especially regarding the earliest epoch of Pharaonic history, which supplemented and in many ways modified that previously obtained. We can now take a comprehensive view of all the acquisitions of that time, and if we compare them with the two folio volumes of his Book of Kings,[29] or rather with the first draught of the same as he completed it in 1842, we must be astonished at the wealth of material which he had collected by the close of his sojourn upon the Tiber. The work mentioned contains in its present form all the names of the Pharaohs which have been preserved on monuments or papyrus, and is an indispensable handbook to anyone occupied in the study of Egyptian history. Its accuracy is equal to its copiousness, in which it had of course gained immensely, compared to the first sketch, which he willingly and frequently showed us.

The production of a new book of this kind could only mean the giving of a new title to Lepsius’ Book of Kings, for the arrangement of this great work is so fine and faultless that a change could but injure it. If we regard the first draft of the Book of Kings, which was completed before the Egyptian journey (it was never printed), as the foundation of Lepsius’ later chronological labors, we must acknowledge that at that time it would have been entirely impossible to add anything new to what was there collected.

It is with such weapons as these that victories are won, but he who had forged them imposed upon himself one preparatory labor after another before he entered upon the combat, and used them for the great historical purposes which he had in view.

In Turin he had also laid the foundations for his later researches in mythology, especially that of the ancient Egyptians, and in this group of studies we see him proceed with exactly the same method and circumspection as in his chronological works. His predecessors had found the innumerable and motley figures of the Egyptian Pantheon, often accompanied by their names, portrayed upon monuments of stone and papyrus, and had compared them with those divine beings of the Egyptians mentioned by the classic writers. They had attempted to explain the significance of these figures, and in so doing, where the sources of information at their command would not serve them, they had given free play to their imaginations,—it is only necessary to remember the ingenious phantasies of Creuzer, Roth, etc. The gods throng through their writings in a wild confusion, and it had occurred to no one, not even to Champollion (whose Panthéon égyptien[30] must nevertheless always be characterized as a valuable preparatory work), to proceed to an organization of the great crowd of gods, and to point out the historical principle by which they were to be classified.

This task Lepsius imposed upon himself, but here too, during his stay in Italy, he contented himself with sifting and studying all the materials at hand, and we are enabled to take a survey of his introductory labors in this province also. During his first sojourn in Turin he had already discerned that innumerable religious texts, existing in all the museums, on papyrus rolls, sarcophagi, mummy cloths, amulets, etc., belonged collectively to a larger work, to which he gave the name of “Book of the Dead.” This work, composed from many fragments, never reached a canonical conclusion, but the larger specimens of it included all the chapters which occurred alone, or in lesser number, on smaller papyri or monuments. Lepsius recognized the true significance of this book, which Champollion erroneously considered a book of ritual (rituel funéraire), that is, a book which comprised the prayers and formulas to be repeated and the hymns to be sung at the burial of the dead. It was usually found on the body of the deceased, under the mummy cloths, or in the coffin, and its contents only referred incidentally, and to a certain extent in a recapitulatory manner to transactions which were to take place on earth. The destiny of the soul which sprang from Osiris resembled the destiny of the god himself, and it is with this destiny that the “Book of the Dead” is occupied. It was given to the departed to carry with him into the grave as a passport and aid to memory. For in the other world it was necessary to sing hymns of praise, and with the help of the “right word,” which they imagined as endowed with magic power, to ward off demons and hostile beasts, to open gates, to procure food and drink, to justify oneself before Osiris and the forty-two judges, and finally to secure for the deceased all his claims as a god. Everything depended on being acquainted with the magical “right word,” and in order that it should always be at the command of the traveller through the next world, it was first written on the sarcophagus and then on the grave-clothes. From the collection of these formulas, then, arose the “Book of the Dead,” the vade mecum, the cicerone, for the pilgrim through the mysteries of the other life.

After the dead had received back all the faculties of the body which he possessed on earth, and when, after the justification in the hall of judgment, he had also received his heart, he advanced from portal to portal, and from degree to degree, until he had attained his final goal, apotheosis. In this last stage the pure spirit of light was freed from all the dust of this life; and then, being one with the sun-god Ra, as a shining day-star, he crossed the heavens in a golden bark, and received, himself a god, the attributes and the reverence of gods and the homage of men. Endowed with the power of clothing himself at will in any form he desired, he was permitted by day or night to sail through the firmament as sun or star in divine light, to mix with mortals upon earth, to soar through the air as a bird, or as a lotos flower, blooming beautifully, to repose in serene blessedness and breathe forth perfume.

As might be expected from what has already been said, in this book are to be found the elements of the Egyptian religious belief and doctrine of immortality. Although these are difficult to understand on account of the inflated mode of expression, as well as the confused superabundance of symbols, allegories, metaphors, and illustrations (unfortunately, these obscure the sense far more frequently than they elucidate it), and although much of it must have been misunderstood by Lepsius at the age of thirty, yet it could not escape him that a searching study of this fundamental book must precede any critical treatment of Egyptian mythology. On this account, as we know, in 1836 he made a copy of the large and very perfect hieroglyphic specimen of the “Book of the Dead,” and amended it during a second sojourn in Turin in 1841. In the year 1842, as we shall see, he published[31] the great roll of papyrus, fifty-seven feet and three inches long. The seventy-nine tablets contained in this fine publication were transferred to the stone by the careful and skillful designer and lithographer, Max Weidenbach, a Naumburg fellow-countryman of Lepsius. This man, as well as his no less skillful brother, certainly deserves mention here, for under the direction of Lepsius they both succeeded in mastering Egyptian writing so thoroughly that their hieroglyphic manuscript was in no respect inferior to that of the best hierogrammatists of the time of the Pharaohs, It is to them that the publications of Lepsius owe the rare purity of style which distinguishes them, and we are indebted above all to the delicate apprehension and the skillful hand of the brothers Weidenbach that the hieroglyphic types which were restored for the Berlin Academy under the superintendence of Lepsius, turned out to be such models of beauty and style, that they are at present universally employed. Even in Paris the types produced in the French government printing office were set aside in their favor.

If at the present day we critically consider Lepsius’ edition of the “Book of the Dead,” we must certainly regret that it had for a basis the Turin copy, which is replete with errors of writing and defects arising from hasty work, and which dates from a comparatively late period. But, on the other hand, we must praise the industry, care and ability with which its editor studied the text before the excellent “preface” was written and the distribution of the whole into chapters was accomplished. This distribution has stood till the present day, and when we now speak of the first, seventeenth and hundred and twenty-fifth chapters as the most important sections of the “Book of the Dead,” in so doing we follow the construction given by Lepsius. In a few months there will be published a collection of the finest texts of the “Book of the Dead” from the best period, prepared by the excellent Genoese Egyptologist, E. Naville, under the auspices of the Berlin Academy. It was Lepsius, again, who gave the impulse to this great and useful undertaking at the Oriental Congress in London, 1874; and even in this most recent edition of the “Book of the Dead”[32] the classification given by him will be preserved. It is precisely this which is wonderful and unique in his works; that they are of lasting stability, and that their substructure remains permanently fixed no matter what alterations may be made in details by more recent acquisitions. There is almost no edifice in the whole domain of Egyptology where the foundation stone does not bear the name of “Lepsius.”

