At

means of subsistence, when they have reached the port of debarkation? the legal rate of three passengers for every five tons, it would require more than three thousand vessels of five hundred tons cach. But suppose this difficulty over, and the whole number landed safely in Canada, how great is the responsibility which it entails on the government, that this multitude of people may be supported, and placed in some way of maintaining themselves by honest industry! It is evidently impracticable to act on so extensive a scale. But suppose them to be removed by degrees, say one-tenth, or 100,000 every year. Will such emigration have

any perceptible effect? It has generally been estimated that the population increases at the rate of one and one-half per cent. annually. If this estimate be correct, the amount of annual increase in Ireland would be about 120,000, and, therefore, the population would still go on increasing in spite of this emigration.

"The cost of such an emigration would be enormous. The estimate for cost of passage given in the Digest of Evidence' above referred to, is £30 for each family, or £6 for each individual; say, in all, £6,000,000, or £600,000 per annum. .. Would not the £16,000,000 or £20,000,000, which might be required to carry out an effective system of emigration, prove much more useful if laid out at home? If facilities be afforded, by which this amount may be expended in the various works which, in many parts of Ireland, are requisite, before the

ground can be properly cultivated, will it not, in fact, afford the means of support at home to this million of people, either by direct employment, or by its indirect effects?"

Emigration, then, cannot solve the problem, for it is impracticable. Encouragement of the priests will but strengthen and embolden them in the exercise of their seditious influence. Tenant-right, enforced by law, will foster and keep alive a rankling, neverending irritation between landlord and tenant, which must effectually bar the development of all the mutually beneficial influences of that relation. The evils of Ireland can only be remedied by a steady discharge of their duties by the proprietors of the soil. We believe that the measures which we have proposed would give to the country a proprietary who would be in a position to discharge their duties, and would raise many a prostrate estate, with its neglected cultivation and its beggared tenantry, to the rank and condition of those more favoured estates, whose fortune it is to be the property of an unencumbered resident landlord. It is in the full confidence that these measures would produce this result that we most earnestly recommend their adoption.

We have had two publications on Egypt lying on our table for a considerable time. We should have noticed them long before this, had we not been in constant expectation of the appearance of the Chevalier Bunsen's more important work on the same subject, in its English dress; and had we not thought that the three might be advantageously considered together. The first volume of the long-promised translation has at length reached us; and we will, without further delay, after giving a short account of each of these publications separately, consider some very important and interesting questions, which are suggested by the two former, but are absolutely forced on our attention by the last.

Mr. Sharpe calls his history a new edition. This is, however, the first time that it appears as a single work. He published, at different times, three separate histories, which he has now combined into one; and about a third of the volume is altogether new. We confess that we liked the parts better than we do the whole. The second of these, containing the account of Egypt under Alexander and his successors, is decidedly the best history of that period which is anywhere to be met with; and the connexion between the Greeks and their predecessors, and successors, is so very slight, that this part of the work might well stand

alone. Mr. Sharpe aspires to the character of a philosophical historian. He is fond of pointing out analogies between the events of by-gone times and those with which we are familiar. Thus, he compares the position of the Greeks in Egypt with that of the English in India. Neither of these were the immediate conquerors of the native rulers of the country. They were the conquerors of these conquerors; the Greeks, of the Persians; the English, of the Mahommedans: and they were more indulgent to the votaries of the old religion of the country than those who first subjugated them had been. Mr. Sharpe warmly commends the wisdom and humanity"the statesman-like wisdom, and the religious humanity-of a conqueror governing a province according to its own laws, and upholding the religion of the conquered as the established religion of the state." We hope and believe that our countrymen in India have not gone quite so far as this. At all events, we can find no precept in the Christian code resembling oft-repeated answer of the Delphic oracle, that the gods should everywhere be worshipped according to the laws of the country."

the

The portion of the history which precedes that of the Grecian sovereigns, is short and meagre. Mr. Sharpe does not profess to derive much

VOL. XXXII.-NO, CXC.

