the Egyptian language: and "surely," says he, "it would provide us with a key for the comprehension of hieroglyphical writing." The reader, who is only slightly acquainted with both languages, must see at what a low state the knowledge of the Egyptian was in the time of the reverend writer, who intended to develope such ideas in a great work to be called Lingua Ægyptiaca Restituta,* had not death preserved the literary world from his curious speculations. In the year 1716, Blumberg published a small Egyptian grammar, under the title of Fundamenta Lingua Coptica, and intended to have given a lexicon, had not death prevented its completion. A large collection of Egyptian books and manuscripts have been deposited in the King's Library at Paris. Louis Picque, doctor of Sorbonne, devoted himself with considerable ardour to this great pursuit, and was the first who found that there were different provincial dialects. "To him," says the learned M. Quatremère, we owe some ingenious etymologies of Joseph's name:" "Ce nom, que les septante écrivent ou parx, est composé, suivant Picques, des mots Coptes ПCOтpeñez, salus mundi (v. Commerc. litterar. p. 296.; it. Lettre à Jacquelot, dans la vie de Lacroze, p. 290 et 298.) Cette étymologie, qui a été également proposée par Jablonski (Glossar. Egyptiac. ed. Te Water, p. 213; it ap. Michaelis, Supplem. ad Lexica Hebraïca, p. 2129), me parait la seule véritable, et vaut beaucoup mieux que toutes celles qui ont été indiquées par différens savans, et même par le P. Bonjour, et par le savant M. Forster (de Bysso Antiquorum, p. 101 et suiv.)" This is the testimony of M. Quatremère, in his Recherches sur l'Egypte, p. 16, which was published so late as 1808, and I know no work which gives a further illustration of that name; but, with great deference to all my predecessors, I fearlessly assert, that it had a very different meaning in the mind of Pharaoh. I read the name as it is in Hebrew, NiYD NIDY. According to the Bible, Joseph saved the lives of the Egyptians; for they said ", thou hast kept us alive.' Now the words ny NIDY put into hieroglyphics will stand thus: Below the Hieroglyphics I have put the Coptic characters, and under the Picquesii Commerc. litterar. p. 300. Blumberg. Fundamenta ling. Copt. p. 30. Tromler. Specimen Biblioth. Copt. Jacob. p. 17 & 24. Leibnitil Opera t. v. p. 494; t. vi. part 11. p. 130, 136, 140, 193. latter, the characters of the same value in the Hebrew; so that the Egyptian, after reading the Hieroglyphics, and the Israelite, after reading the Hebrew, would by the same sound convey the same idea to all those who understood his language. To thee shall * לך יובילו מלכים שי,is in Hebrew a present שי CI kings bring presents:' hence in the Egyptian language I, 'to receive,' 'a child,' particularly a son, being considered a present from God. When Joseph interpreted the first dream of Pharaoh, he said, What God is about to do, he has made known • אלהים עושה הגיד לפרעה הוא הדבר אשר דברתי אל פרעה,to Pharaoh ; then he repeated it, saying This is the thing which I have אשר האלהים עשה הגיד לפרעה spoken, what this God (which I mentioned before) is about to do, he ועל השנות החלום אל,shewed unto Pharaoh. He said it a third time It is because ) פרעה פעמים כי נכון הדבר מעם אלהים וממהר לעשותו the thing is established by God, and God will shortly fulfil it.' It is thus emphatically proved, that Pharaoh must have entirely imbibed the words of Joseph, and spoken with a similar expression to his ministers, who were as this? a man in whom the spirit of God is?' The same expression he Can we find such a one הנמצא כזה איש אשר רוח אלהים בו : with him ,אחרי הודיע אלהים אותך את כל זאת,made use of in speaking with Joseph 'As it is, according to thy saying;' which is expressed by the word nx, 'that God acquainted thee with all that; there is none so wise and disereet as thou.' He told him what his future situation would be, and called him SON OF THE GOD OF LIFE. I hope the learned will not object that, in the Egyptian, it is C instead of, as that is a case which occurs an hundred times in the language. Пn denotes the article. The reader, who is anxious to know what relation the Egyptian article has with the Hebrew word, may refer to p. 171, where it is treated of exclusively. 9 " is an abreviation of nortр, and is exactly the Hebrew נוטר word they made me watcher * שמוני נוטרה לכרמים ,a watcher of the vineyards' (Song of S. 1, v. 6.); the source of all nature's power is the most watchful eye, God. here is the article repeated instead of the genitive sign; that cannot be so often met with in a language in which the writer did not care much about the additional affixes or suffixes: he only put down the principal idea, and surrounded it by signs for numbers and genders, according to convenience. wng or Єng N, in Hebrew, denotes to sigh,' or 'to breathe; hence to live' or the life.' Let us now return to the merits of Picques. He made a great many corrections in the Lexicon of Kircher, which was seen by Seebisch, at the Dominicans of Rue St. Honoré, Paris.* In the year 1716, the Abbé Renaudot published a collection of oriental liturgies,† three of them (S. Basil, S. Gregory, S. Cyrill) have been translated from the Coptic; to that translation was added a commentary and many dissertations; the title of one is De Copticarum Alexandrianorum Liturgiis. Clodius also took up the study of that language, and is said (by himself) to have corrected a great many mistakes of Kircher.