Let us here anticipate by mentioning that throughout his life Lepsius did not cease to busy himself with the “Book of the Dead,” and that even in 1867, in a large and excellent work,[33] he made an effort to trace out the origin of the whole work collectively, and of its principal parts. The sarcophagi of the ancient kingdom and the funereal texts which cover them, constitute the foundation of this important publication, which once more points out the path for research, and upon which many special investigations have already been, and in the future must be, based.

After his sojourn in Egypt, Lepsius was able for the first time to bring to a positive conclusion the studies on Egyptian mythology, which he had begun in Italy. Yet he wrote to Bunsen from Thebes that he had almost despaired of any real progress in the field of mythology, and had only collected the materials in obedience to a blind instinct. “Now,” he continues, “I have found the red thread, which will lead through this apparently endless labyrinth. I have made out the divinities, great and small, and also the most important data for the history of Egyptian mythology. The relation between the Greek accounts and the monuments has become clear to me; in short, I know that an Egyptian mythology really can be written.”

That which he found in Thebes he combined, at a comparatively late date, with what he had gained in Italy, and the results of all these collections, studies, and combinations were finally accumulated in his epoch-producing work on the first Egyptian Pantheon.[34] This proves that even with the motley swarm of Egyptian Gods it is possible to follow the historical principle of classification. Lepsius was the first, not only to discover and more nearly determine the “group of the superior gods,” but also to establish clearly the reasons why the adored beings of whom it consists are associated together. Where variations occurred he explained their origin from local or temporal causes in a convincing manner. His conjectures as to the age of the Osiris myth have been confirmed by the inscriptions in the lately opened pyramids.

In his treatise on the gods of the four elements[35] there is much with which we cannot now agree. Contrary to his opinion their names occur much earlier than the time of the Ptolemies. But in spite of this and other errors the paper stands, as far as method is concerned, on an equal footing with its predecessors, and it is here that he has summed up in a brief phrase the rule which he steadfastly obeyed during his long and active scientific career: “In all antiquarian investigations it will always be safest to begin with a chronological analysis of the material, before proceeding to a systematic arrangement thereof.”

Lepsius also adhered firmly to this rule when he entered upon that department of his science towards which at Rome he was impelled, not only by the influence of the Archaeological Institute to which he belonged, but by the tendency of his whole life. He there turned his attention to the art of the ancient Egyptians, and chiefly to their architecture. In his parents’ house at Naumburg he had seen the preference with which his father cultivated this branch of art; on all his journeys he filled his note-book with observations on the remarkable buildings which he encountered, and accompanied them with little drawings. We know how eagerly, particularly at Göttingen, he had followed the progress of the archaeology of art, which was greatly promoted at that time by the influence of Winckelmann. The air of Rome, too, was as thoroughly permeated with art then as it is now, and with even more enthusiastic artistic interests. There all conversation between aspiring friends so easily took, as it still takes, the form of a conversation on art. So that Lepsius, as well as Bunsen, who a few years later was to publish his celebrated work on Christian basilicas, felt the liveliest interest in these subjects and was forced by an inherent necessity to give special attention to the remarkable art of that people to whose resurrection he had pledged the best powers of his life.

In 1838, then, there appeared Lepsius’ dissertation on the columns of the ancient Egyptians, and their connection with the Grecian columns.[36] When we designate this work also, which lay outside of the master’s special field of research, as original, and unsurpassed of its kind, in so doing we are in no wise “burning incense to our dead” but simply judging it as it deserves to be rated. Here, as elsewhere, Lepsius applies the law quoted above, by dividing chronologically the material which he has first thoroughly collected, and pointing out how the Egyptian columns arose from their original beginnings and developed themselves independently, here in cave-building, and there in open-air edifices;—he scrupulously maintains the division between the two. This classification alone is a real achievement, and any one who follows the progress of cave-building step by step with him, will see the Doric column with all its component parts develop organically before him. Even he who, out of regard for the omnipotence of the genius of Hellenic art, is averse to considering the Doric column as an architectural constituent borrowed by the Greeks from the Egyptians, will not be able to deny that the transformation of the pillar in the so-called proto-Doric column of the Egyptian cave-architecture (first and chiefly in the vaults of Beni Hassan), can be proved to be natural and necessary, while the Greek-Doric column, even in the oldest temples of the Doric order, makes its first appearance as a thing complete, and as fallen from heaven. It indeed forms from the beginning an organic and essential part of the monument of architecture to which it belongs, but while its origin cannot be definitely pointed out on Hellenic ground, it can be easily and positively traced in the Egyptian cave-architecture. Lepsius reverted to this question after his Egyptian journey, and in an academical treatise[37] he criticized sharply yet admiringly the fundamental conditions, the properties, and the merits of that Egyptian art, whose development he here, as elsewhere, followed with peculiar interest. He gave his attention also to the canon of proportions, that is, the binding rule according to which the Egyptian sculptors were obliged to measure and shape the relative proportions of the different parts of the human body. He had already been interested in the study of this subject in Rome, for in October, 1833, he saw a little bust in the Palin collection which was furnished on the under surface and both side surfaces with mathematically exact squares, the sides of which appeared to give him the unit of the canon. “The whole bust,” he tells Bunsen, “is wrought by this unit, which, in fact, according to my measurements of various statues, is contained about twenty-one times in the whole height.”

This canon was well known to the Greeks, and Diodorus refers to it in the last chapter of his first book. According to him the body was to be divided into twenty-one and a quarter parts, and Lepsius now found that this rule conformed to the teachings of the later sculptors of the Ptolemaic era, who undoubtedly divided the human form up to the top of the forehead into twenty-one and one-quarter parts, but up to the crown of the head into twenty-three parts. Previous to this mode of division the canon had been twice altered, and both of these older rules (the more recent refers to the sculptures of the time of the pyramids), had for a fundamental unit the foot, which, taken six times, corresponded to the height of the body when erect, not indeed, as one would have expected, from the sole to the crown of the head, but only to the top of the forehead. The distinction between the first and second canon principally concerns the position of the knee: in the Ptolemaic canon, known to Diodorus, Lepsius found the general distribution itself changed. This he first discovered at Kom Ombos. We have always found the estimates of Lepsius entirely confirmed by our own measurements; yet, as the labors of Charles Blanc in the same department demonstrate, some other unit than the foot might be the basis of the canon of proportions, such as the finger in men, the claw in lions—ex ungue leonem.