2 c

information from the recently-deciphered monuments; he, however, occasionally quotes Burton's "Excerpta Hieroglyphica." We must caution

our readers against giving credence to what he professes to derive from this source. The account which he gives

in pages

88-90 of the native "Meleks" appointed by Darius, of whom he enumerates three generations, is mere moonshine. It is partly founded on a misinterpretation of hieroglyphical characters, (first, if we recollect right, made by Rosellini), which has been long since abandoned by all Egyptologists but Mr. Sharpe; and partly on the accidental juxta-position of an inscription of the Persian period with one of the period anterior to the twelfth dynasty. Two of these pretended meleks were mere superintendants of the public works; the third was one of the ancient kings. For another fanciful statement in p. 24, Mr. Sharpe appears to quote the Tablet of Abydos and Manetho; but neither of these authorities bears him out; nor has any other writer adopted his views, which are quite inconsistent with well-ascertained facts. He says that Mephra-Thothmosis II. "is very much thrown into the shade by AmunNitocris, his strong-minded and ambitious wife. She was the last of the race of Memphite sovereigns, and by her marriage with Thothmosis, Upper and Lower Egypt were brought under one sceptre." The name of Nitocris occurs in Hieroglyphics as that of a queen in the sixth dynasty, and of another in the twenty-sixth; and it is totally different from that of the queen here spoken of. This queen was the daughter either of Thothmos I., or of Thothmos II., and certainly not of a Memphite family; and there is abundant proof that Upper and Lower Egypt had been united long before her time. Lastly, Thothmos III. was the brother of this queen, and not her son, as Mr. Sharpe imagines. We do not mean to say, however, that the first portion of the history is without merit. As a more favourable specimen than what we have given, we would offer the following passage, the views contained in which appear as novel as they are correct. After mentioning the treaties which Psammetichus made with the Greek states, and the encouragement which he gave to Greeks who settled in Egypt, he proceeds:—

"Thus Egypt was no longer the same kingdom that we have seen it at the beginning of this history. It was no longer a kingdom of Coptic warriors, who, from their fortress in the Thebaid, held the wealthy traders and husbandmen of the Delta in subjection as vassals. But, it was now a kingdom of those very vassals; the valour of Thebes had sunk, the wealth of the Delta had increased, and Greek mercenaries had very much taken the place of the native landholders. Hence arose a jealousy between the Greek and Coptic inhabitants of Egypt. The sovereigns found it dangerous to employ Greeks, and still more dangerous to be without them. They were the cause of frequent rebellions, and more than once of the king's overthrow. But there was evidently no choice. The Egyptian laws and religion forbad change and improvement, while everything around them was changing as the centuries rolled on. Hence, if Egypt was to remain an independent kingdom, it could be so only by the help of the settlers in the Delta."-p. 59.

The last part of the volume, which treats of Egypt after the Roman conquest, contains a good deal of interesting matter; but, for most readers, it is quite spoiled by the peculiar religious opinions which the author is pleased to put forward on all occasions. Mr. Sharpe is an amateur author, and he appears to think it reasonable, that if any one applies to him for the information on Egyptian affairs which he is able to impart, he should receive from him also a statement of his views in respect to the Christian church. The rise and progress of Christianity, and the controversies of the first six centuries, of most of which Egypt was the focus, come within the scope of his enlarged work; and he spares no pains to vilify the orthodox, and to represent the opinions which they hold, and which most Christians still hold, as originating in heathenism. In reference to this period, we will mention another of his analogies; for which, as for the former one, it must be admitted that there is some foundation, though the resemblance between the two cases is not quite so strong as he supposes. He compares the position of the Greeks of Alexandria, under the Arian emperors of Constantinople, to that of the Protestants of Dublin. Like these, they were of the same religion, politics, and blood as