Last of all, the water purifies, or unites itself; contented enough if it only reach the form of a dewdrop; but, if we insist on its proceeding to a more perfect consistence, it crystallizes into the shape of a star. And, for the ounce of slime which we had by political economy of competition, we have, by political economy of co-operation, a sapphire, an opal, and a diamond, set in the midst of a star of snow.'

L. I have asked you to hear that, children, because, from all that we have seen in the work and play of these past days, I would have you gain at least one grave and enduring thought. The seeming trouble,the unquestionable degradation,-of the elements of the physical earth, must passively wait the appointed time of their repose, or their restoration. It can only be brought about for them by the agency of external law. But if, indeed, there be a nobler life in us than in these strangely moving atoms ;—if, indeed, there is an external difference between the fire which inhabits them, and that which animates us,-it must be shown, by each of us in his appointed place, not merely in the patience, but in the activity of our hope; not merely by our desire, but our labor, for the time when the Dust of the generations of men shall be confirmed for foundations of the gates of the city of God. The human clay, now trampled and despised, will not be,cannot be,-knit into strength and light by accident or ordinances of unassisted fate. By human cruelty and iniquity it has been afflicted;-by human mercy and justice it must raised; and, in all fear or questioning of what is or is not, the real message of creation, or of revelation, you may assuredly find perfect peace, if you are resolved to do that which your Lord has plainly required, and content that He should indeed require no more of you, than to do Justice, to love Mercy, and to walk humbly with Him.

NOTES.

NOTE I., page 23.-'That third pyramid of hers.'

THROUGHOUT the dialogues, it must be observed that Sibyl is addressed (when in play), as having once been the Cumaan Sibyl; and 'Egypt' as having been queen Nitocris, the Cinderella, and the greatest heroine and beauty' of Egyptian story. The Egyptians called her 'Neith the Victorious' (Nitocris) and the Greeks 'Face of the Rose' (Rhodope). Chaucer's beautiful conception of Cleopatra in the 'Legend of Good Women,' is much more founded on the traditions of her than on those of Cleopatra; and, especially in its close, modified by Herodotus's terrible story of the death of Nitocris, which, however, is mythologically nothing more than a part of the deep monotonous ancient dirge for the fulfilment of the earthly destiny of Beauty; 'She cast herself into a chamber full of ashes.'

I believe this Queen is now sufficiently ascertained to have either built, or increased to double its former size, the third pyramid of Gizeh: and the passage following in the text refers to an imaginary endeavor, by the Old Lecturer and the children together, to make out the description of that pyramid in the 167th page of the second volume of Bunsen's 'Egypt's Place in Universal History'—ideal endeavor, which ideally terminates as the Old Lecturer's real endeavors to the same end always have terminated. There are, however, valuable notes respecting Nitocris at page 210 of the same volume: but the 'Early Egyptian History for the Young,' by the author of Sidney Gray, contains, in a pleasant form, as much information as young readers will usually need.

NOTE II., page 24.- Pyramid of Asychis.

THIS pyramid, in mythology, divides with the Tower of Babel the shame, or vain glory, of being presumptuously,

and first among great edifices, built with 'brick for stone.'
This was the inscription on it, according to Herodotus :-

'Despise me not, in comparing me with the pyramids
of stone; for I have the pre-eminence over them, as
far as Jupiter has pre-eminence over the gods.
For, striking with staves into the pool, men gath-
ered the clay which fastened itself to the staff, and
kneaded bricks out of it, and so made me.'

The word I have translated 'kneaded' is literally 'drew;' in the sense of drawing, for which the Latins used, 'duco;' and thus gave us our 'ductile' in speaking of dead clay, and Duke, Doge, or leader, in speaking of living clay. As the asserted pre-eminence of the edifice is made, in this inscription, to rest merely on the quantity of labor consumed in it, this pyramid is considered, in the text, as the type, at once, of the base building, and of the lost labor, of future ages; so far at least as the spirits of measured and mechanical effort deal with it: but Neith, exercising her power upon it, makes it a type of the work of wise and inspired builders.

NOTE III., page 25.- The Greater Pthah!'