The application of this obligatory rule (of the canon) impressed upon the works of Egyptian plastic art that stamp of uniformity with which it has been so often and so bitterly reproached. Yet we must regard the artistic talents of the Egyptian sculptors from the first with great respect when we consider the oldest specimens of Egyptian sculpture, which far excel the later in freedom of method and in realistic fidelity to nature, and which nevertheless are in no way inferior to them in all that concerns delicacy of execution.

Let us then suppose that this most ancient artistic race was surrounded by pure barbarians, who in the struggle for the bare necessaries of existence had no superfluous force to expend in the adornment of life; it is easy to understand that the guardians of Egyptian culture, the priests, must have made every effort to protect against retrogression and ruin the possession which was so recently won, and which was exposed to constant peril. The canon of proportions held Egyptian sculpture firmly fixed upon the lonely pinnacle so painfully attained, and even though it checked farther progress in a lamentable manner, yet, on the other hand it had this merit, that by its aid Egyptian plastic art preserved untouched through every epoch its remarkable purity of style and great technical skill. This latter even extended to the production of the simple household furniture. Lepsius teaches us to value this law correctly, and explains the peculiarity of the methods of sculpture by the special qualities of the Egyptian national character, which gave its full value to every detail with great fidelity, and only accorded the second place in its regard to the aspect of the whole. The same people whose language was rich in pronominal substantives and who, in an objective sense, said, “I give to thy hand,” rather than “I give to thee,” “the speech of his mouth,” rather than “his speech,” was obliged to do justice to each separate portion of the body. For this reason, in figures in alto-relievo and in paintings, the eye was set en face in a countenance in profile, in order that it might have its full value, regardless of the detriment which accrued to the whole figure from such an error.

Lepsius teaches us to regard and value Egyptian sculpture correctly and to consider the detached figures which we see ranged in the museum in connection with the architectural surroundings for which they were originally intended. The erroneous view that Egyptian sculpture was architectural in its spirit and execution has long been subverted by the figures in the round from the ancient kingdom, found during the last decade. These are true to nature and well preserved, and Lepsius knows how to set forth their merits properly.

In his investigations concerning the canon of proportions, we see him apply the measuring-scale for the first time, and his researches in the province of Egyptian metrology were subsequently to yield a rich harvest to science.

With all this purely Egyptological work, and his extensive labors for the Institute, he did not neglect his old linguistic studies, and resumed the investigations to which his dissertation on the Eugubian tablets had given the impulse. The opportunity for the prosecution of this work had formed no insignificant element of his attraction to Rome, and we see him make a fine collection of Umbrian and Oscan inscriptions, and draw up two papers on ancient Etruria, which did not appear in print until several years later, and formed the extra profits, as it were, of his sojourn in Italy. It is hard to understand how he found time so far to complete them that from 1840 to 1842 he only had to correct them, and to oversee their passage through the press, when we consider that he in no wise withdrew himself from the social life of Bunsen’s house, and from intercourse, grave and gay, with eminent strangers. Lepsius himself calls the years in which he had the good fortune “to build huts at Rome,” “a great holiday of life, earnest and serene, instructive and elevating, a determinative period in his development.”

Under Bunsen’s guidance, he says, he had learned to know life and science upon classic ground from their highest and noblest sides.

In his intercourse with Bunsen he also acquired the interest in politics, and especially in ecclesiastical politics, which he cherished throughout his life, as is proved by his letters to his patron the statesman, and to his father, as well as his own journals and the diaries of his wife. In one of his note-books we find the plan, which, however, was never taken into consideration, for a new episcopal order for Germany. The seat of the supreme leader of the church and the counselling authorities was to be Magdeburg.

HOLLAND, ENGLAND, AND THE SEASON OF WAITING, IN GERMANY.

In July, 1838, Lepsius was obliged to take leave of Rome with an unwilling heart, in order to attend to business of importance for the Institute, first at Paris and afterwards at London. He had to enroll new and active members for it, and to organize its connection with the English literati. Afterwards, by his own wish, he returned to his native land, released from editorial labors for the Institute, although he still continued to work for it as a member of the board of directors.

On the way from Paris to London he turned aside to Holland, in order to study the celebrated collection of Egyptian antiquities at Leyden, which since 1835 had an excellent director in C. Leemans. Here Lepsius found an unexpected wealth of the most valuable monuments and papyri, and on September 12th, 1838, he wrote to Bunsen: “I was going to leave to-day, but now I shall be glad to stay for a few days more, as I can not return again, and so must finish here once for always.[38] Besides, Leemans, with whom I am staying, is a charming man; admirable alike in head and heart, and full of ability in every direction. He helps me wherever he can, and has already made Leyden a city of delight to me.”

In England he was most cordially received by Bunsen, who had resigned his post at Rome, and left that city before our friend. The reason of this was that he had not succeeded in making an amicable adjustment of the ecclesiastical complications in Prussia (the quarrel at Cologne and the imprisonment of the Bishop of Droste-Vischering). Lepsius had long been adopted as a beloved comrade by the Bunsen family, and his letters show what a hearty interest he felt in every member of it, especially in the lad George, who was afterwards to become a prominent member of the German National Assembly.

It was an easy thing for Bunsen, whose admirable wife was descended from an English family of distinction, to smooth the way for Lepsius, not only in London but throughout Great Britain, and to open to him the doors of the best houses and of the collections most difficult of access. In this way the young German scholar not only learned to know English life on all sides, but also obtained admission to all the collections of Egyptian antiquities, whether they belonged to the government or to private individuals. He knew how to turn these favorable opportunities to good account, and in all England there were few hieroglyphic inscriptions which Lepsius did not carry away with him, either in impressions or copies, when he quitted hospitable Albion. His intercourse with Bunsen was especially delightful when he visited him at beautiful Llanover, the country place of his mother-in-law, Mrs. Waddington. Speaking of this subject, Hare says in his biography of the Baroness von Bunsen, “The friends were accustomed to wander over the hills for hours together in enthusiastic conversation about Egypt and its antiquarian writings, or to sit in profound conversation in the churchyard of Llanffoist under an oak tree a thousand years old.” They had much to say of the affairs of the Roman Institute, which Lepsius found to be very badly managed in England. The subscribers there had received none of the publications for years, many of them not since 1830, and on this account had stopped paying their dues. Others had supposed that the Institute had been dissolved, and the difficult task of correcting these errors and determining and collecting the arrears fell to Lepsius. His plan of publishing a separate volume of annals in London was not adopted, but he had the good fortune to secure S. Birch as an assistant in the management, and the latter was now entrusted with the affairs of the English section, in place of Millingen.

The conservative subject of the absolute monarch, Frederick William III., also learned in Great Britain to know the advantages of civil freedom and of parliamentary life.

He had much to settle with Bunsen himself regarding the work of which they were to be the joint authors, and he wrote from London to his faithful patron: “I have never labored with such love and devotion as now at our, that is, at your work. For it is you who have conceived the idea, and at the same time pointed out and assured its place in European science; you have spun the thread of its life and given the framework for the whole. Finally, you have provided the means for carrying it on, and everything that I accomplish and record I only do according to your ideas and for you, and as I work I naturally think of no other reader than yourself. I see that I must visit you to get you to give me a few quiet days in which we can come to a definitive understanding and agreement about the impending publication.”

