for transcription scarcely less than the four sides of the great pyramid of Ghizza.

Without, however, entering into any enquiry concerning the value and extent of the recent discoveries of the late Dr. Young, to whom, I believe, the honour belongs, and through him to our country belongs, or M. Champollion, who has most happily followed the clew of which the Doctor found the first loose end for unwinding; without entering into any enquiry into these exceedingly curious but abstruse and complicated questions, the few following remarks are intended to refer solely to the antecedent use of hieroglyphics in Egypt, in the same manner as they have been or are used elsewhere, both in ancient and in modern times; namely, as symbols, not of letters, nor of words, but of things; each of which, though it had a general meaning, from which it probably was never dissociated, yet in its particular application might be employed as a pure mnemonic, and associated with any special idea of that class to which it belonged.

Hieroglyphics, in this respect, differed essentially from the systems of modern mnemonics, wherein the association of symbols with things to be remembered by them is not arbitrary, and therefore not capable of being harmoniously adapted, but fixed, and necessarily incongruous; so that of whatever utility they may be in forming a technical memory, the habit of collocating, and the familiarity of dwelling upon, such heterogeneous materials in the lumber-room of the mind, can have no better effect upon the judgment and the taste than to pervert the one and corrupt the

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other. For example: A lecturer on Mnemonics, hearing, proposed something (I forget what) to be remembered in connection with the miraculous conversion of St. Paul. To accomplish this, he had occasion for the letters (or the consonants) composing the words smilingly, while, by an unlucky coincidence, the symbol to be employed was Venus. "Well, then, ladies and gentlemen," said he, "having ascertained these two points, -the word and the symbol,

you need only imagine that when Saul of Tarsus was struck down to the ground by the light from heaven, the goddess of beauty, in her chariot, drawn by doves through the air, was passing by at that moment, and looked down smilingly upon him." To say nothing of the impiety, the absurdity of such an association of images and ideas is so revolting, that the mind which could endure it must be either originally insensible to all that is delicate, beautiful, and true in poetry, painting, and reality, or it would soon be rendered so.

Let us now see how differently, yet how gracefully and appropriately, genuine hieroglyphics may be combined with ideas and images to be remembered by them. In the year 1734, three Red Indian chiefs of the Creek nation were admitted to the honour of a formal audience, at Whitehall, with his Majesty George II. On being introduced into the presence, Tomo Cachi, the principal of his tribe, thus addressed the king, presenting at the same time the symbols to which he alluded: "This day I see the majesty of your face, the greatness of your house, and the number of your people." Then stating the

object of their visit to be "the good of the children of all the nations of the upper and lower Creeks, that they might be instructed in the arts of the English people," he added, "These are feathers of the eagle, the swiftest of birds, and which flieth all round our nations. These feathers are the sign of peace in our land, and have been carried there from village to village, and we have brought them over to leave with you, O Great King! as a sign of everlasting peace." Now had these symbols been delivered to the chief of another tribe of Tomo Cachi's own countrymen, they would have been preserved in memorial of the pacific interview; and the very words of the speech that accompanied them would have been so accurately remembered, that on every public occasion, when reference was made to the particular event, the feathers would have been produced, and that speech would have been repeated, the former being made mnemonics of the latter, not by a settled but by an arbitrary association; for the same feathers might have been the recording emblems of any other pacific treaty, and combined in remembrance with any other form of words uttered at the ratification of it.

Among these Indian tribes, every thing of importance transacted in solemn council between themselves or their white neighbours, is confirmed and commemorated by the delivery or interchange of symbols, which for the most part are strings or belts of wampum. A string consists of a series of square flat pieces of muscle-shell, fastened breadth-wise on a cord or wire a belt is composed of several of these strings joined side by side, and from three to four

inches wide. The value of each is computed by the number of fathoms contained in the whole length when drawn out. Upon the delivery of a string, the speech which accompanies it may be verbose enough, because it is sufficient if the general meaning be recollected but when a belt is given, the words must be few and weighty, and every one of them remembered. Neither the colour nor the size of the plates which constitute the wampum is indifferent; the black and blue are used when the occasion is one of doubt, rebuke, or contention; the white at amicable meetings but when defiance is held forth, the pieces of shell are artificially marked with red, the colour of blood, having in the middle the figure of a tomahawk. The Indian women are very ingenious in the invention of significant devices, and expert in the art of weaving the same into the texture of these hieroglyphic belts; every one of which is individually distinguished by some special mark whereby the association of the words delivered with it may be revived, even though all the rest of the emblems upon it were similar to those on other belts, delivered with other words at the same time.

Such strings and belts are also documents by which the Indians register the events of their desultory history, and perpetuate the only literature which they have; namely, the verbal terms in which treaties, agreements, and pledges were made between tribes, and families, and private persons. Their national records of this kind are carefully deposited in chests, which are public property. On certain festival days all these are brought forth to refresh the memory of

the aged, and that the young may be instructed in the interpretation of them. On such occasions a large circle is formed by the initiated and their scholars, all sitting on the earth, under the shadow of forest trees around the chest; from which only one length of wampum is taken out at a time, and held up to inspection, while some chieftain or orator (learned in what actually deserves a better name than legendary or traditional lore) not merely explains the circumstances under which it was accepted, but rehearses word for word the very speech delivered with it. The string or belt is then handed round the whole assembly, each marking the length, breadth, colours, and devices upon it, and in his own mind connecting with these the sentences of which it is the particular memorial. When all have examined it, and satisfied themselves, this is laid by, and another and another produced, till the whole series has been gone through in like manner. In illustration of the Indian use of such hieroglyphics, the following singular fact is worth attention:

The wars between the Delawares and Iroquois had been violent and of ancient standing. According to their own accounts, the former were always too powerful for the latter. The Iroquois, fearful of extermination, about a century ago, sent a message to the Delawares, saying,-" It is not profitable for all the Indian nations to be at war with one another, for by this the whole race must be destroyed. We have thought of a plan by which all may be preserved. One tribe shall be the woman. We will place her in the midst, and the others who are wont to quarrel