It is impossible, as yet, to define with distinctness the personal agencies of the Egyptian deities. They are continually associated in function, or hold derivative powers, or are related to each other in mysterious triads; uniting always symbolism of physical phenomena with real spiritual power. I have endeavored partly to explain this in the text of the tenth Lecture; here, it is only necessary for the reader to know that the Greater Pthah more or less represents the formative power of order and measurement: he always stands on a four-square pedestal, 'the Egyptian cubit, metaphorically used as the hieroglyphic for truth;' his limbs are bound together, to signify fixed stability, as of a pillar; he has a measuring-rod in his hand; and at Philæ, is represented as holding an egg on a potter's wheel; but I do not know if this symbol occurs in older sculptures. His usual title is the Lord of Truth.' Others very beautiful: King of the Two Worlds, of Gracious Countenance, Superintendent of the Great Abode,' etc., are given by Mr. Birch in Arundale's Gallery of Antiquities,'

6

which I suppose is the book of best authority easily acces sible. For the full titles and utterances of the gods, Rosellini is as yet the only-and I believe, still a very questionable-authority; and Arundale's little book, excellent in the text, has this great defect, that its drawings give the statues invariably a ludicrous or ignoble character. Readers who have not access to the originals must be warned against this frequent fault in modern illustration (especially existing also in some of the painted casts of Gothic and Norman work at the Crystal Palace). It is not owing to any wilful want of veracity: the plates in Arundale's book are laboriously faithful: but the expressions of both face and body in a figure depend merely on emphasis of touch; and, in barbaric art, most draughtsmen emphasize what they plainly see--the barbarism; and miss conditions of nobleness, which they must approach the monument in a different temper before they will discover and draw with great subtlety before they can express.

The character of the Lower Pthah, or perhaps I ought rather to say, of Pthah in his lower office, is sufficiently explained in the text of the third Lecture; only the reader must be warned that the Egyptian symbolism of him oy the beetle was not a scornful one; it expressed only the idea of his presence in the first elements of life. But it may not unjustly be used, in another sense, by us, who have seen his power in new development; and, even as it was, I cannot conceive that the Egyptians should have regarded their beetle-headed image of him (Champollion, Pantheon,' pl. 12), without some occult scorn. It is the most painful of all their types of any beneficent power; and even among those of evil influences, none can be compared with it, except its opposite, the tortoise-headed demon of indolence.

Pasht (p. 24, line 4) is connected with the Greek Artemis, especially in her offices of judgment and vengeance. She is usually lioness-headed; sometimes cat-headed; her attributes seeming often trivial or ludicrous unless their full meaning is known; but the inquiry is much too wide to be followed here. The cat was sacred to her; or rather to the sun, and secondarily to her. She is alluded to in the text because she is always the companion of Pthah (called the 'beloved of Pthah,' it may be as Judgment, demanded and longed for by Truth); and it may be well for young readers to have this fixed in their minds, even by chance association. There are more statues of Pasht in

the British Museum than of any other Egyptian deity; sev eral of them fine in workmanship; nearly all in dark stone, which may be, presumably, to connect her, as the moon, with the night; and in her office of avenger, with grief.

Thoth (p. 26, line 34), is the Recording Angel of Judg. ment; and the Greek Hermes. Phre (line 21), is the Sun. Neith is the Egyptian spirit of divine wisdom; and the Athena of the Greeks. No sufficient statement of her many attributes, still less of their meanings, can be shortly given; but this should be noted respecting the veiling of the Egyptian image of her by vulture wings-that as she is, physically, the goddess of the air, this bird, the most pow erful creature of the air known to the Egyptians, naturally became her symbol. It had other significations; but cer tainly this, when in connection with Neith. As represent ing her, it was the most important sign, next to the winged sphere, in Egyptian sculpture; and, just as in Homer, Athena berself guides her heroes into battle, this symbol of wisdom, giving victory, floats over the heads of the Egyptian kings. The Greeks, representing the goddess herself in human form, yet would not lose the power of the Egyptian symbol, and changed it into an angel of victory. First seen in loveliness on the early coins of Syracuse and Leontium, it gradually became the received sign of all conquest, and the so-called 'Victory' of later times, which, little by little, loses its truth, and is accepted by the mod erns only as a personification of victory itself,—not as an actual picture of the living Angel who led to victory, There is a wide difference between these two conceptions, -all the difference between insincere poetry, and sincere religion. This I have also endeavored farther to illustrate in the tenth Lecture; there is however one part of Athena's character which it would have been irrelevant to dwell upon there; yet which I must not wholly leave unnoticed.

As the goddess of the air, she physically represents both its beneficent calm, and necessary tempest: other stormdeities (as Chrysaor and Æolus) being invested with a subordinate and more or less malignant function, which is exclusively their own, and is related to that of Athena as the power of Mars is related to hers in war. So also Virgil makes her able to wield the lightning herself, while Juno cannot, but must pray for the intervention of Æolus. She has precisely the correspondent moral authority over calmness of mind, and just anger. She soothes Achilles, as she incites Tydides; her physical power over the air being