Bunsen labored at the part of the work which fell to his share, as Lepsius at his, and the day seemed not far distant when the two would compare, combine, and publish their manuscripts. But there had already arisen many differences of opinion between the collaborators, and these seemed particularly important in the department of chronology, where Lepsius was to execute the lion’s share of the labor. While Bunsen, as was afterwards proved, reposed far too much confidence in the list of Eratosthenes, Lepsius had so high an estimate of Manetho as to place the greatest confidence in those lists of the series of kings which he considered the genuine work of that priest. He also made freer use of the historical inscriptions and the data of ancient Egyptian origin, (with which he had a much more intimate acquaintance than Bunsen), and attributed to them far greater importance, than seemed justifiable to the latter. The materials for his “Book of Kings” and his Chronology developed, and took the form of independent works, and although both were intended as a part of the book to be published in common by him and Bunsen, they yet contained, as we perceive from the letters of that period, a number of details which were in direct opposition to Bunsen’s views. At the end of the year 1839 it was already difficult to comprehend what path the fellow-workmen could pursue in order to arrive at a practicable agreement.

The confidence which Lepsius inspired in the highest circles of English society is shown by the circumstance that the Duke of Sutherland wished to take him into his household as mentor and tutor to his son. But the young scholar declined this flattering offer, which was associated with great material advantages, and wrote to Bunsen: “My one-sided talent in the dissection of organic structures has never been united with any readiness for presenting things broadly, as is necessary in teaching, and especially in teaching the young. Besides, I am not qualified for an instructor, because I perceive every day that I myself have not yet passed the season of education.”

These words sound somewhat strange on the lips of so thoughtful and able a young man; he was then twenty-nine years old. But at that time he was still striving after the ideal of life which hovered before him, and such expressions were partly dictated by modesty, partly by the disinclination which he had previously expressed for the vocation of a pedagogue, and partly also by a longing for Egypt. During his stay in England (1839) this became stronger and stronger.

After he had declined the offer of the Duke of Sutherland, he took serious council with himself as to how his future should be spent, and wrote to Bunsen: “A decision as to my immediate future is constantly becoming more imperative. But no matter in what direction I send forth my thoughts, not one of them brings me back the olive branch. I cut myself off from Italy,” (by giving up his situation in the Institute at Rome, although he was still to work for it in Germany), “I cannot stay in England.” Bunsen had been appointed Prussian Ambassador to Bern, and while in England Lepsius’ affections had become engaged, although he would not yield to the impulse of his heart, as his uncertain future did not permit him to woo a maiden who was apparently as poor as himself. “I have nothing to do in France, and it would be too soon for me to go to Germany. So Egypt is all that remains to me, and that is still the pole-star in all my deliberations. Some day or other Egypt must be devoured; this is my time, there is no war there now, etc. An Egyptian journey would be a great recommendation for me afterwards in Germany. In any case this would be the most natural course for my affairs to take. Ought it not be possible to attain this goal in some way? The first and most agreeable thought always leads to Berlin. Therefore, I ask you if an extraordinary effort might not be made there. An urgent application from you to the Crown Prince would be the main thing. I would appeal especially to Humboldt. Gerhard would certainly be willing to undertake the personal conduct of the affair. If this course seems to you entirely impracticable, or if it miscarries, I must try to start from here.... If the worst comes to the worst, I will raise the necessary money somewhere or other in Germany, and go to Cairo at my own risk.”

In this letter, he gives open expression to the desire of his heart for the first time. Bunsen thought him right, promised his young friend to do everything possible in the affair, and in conjunction with Humboldt to interest the Crown Prince, (soon afterwards Frederick William IV.), in his Nile journey. But he begged his protégé not to be over-hasty, and represented to him how detrimental it would be to break up their common enterprise, as well as the undertakings begun by Lepsius alone. His Umbrian and Oscan inscriptions finished at Rome, as well as two treatises, were still to be printed; and the edition of his “Book of the Dead,” besides several other things, was not yet concluded. Yet more, previous to his departure the Egyptian chronology and lists of kings, for which Bunsen was impatiently waiting, must be set in order, and the German translation of Gaily Knight’s “Development of Architecture,” also awaited its completion. This had been prepared by Lepsius’ father, and he had himself undertaken to revise and provide it with an introduction.

The impatient young Egyptologist yielded to these monitions of his experienced and benevolent patron, and in November, 1839, we see him again among his family at Naumburg. The ensuing months he spent partly in his native town, partly in Berlin, working indefatigably, while Bunsen (who had meanwhile arrived at Bern as Prussian Ambassador), and A. v. Humboldt exerted themselves to promote his Egyptian journey. The great influence of the latter had only increased, since the Crown Prince of Prussia, on June seventh, 1840, had ascended the throne as Frederick William IV. Lepsius was permitted to enter into closer relations with the famous friend of the King, as he satisfied Humboldt’s desire to possess a list of the stones and metals mentioned in the hieroglyphic texts. This he did in a fashion which surprised the natural philosopher, who was ever hungry for knowledge, and filled him with gratitude. Instead of a catalogue, Lepsius presented to him a treatise, of which he says himself that the style in which it was written gave him great pleasure. “These researches concerning stones,” he writes, “have brought to light many a jewel for myself, which I have deposited in my hieroglyphic store-chamber.” All that he then acquired remained lying there until, in 1871, it celebrated its resurrection in his model dissertation on the metals in Egyptian inscriptions.

The proposition made to him at this time to enter the Foreign Office, and devote himself to a diplomatic career, he declined positively and without long consideration.

In Naumburg was completed the printing of Gally Knight’s work,[39] and of the introduction by Lepsius. This fills forty-six pages, and treats of the extensive employment of the pointed arch in Germany as early as the tenth and eleventh century. His observations begin with the Naumburg cathedral, which his father had studied with special thoroughness, and where he had actually found pointed arches of the eleventh century.

This introduction raised a great deal of dust, and when, thirteen years afterwards, Lepsius wished to carry through an affair of importance with the King, the royal adviser on art matters at that time, was not well disposed towards him, because in the views of Lepsius on the early application of the pointed arch in Germany, he saw an attack upon his own opinions. For the rest, the note-books of the Egyptologist, full of architectural drawings, and his letters to his father, show that in all his subsequent journeys he paid the keenest attention to all the edifices which he met, and when he was in a position to construct a house for himself, he built it in the English-Gothic style, and placed his beloved pointed arch over the doors and windows.

Meanwhile, he also published two smaller academical treatises.

In the winter of 1841, he undertook a new journey to Italy across the Alps, which were covered with snow and ice. The exclusive object of this was to complete the editing of the “Book of the Dead,” which had been already prepared, and which was mentioned above on page 95. As a well-known scholar and member of the board of directors of the Archaeological Institute at Rome he was now received at Turin with particular consideration, and had freely placed at his disposal a new copy of the great Turin “Book of the Dead,” which had been brought thither by Barucchi, the manager of the museum. But this was not sufficient for him, and there was still much for him to do before his own copy gained that accuracy which distinguishes it.