‡ By the toil of these learned men the Egyptian language did not make any progress; their successors were still obliged to undergo immense labour, by studying without lexicons or any other guide which might have assisted them. If, therefore, we do not find amongst them a perfect treatise on the etymology of that language, or on its origin, we must not be surprised. But even among all the bright stars, such as Wilkins, Lacroze, Jablonski, Raphael Tuki, M. Scholtz, Woide, the Cardinal Borgio in Rom., P. Georgi, M. T. Bernard de Rossi, Thomas Valperga, the Baron Sylvestre de Sacy, M. Schow, Tattam, Peyron, &c., some of whom provided us with good grammars and lexicons, others with translations, so that we might say the Egyptian language was well known to them, still we only discover slight traces of their etymological investigations. The learned Quatremère, who gives a full description of all the authors, and whom I have followed in the preceding pages, says in his Recherches sur l Egypt, p. 16: * Thesaurus epistolicus, Lacroz, t. I. p. 82. + Liturgiar. Oriental collectio. Parisiis, 1716, 2 vols. in 4to, "La langue Egyptienne est une langue mere, qui n'a de rapport avec aucune autre, ainsi qu'il est aisé de s'en convaincre. L'Abbé Renaudot (Dissertat. de Ling Copt. p. cxvi.) avoit déja réconnu que le copte n'avoit aucun rapport avec l'hebreu ni avec ses dialectes. Ceux qui, comme Blumberg (Fundament. I ing. Copt. p. 17 et suiv.), l'Abbé Barthélémy (Académie des Inscriptions, tome xxxii. p. 222 et suiv), le P. Georgi (Fragm, Evangel. S. Johan. p. xlii. et xliii; it. p. 298, 299, 320, 336, 446) ont cru y trouver de l'analogie avec l'hebreu, n'ont pu apporter pour preuve qu'un petit nombre de mots, dont la rassemblance peut être attribuée au hazard.” I have therefore considered it a most important task to investigate that branch of Egyptian etymology. I know that etymology is a dangerous field for enquiry, as a great many are misled even by etymologyzing their own mother tongue, much more easy is it to be misled in a language so old as that which we now treat of, and which has been for so many thousand years almost forgotten. My discovery has not been accidental, nor have I been indebted to the similarity between the Egyptian and another powerful language. I investigated the nature of each word, divided it into monosyllables, compared it according to the sound which it might have had in its original writing, compared the same word to another of the same contents, so that it sometimes required an hour or two for acquiring the real etymology of that word. True grammatical traces were my chief stimulants to pursue a study in which I had such difficulties to encounter. 1 now beg the reader's kind attention to the grammatical consideration of the language. Before proceeding to the analysis of the Article, I think it necessary to acquaint the reader, that my intention was not at all to follow the traces of some grammarians (who described the Article first, for its necessary precedence of the noun, which they thought the basis of the language), as I am of quite a different opinion, for a most important reason, which I shall explain in the following investigation of the Article: The Egyptian Article is expressed by the monosyllable П. П, which has a striking similarity to the Hebrew word here,' or 'this here.' By examining its different significations, we shall easily discover the reason why it has been named thus. Let us suppose a person surrounded by a people to whom his language. would be unintelligible, and he still wishing to point out a certain thing which he might have a desire for, he would be obliged to communicate his wish by signs, to shew with his finger, П,' here,'' this here' (I am desiring); but as it might happen that those who were with him were not just looking at him, he then, to attract their attention, would be obliged to accompany his signs with a natural sound, brought forth solely by his breath, which is the sound of an aspirated h, and passing through the pressure of his lips, would produce the sound of a p D, Ì (D). .(פה) It would thus be evident, that the Hebrew word 'mouth,' is composed of two sounds; one the , signifying the breath,' and the other 6 6 the Dp, signifying lips,' and the whole word, being the first natural production of the mouth, denotes it, 'mouth.' The expression of the word here is also given by that word n, only with a difference in its diacritical points, which, in etymological researches, is of very little consequence, as it only requires to make use of such a sound when we would attract the hearer's attention to that spot, here. Consequently, the Egyptian article П or as, the,' or this,' the demonstrative pronoun, is exactly the Hebrew word n' this,' or 'that.' There is another discovery, which may be considered as not unimportant. Grammarians have always been inclined to derive the Hebrew article, with a dagesh in the next character, from the Arabic J, but I cannot perceive any necessity for it; as soon as it is evident that the aspirated sound has been the original one for expressing the word this, why should we not rather think that the Hebrew, with a dagesh in the following letter, is of the very same nature? The dagesh might as well replace the aspirate sound of another h, as it does according to the grammarians for a J. I cannot therefore agree with any grammarian who should consider either the noun or the verb as the original basis of language. I should think there has always been the greatest necessity to shew what we were desiring; hence the article the, or the demonstrative pronoun this, has been the true basis of all languages. The Article, feminine gender, is expressed by ; T, e, †, the very character corresponding to the Hebrew, forms the feminine gender, like, by the addition of the .c& כושית, כושי, נכרית,T or n, becomes feminine The feminine article is also used in Egyptian, in the same way, to change the masculine into feminine as in the Hebrew; for instance: Hierogl.↓ In Hierogl. or in Hierat. or in Hierat. TCWNE denotes a sister,' Thus it is evident that corta brother,' becomes feminine, denoting a sister, by adding a T. TCorte, just as in Hebrew Na brother,' by the addition of a ʼn becomes in a sister.' The T, or л, also signifies the feminine gender in the future tense, similar to the termination of all the masculine nouns D. The permutation of |