“I ought to leave here to-morrow in order to keep to the time fixed upon,” he writes to Bunsen, on February 18, 1841; “but it is not possible for me to finish yet. I need at least two days more to complete all that is of most importance. I go to the museum at half-past eight; they are not up there before that; I stay there the whole day, except from four till quarter of five, my meal-time; from the table I go back again and work until ten or half-past ten o’clock. I cannot work at the great papyrus by candlelight, for fear of injuring something, but then, I have the finest things to look over to select for copying, all of which I had not found when I was here first.” Altogether, he now perceived that during his former visit much had been intentionally withheld from him; this time everything was entrusted to him, and he made the most profitable use, for his chronological purposes especially, of the large “Papyrus of the Kings.” He had busts cast in plaster, from the finest images of the Pharaohs, for the Berlin museum, and amongst the treasures of Turin the idea occurred to him of publishing the most important records of the time of the Pharaohs as a separate work. This accordingly appeared in 1842.[40]

He employed the draughtsmen Weidenbach before mentioned, on this work and on the edition of the “Book of the Dead,” and he expressed to Bunsen his delight over the great progress made by these artists on the path which he had indicated to them.

On his way home he visited Bunsen in Bern, spent several happy days in the circle of the ambassador’s family, and then tarried for some time in Munich, where v. Zech was his “cicerone,” and where he established relations with Cornelius and other men of celebrity. He enjoyed the most frequent and agreeable intercourse with Schelling, of whom he says “his nature is as great as it is lovely.” The latter had just accepted a call to Berlin, (at first for one year only) and Lepsius says he was going thither with great hopes of success and of exercising a salutary influence. “He is convinced beforehand of the victory of his good cause, since it is not a question of bare negation and opposition, such as he reproaches Stahl with, (who only filched from him), but he has something to advance which is new and positive, and will make a place for itself. He must either be refuted, or he must convince and prevail. As, according to his firm conviction, he cannot be refuted, the latter must take place. Besides the foregoing alternatives, it is true that another occurred to me, but about that I naturally kept silence. Good fortune to him!”

Refreshed and satisfied with the results of this journey he devoted himself at home with all his energy to the editing of the Umbrian and Oscan inscriptions[41] which he had collected in Rome.

In the following year two more of the fruits of his Italian labors came to maturity,[42] and were received with universal commendation.

One sees with what bee-like industry he made use of this time of waiting. This was duly recognized, for before he set out on the Egyptian journey, he was appointed Professor Extraordinary at the University of Berlin, and thus the first chair of Egyptology was founded at that university. There was already a similar one at Leipsic, but the improper course adopted by Seyffarth, for whom it had been founded, gave little encouragement to other universities to extend support to Egyptologic studies. In this way it had happened that Lepsius’ proposition, that a professorship in the Berlin University should be conferred upon him, had been rejected; but Humboldt had recognized the qualifications of the applicant, and in 1841, as soon as he returned home from a protracted stay in Paris, he interested himself in the matter. As usual, he carried through what he desired, and on the twenty-sixth of January, 1842, Lepsius received the appointment as Professor Extraordinary of Egyptology, and in addition, the grant of a small salary. It is true that the newly appointed Professor could not begin to lecture; for the completion and publication of the works mentioned above claimed much of his time, and the preparations for the Egyptian journey still more.

Frederick William IV., of Prussia, was a monarch whose unpractical, romantic disposition took the greatest delight, not only in the luxuriant, many-colored, fragrant bloom of Indian civilization, but also in the mysterious and immemorial magic of the Egyptian. He had given willing audience to Humboldt and to Bunsen. The ambassador had been exchanged from Bern to London in 1841, especially in order that he might carry out the wishes of his master regarding the evangelical episcopate in Jerusalem. Both these men were in particularly close relation with the king, and on this account they were more likely than any others to succeed in winning the monarch over to Lepsius’ project of travelling.

Already, as Crown Prince, the King had acquired the Passalacqua collection of Egyptian antiquities, as well as negotiated for the purchase of other similar collections.[43] He had taken pains to place this treasure in the Monbijou palace at Berlin, and entrusted the care of it to Passalacqua. In his youth the scientific event of the deciphering of hieroglyphics had excited his special attention, and Bunsen, who had long been in close relations with him, both as a man and as his most eminent statesman, had been assiduous in preserving his interest in Egyptian antiquity. He had kept the monarch informed as to the progress of Egyptology, before his own protégé had even thought of undertaking a voyage on the Nile.

Humboldt now joined with Bunsen to induce the king to bestow his powerful support upon the young Prussian, who, even at that time, might be considered the most worthy of Champollion’s successors.

Lepsius had his plans to make; Humboldt talked over each separate point with him in the most careful manner, and thus there ripened in them both the wish, to transform the journey of a single scholar into a scientific expedition. Lepsius must of course keep the leadership, and there was also committed to him the choice of those persons to be especially employed in carrying out his own purposes. But he had to consult with Humboldt on the greater or less fitness and necessity for the appointment of the corps of assistants who were to be taken, as well as on the capabilities of each single member of the expedition. He had to submit to him exact estimates, both in writing and by word of mouth, in regard to the prospective expenses and the time to be consumed, as well as of all that he hoped to gain, and the collections which he expected to make on the way, before Humboldt would undertake to present to the king the “memorial” which had been drawn up for the purpose, and to influence him to the final decision.

Lepsius had designated, as one of the principal objects of his journey, the collection of beautiful and interesting monuments of the time of the Pharaohs, to be added as a new embellishment to the Egyptian museum in the palace of Monbijou at Berlin. This purpose of the expedition, which Humboldt knew how to dilate upon, won the entire approbation of the King, and accordingly he approved the contents of the “memorial” which had been presented to him, endowed the expedition with abundant pecuniary resources, and commended it, and especially its leader, by means of a warm autograph letter, to the great Muhamed ‘Ali, who at that time ruled over the valley of the Nile with a strong hand. He also bestowed upon the travellers superb vases, from the porcelain manufactory at Berlin, as a gift for Muhamed ‘Ali, in order to lay the viceroy himself under an obligation and to secure for the expedition the favor of that monarch.

Everything was now ready for the departure, but before Lepsius started he had to set his affairs in order. Several undertakings had been brought to a successful issue, and all the most important preparatory work was finished for the book which he and Bunsen were to publish in concert. Yet it was this very enterprise which filled him with the greatest solicitude. Frankly and honorably he disclosed to his revered patron everything that disturbed him, in the admirable letter in which he tried to induce Bunsen, to absolve him from co-operation in the work which they had planned. The differences of opinion between them had become more and more sharply defined, and the elder scholar had been as little able to convince the younger, as the younger to convince him. It seemed to Lepsius impossible to present side by side two different opinions in a work which must yet pretend to unity of thought. He justly attributed to Bunsen the most magnificent ability for the handling of great historical problems; but considering his wide command of this field, and that in chronology also he was able to pursue his way independently, Lepsius regarded his own intervention as a mistake, both practically and essentially. He was indeed most disturbed by the circumstance that no one would be in a position to distinguish between his and Bunsen’s work, whence they must both be subjected to erroneous criticisms. He, Lepsius, wished to reserve his manuscript till the completion of his travels; Bunsen would soon be able to send his work to press. He besought the latter not to wait till his own return from the journey, but to proceed independently without delay, and to use as entirely his own, all the material regarding which they had come to an agreement. To put it off would only be to renew the old doubts, and to begin afresh the conflict which had been once waged without result. He would be ready and glad (and this promise he fulfilled), to make an abstract for him of all the names of kings written in hieroglyphics, and prepare them for the press.

Thus, in the work entitled “Egypt’s Place in Universal History,” the first volume of which was published in 1845, before Lepsius’ return from Egypt, the whole historical statement, which takes the loftiest point of view and is rich in novel and suggestive ideas, is entirely Bunsen’s own work. His young friend only placed at his disposal much historical and chronological information, which he had happened upon in the course of his researches among the monuments.

It is unquestionable that if the fellow-laborers had adhered to their original plan, and had not separated, Bunsen’s work would have gained a more stable foundation and assumed a much calmer and more succinct shape than it actually had. The stream of Bunsen’s eloquence, which was often too glittering and too diffuse, would have been confined within bounds by the conciseness and severity of Lepsius. His aspirations after grandeur and breath, would have been kept down to earth by Lepsius’ fidelity and care for the smallest detail.

The candor of the letter in which Lepsius abandons the enterprise, and the manner in which Bunsen took the withdrawal of his protégé, do them both the highest honor, and this incident never in the least disturbed the friendly relation between them.[44] Lepsius, when he could finally leave Berlin, went by way of London, was received there in the most affectionate manner by Bunsen, and accompanied by him to Southampton, where on the first of September, 1842, the young Egyptologist embarked for Alexandria. Together they had thoroughly talked over all that might be attained and all that might be gained, before the steamship weighed anchor.

THE PRUSSIAN EXPEDITION TO EGYPT, UNDER THE DIRECTION OF LEPSIUS.

On the eighteenth of September, 1842, after a stormy passage through the Bay of Biscay and a short stay in Gibraltar and Malta, Lepsius, who was proof against sea-sickness, and had been perfectly well throughout the voyage, first set his foot upon Egyptian soil at Alexandria.

The choice of his companions had been fortunate, and answered perfectly to the needs of the expedition. We will first mention Erbkam, an excellently trained young architect, distantly related to Lepsius, who was to make surveys, and draw maps and sketches. He showed himself so entirely equal to the task that the architectural and topographical drawings executed by him under the direction of Lepsius have long been acknowledged to be model productions and faultlessly correct.[45] We have already said all that is necessary of Lepsius’ Naumberg fellow-countrymen, the brothers Weidenbach, and their work as hierogrammatists. Lepsius had made the acquaintance of the painter Frey, from Basle, when in Rome. In the book on monuments, which will be described hereafter, many of the beautiful colored landscapes and architectural pictures from lower Egypt are by him; others are by the Dresden painter, George, a jovial and talented artist, who joined the expedition after Frey had become seriously ill, and been sent home.

The moulder, Franke, at first rendered excellent service by making casts of such monuments as could not be brought away, and by preparing the many thousands of paper impressions which it was necessary to take of the inscriptions and bas reliefs. But subsequently he had to be dismissed and sent home on account of inadmissible conduct.

The expedition was also accompanied by H. Abeken of Osnabrück, who had been with Bunsen, first at Rome and then at London, as chaplain of the Prussian Embassy. He had made the acquaintance of the leader of the expedition on the Tiber, and was closely associated with him during the remainder of his life. Under the guidance of Lepsius he occupied himself with Egyptological studies, even after he had relinquished theology and entered the diplomatic service. This is the same Abeken, diplomatic Privy Counsellor and Acting Counsellor, who afterwards accompanied Prince Bismarck to France during the war of 1870-1, and proved of great service there. On the tenth of December, 1842, he joined the expedition in which he served incidentally as chaplain. He was the most agreeable companion to Lepsius, “with his invariably cheerful temper,” and his “witty and learned conversation.”[46]

With these Germans were associated two Englishmen. The first was the sculptor Bonomi, who at that time had already won celebrity as a traveler in Egypt and Ethiopia, and of whom Lepsius himself said: “he is not only full of practical knowledge about the life there, but he is also a connoisseur in Egyptian art, and a master of Egyptian drawing.”[47] The second was the young and “genial” architect Wild, who was of great assistance to Erbkam.

The leader of the expedition had himself scarcely passed his thirty-first year, and was so young and vigorous, that when he desired to hire a kavass, that is, a Turkish constable, to superintend the servants, the intercourse with the authorities, etc., he wrote home: “In Europe I should have felt more than sufficient confidence in my own ability to manage the entire practical conduct of the expedition.” He had, besides, sovereign command of the most thorough scholarship in all those departments wherein the expedition was intended to add to existing knowledge.

He had garnered the whole harvest to be reaped in Europe from every field of Egyptian archaeology, and all that could be gathered anew from the banks of the Nile only needed to be stored in the receptacles which, already set apart and half-filled, stood ready for the expected gains.

The conditions under which he traveled, and studied the localities of the monuments, were such as to fill us later investigators with envy. For in 1842, there was no museum of Boulak, which now lawfully claims all antiquities from Egyptian soil as soon as they are brought to the light of day. At that time there existed only the first beginnings of a collection of Egyptian monuments, and these had no supervisor nor director.

The subsisting law against the exportation of antiquities was set aside in favor of Lepsius, compulsory labor was not yet abolished, and Muhamed ‘Ali, who governed in his viceroyalty with the irresponsible power of an absolute despot, wished to extend every assistance to the expedition. He caused a firman to be issued for Lepsius, which gave him unconditional permission to make any excavations which he might consider desirable. All the local authorities were charged to assist him in his undertakings, and Lepsius said that by means of the kavasses who had been assigned to him by the government, and on the strength of the firman, they obtained from the sheiks of the nearest villages and the mudirs of the provinces all the workmen and appliances needed for making and transporting his collection of antiquities. The necessary payments had of course to be made, but they never met with a refusal. At Fayoum, for instance, he employed a hundred and eight workmen in the excavation of the building which he considered to be the Labyrinth. Each man received two copper piasters a day (about twenty pfennige) and each child ten pfennige, or, if it was very industrious, fifteen pfennige, a day. Besides this some bread was given them. Under such conditions great things may be accomplished with comparatively small means.

Nowadays it is only under exceptional circumstances, and within carefully prescribed limits, that a European is permitted to make excavations. The laborers ask quite a high price,—in Thebes I had to pay each man six full piasters (one mark, twenty pfennige)—and, if one disinters any monuments, even under the most favorable circumstances, only such single specimens are permitted to leave the country as the vice-regal museum is already rich in. Lepsius was more fortunately situated. The monuments which he found in Ethiopia and wished to add to his collection were brought from Mount Barcal to Alexandria on government vessels, and to these were also added three tombs, from the neighborhood of the pyramids of Ghizeh, which had been carefully taken to pieces with the help of four workmen sent expressly for the purpose from Berlin. On his departure from Egypt he received a special written permit for the removal of the collection, and the objects obtained were themselves presented to King Frederick William IV. of Prussia, by Muhamed ‘Ali.

With full authority to take possession of all that might embellish the Berlin collection, Lepsius appropriated what was most desirable and most interesting wherever he found it, and ventured, as we have seen, to remove whole tombs from the necropolis of ancient Memphis to the Spree. This could not be done without injury to the adjoining tombs, as they had consisted of a number of rooms collectively, and envy, ill-will and stupidity were quickly at hand to accuse the Prussian expedition of having, like impious Vandals, plundered and injured the monuments in pursuit of their own purposes. But this accusation was entirely unfounded, and any one who knows the condition of Egypt at that time can only rejoice that so many treasures, which were neglected and exposed to wanton destruction in their native country, were at a favorable moment removed to Europe and preserved in a fine public museum.

No farther assurance is needed that Lepsius and his companions neither laid hands upon nor destroyed a single stone unnecessarily, but it will be expedient to mention here that since the French expedition and the completion of the great work on monuments prepared by it, a series of ancient edifices portrayed therein have vanished from the earth.

Between our first and second visit to the Nile an interesting little temple at Erment had been turned into a sugar factory, and in the same space of time the fine remains of a Grecian portico of white marble, which had adorned the old Bes-Antinoopolis, had found their way to the lime-kiln. This could occur at a time when the monuments were lovingly and jealously guarded by the vigilant eye of Mariette, and hence it is easy to conjecture what dangers threatened them as long as they were left entirely at the mercy of every encroachment of the fellahin.

In a letter from the necropolis of Memphis, long before the above-mentioned accusations were brought against him, Lepsius wrote: “It is really shocking to see how every day whole trains of camels come here from the neighboring villages, and march back again in long files, laden with building stones. Fortunately,—for everything is fortunate under some circumstances,—the lazy fellahin are more attracted by the Psamatik tombs than by those of the oldest dynasties, whose big blocks are too unwieldly for them.”

Therefore we may confidently designate the removal to Berlin, just at that time, of the three tombs from Memphis and the other monuments, as an act of protection. Only the pillar which Lepsius removed from the perfectly preserved tomb of Seti I. at Thebes, should have been left in its place.

The travellers, filled with enthusiasm for their task, had a long and difficult journey to take in the course of their investigations and search for spoils. It led them all, by ships, upon the backs of camels, and on foot, with many delays and digressions, into the heart of the African continent, as far as Khartoum at the junction of the two sources of the Nile. Then, alone except for the company of Abeken, Lepsius sailed on up the Blue River as far as the village of Romali, between Sennar, the celebrated ancient capital of the Sudan, which he visited, and Fazokl.

The last letter from our wayfarer is dated from Smyrna, and was written on the seventh of December, 1845, much more than three years after his arrival at Alexandria. From the very first, a long period of traveling had been contemplated, and the leader had taken pains to establish his own position with regard to the whole party, and the rights and duties of each individual member of it, as well as to provide for “suitable intellectual diet.” The commanding nature of his distinguished and imposing personality had, if we except the excesses of the moulder Franke, obviated throughout the whole time any illegitimate opposition to, or rebellion against, his position as chief. How justly, kindly and wisely this was maintained may best be shown by the friendship and attachment manifested towards him till death by Abeken, Erbkam, the Weidenbachs, and all the other members of the expedition, with the exception of Franke.

And this is no light matter, for nowhere do disagreements of every kind occur more readily than among a small party, who, separated from their native civilization, have to endure, in addition to many deprivations, the burden of an enervating climate; and who, tormented by discomforts, fatigue, and homesickness, yield only too easily to gloomy and discontented moods, beneath whose spell it is hard to be just and to submit cheerfully to the will of another. Lepsius himself says that from the beginning he tried to diversify the life of his party, and especially the irksome and very monotonous work of his artists, not only by the weekly holiday of Sunday, but also, as often as an opportunity offered, by cheerful merry-makings and pleasant diversions.

One must himself have lived and worked in the Orient, far from the bustle of cities, to appreciate what it is to pass on from days to weeks and from weeks to months as on a monotonous road without stopping-places. In such a place and at such times one feels the blessing of our Sunday holiday, and Lepsius’ fellow-travellers would certainly have fallen a prey to fatigue and disgust during their long period of traveling and working together, if their chief had not observed the feasts and holidays peculiar to their own country, and had not kindly and judiciously taken account of their spiritual needs. One of the most beautiful memories of our own life is that of the moment when, after many months of wandering through Moslem lands, we unexpectedly heard a church bell ring on Christmas day. It was long, long since we had listened to the sound, and for the first time we fully appreciated its elevating loveliness, when standing in front of the little Protestant church in Upper Egypt from whose modest tower it resounded.

Like a thirsty man after a cool drink, we returned to our labors with fresh pleasure and fresh enthusiasm. The Sunday holiday of the Prussian expedition not only recompensed and blessed them with the necessary rest, but kept them in communion with the life of their dear ones at home.

It would exceed the limits prescribed for this biography if we should follow from spot to spot the travels, excavations, researches and collections of the party led by Lepsius. He has himself relieved us of this very tempting task, for his “Letters from Egypt, Ethiopia and the Peninsula of Sinai,”[48] is a book which can and should be read with pleasure and profit even by the general reader. It is by no means confined to the results of his scientific investigations, but makes the reader familiar also with the personal experiences of the author, and is distinguished by a clear, concise, vivid and often charming style. It is in many respects a book of importance for his fellow laborers in the same department, since it places them in living contact with the sources whence sprang many of the most important discoveries and works of the author.

During his long stay at the necropolis of Memphis he succeeded in elucidating the details of the history of the “Old Empire.” The intuition by which he separated the twelfth dynasty from the eighteenth,[49] assigned its correct place to the incursion of the Hyksos, and even anticipated all that afterwards received documentary corroboration by Dümichen’s discovery of the great Tablet of the Kings at Abydos, will ever remain an intellectual feat worthy of admiration.

From Memphis he undertook, with the assistance of Erbkam’s technical knowledge, to investigate the architectural system employed in the construction of the pyramids. The results were recorded, even before the close of the journey, in a dissertation in which the subject was treated in the most fundamental manner.[50] These conclusions have been maintained against all attacks, and even against the attempt to modify them made by the excellent Perrot. In this work Lepsius confirms and explains the statement of Herodotus that the pyramids were completed from above downwards, and were built “in successive steps.” The work cited also contains a well considered and convincing answer to that other question which presents itself to the thoughtful observer of these remarkable monuments. As soon as a Pharaoh ascended the throne he began the construction of his mausoleum. It was at first of modest dimensions, since he erected, as a nucleus of the whole, a truncated pyramid with steep sides, and in doing so often took advantage of the natural rocks. When he was overtaken by death, the pinnacle was first placed upon this nucleus, and its inclined sides were then continued to the ground. If time and power were still left after the completion of the first nucleus and before the pinnacle was set on, the truncated pyramid was invested with a new outer layer in the form of steps, and so it was continued until a point was reached where each new addition constituted of itself a gigantic labor. Whenever the time came to bring the monument to completion it was always necessary first to set on the pinnacle; the steps lying nearest to it were then filled out, and finally those at the bottom. There are pyramids of all sizes, and what we have said explains how it came to pass that one king erected for himself a monument of prodigious dimensions, while another was contented with one much smaller; why we can only point to two unfinished pyramids, and how Cheops, the builder of the largest pyramid, found courage to undertake a work for the execution of which the average duration of a reign would in no wise suffice, while yet the completion of it could not be exacted of his successors, who would have their own mausoleums to provide for. Everything is made clear, if we assume with Lepsius that the size of the pyramid was regulated by the duration of its builder’s life, and that the latter had it in his power at any time to complete the work.

Lepsius believed that he had found the Labyrinth at Fayoum, and he was perhaps right in so thinking. But, even if this remarkable ancient building should be re-discovered on some other site of the old “lake country,” yet to Lepsius would still belong the credit of having determined the position of Lake Moeris, first indicated by Linant de Bellefonds, and of having proved that the Pharaoh Amenemha III., of the twelfth dynasty, was the Moeris of the Greeks.[51] He also was the first to investigate and make known all that was accomplished by this prince in regulating the inundation of the Nile.

We know that his researches in Egypt and Ethiopia extended even beyond the limits of the region of monuments. Within that zone he has, if we may be allowed the expression, left no corner unexplored. He met with the most abundant returns at Beni Hassan, Thebes, (especially upon the return journey) Gebel Silsile, the island of Philae, Abu Simbel on the second cataract, among the ruins of Ethiopian Meroë far in the South, and also on the peninsula of Sinai.

Within the bounds of the temple of Isis, on the lovely island beyond the first cataract, he made a succession of discoveries, upon which he afterwards based great and original works. He first found here an ecclesiastical ordinance,[52] similar to the decree of Rosetta, drawn up in two languages, that is in hieroglyphics, and also in the demotic (popular) writing and language. The numerous names of the Ptolemies, which occurred in the inscriptions of the temple of Isis, also impelled him to study more thoroughly the succession of the Egyptian kings of the house of the Lagidae and to determine finally the order of this series of rulers, of such great importance for the history of other countries.[53] Here, as everywhere, he paid special attention to the Greek inscriptions, which are very numerous on Philae. By his sagacity and quick insight great additions were made to the Egypto-Grecian inscriptions previously collected by Letronne and others. Those which had been previously known received manifold corrections and additions owing to the extreme accuracy peculiar to him. He afterwards devoted a special treatise to the hieroglyphic form of the name of the Ionians.[54]

On the return journey he was not able to stop for as long a time as he had desired in the well-preserved Ptolemaic temples of Denderah and Edfu. These are thickly covered with inscriptions, and therefore he left behind him at those places, for Dümichen, Mariette, Naville, Brugsch and other Egyptologists, not only rich gleanings, but really the greater part of the substantial work still to be accomplished. But his attention was especially attracted in Edfu by an inscription which was afterwards to be of great service to him. In it were recorded the possessions in landed property of this temple during the reign of Ptolemy XI. (Alexander I.)[55] The surface measures which occurred in it he was afterwards able to use to advantage in his studies on the linear and square measures of the ancient Egyptians.

After the expedition had passed the first cataract and entered the Nubian dominion the leader not only turned his attention to the remains of the temples there, which had as yet been examined in a very insufficient manner, but he also, with indefatigable industry, devoted himself to studying the languages of all the tribes on whose territories he touched. The description which he gives of the Nubian language, in a letter from Korusko, dated the thirtieth of November, 1843, presents with extreme conciseness the essential characteristics of this remarkable idiom. In his farther travels towards the south he afterwards investigated all the dialects of this same group of languages, and acquired such an excellent knowledge of it that he could venture, at a later date, to publish a translation of the Gospel according to St. Mark in Nubian.[56] In publishing this translation he made use of the standard alphabet which he had himself invented and which has been previously mentioned. Indeed it was on this account that he first began the difficult task of preparing the universal alphabet, which he was afterwards asked to extend to a great number of languages for various special purposes. During the journey he prepared a grammar and dictionary of three dialects; the Nuba language spoken by the Nuba or Berber tribe, the Kungara language of the negroes of Dar-Fur, and the Béga language of the Bischarin inhabiting the eastern Sudan. This he did so perfectly that he himself hoped that the publication of these works would at least afford a clear idea of the languages mentioned. After his return home he continued to pursue these studies unremittingly, and thus obtained that profound insight into all the idioms of the African continent, which gives its great and permanent importance to his last long work, the Nubian Grammar, to which we shall again refer. Lepsius at first devoted himself with special ardor to the study of those languages which in his own day still flourished on the domain of the ancient Ethiopians, because he cherished a firm hope of finding in them the key, by which to decipher the popular writing of the Ethiopians, many examples of which he had discovered on the site of ancient Meroë. This writing is intended to be read from right to left, and the words are always separated by two points. But its significance is unsolved up to the present time. In deciphering the demotic-Ethiopian inscriptions little assistance is to be looked for from the Ethiopian-hieroglyphic as, whatever strange variations these may contain, they correspond almost entirely to the Egyptian, in form as well as in the language which underlies them. Like our own Latin inscriptions, they are composed in the writing and language of an alien people. As we shall see, Lepsius afterwards became convinced that the key to the Ethiopian-demotic inscriptions of which we speak was not to be sought in the Nubian, but in the Cushite Bischariba language.

On the domain of ancient Meroë everything was still to be done, for Cailliaud, through whom the monuments there had first become known, had seen and described them without technical knowledge of the subject. It was, therefore, reserved for Lepsius to dissipate, once for all, the popular conjectures of a “splendid primeval Meroë,” whose inhabitants had been the predecessors of the Egyptians and their instructors in civilization. He proved that all the native monuments which had been preserved there dated from a relatively late period, which should not be fixed before the time of the Ethiopian Pharaohs of the twenty-fifth dynasty. The majority, he considered, could be assigned to a much later period and had scarcely originated previous to the first century before Christ. The little to be found dating from an earlier age owed its existence to the Pharaohs and their artists.