The unhappy author of the annexed verses may find relief from their publication, though they have been hanging on the file for a twelvemonth.

STANZAS TO MY NOSE.

My nose my nose! oh! mercy me! my dreadful little nose!
Why can't we have a settlement, small cause of all my woes?
Oh why art thou so flat, so pug, queer handle of my face!
To make a laughing stock of me, and bring me to disgrace?

My whiskers both are large and black-they suit me very well;
I put them off, and on again, to please each city belle;
But thou art fixed, forever fixed between my mouth and eye,
Thou little dot! I wish thou wert more prominent and high.

My pantaloons are just the cut, the best that Hall could make :
My coat, the richest blue, or black, all for the ladies' sake;
But yet, ah me! what use are they? thou cause of so much ill,
I wish thou wert but half as long as is my tailor's bill.

And if I walk to quiz the girls, as now and then I do,

Or at a corner take my stand, particularly blue,

Each dandy holds his quizzing glass, then, grinning, onward goes,
He thinks the fool! I do not know he tries to spy my nose.

"Your feet are large enough," one says, "they 're always in the way;" I made an accidental step on one the other day

"You'd better keep those feet," says he, "off decent people's toes,
And make them to change places with your something of a nose.'

Oh dear the jokes, the jibes, the jests, that sauey fellows play,
With noses large, and fair, and square, at every time of day-
"How straight and tall that exquisite !" each Bantum dandy crows;
"Ah, happy will he be! no wife will lead him by the nose."

I waked from pleasant sleep one morn, and saw upon the wall,
A little and a large nose drawn, with this tremendous scrawl-
"You'd better have no nose at all, than such a nose as this,
But one like to this large one here, were ecstacy of bliss."

And so they talk and laugh at me, all safe within their sleeve,
I s'pose they think they hurt me much, and make me sorely grieve;
They speak their daggers to my face, and rub me very close,
"For he," say they, "at all our pranks can ne'er turn up his nose.""

I am near-sighted, too; I ran against a country girl

"Oh if you had a nose," cried she, "I'd give it such a twirl-"
"I ask your pardon, dear-" I said, "I'll make you fit amends-"
"Not's you knows on-” said she, "oh no, we never can be friends."

Ah me! and specs I never can, I never can look through;
And so I twirl my cane all day, not knowing what to do

I lounge about the gallery, to see the pictures close;
But every canvas man and girl has something for a nose.

At three I dine at Gallagher's, or at the Tremont House;

At sight of me the exquisites are still as any mouse;

"How could," say they," this noseless Winkum smell us at our blows;
How much he doth intrude himself,-we 're sure he little knows."

"Upon that Lilliputian nose he ne'er can tread," says one;
"But, Sir!" thus cries a second out before the first is done,
"And yet 't is strange he every where is poking in his nose."
Oh! would that Ovid's nose were mine, and wart like Cicero's.

The barber ne'er can cut my nose, while he is shaving me,
"Your ears are long enough," says he, " for nose deficiency."
They call me the Nose-ologist; and ponder as I can,

I certainly am now, and, aye, shall be, a half-nosed man.

"Good name in man or woman is the jewel of their soul;"
So Shakspeare said, and he was right, I think, upon the whole,
But thou, oh! Slawkenbergius! I ask thee in his place,
Is not a handsome nose in all the jewel of the face?

WINKUM.

None but a parent could have written the following lines, or one who had witnessed the overpowering agony of the bereaved. The pathos of the sentiment may perhaps be an apology for the barbarous form of words which we have designated by Italics in the first stanza.

A MOTHER TO A DEAD INFANT.

THOU died'st-I was not near thy bed,
'T was not my hand that closed thine eyes,
I did not hold thy throbbing head,

Or catch thy last faint stifled sighs!

I saw thee in thy beauty last,

I kissed thee with a mother's joy,
We parted-a few days went past,
And thou wast in thy grave, my boy!

Oh! had I but been with thee then,

And held thee in my anxious heart!
What though it had been bitter pain?
We should not thus have been apart.
I should have laid me down by thee,
And kissed away thy fading breath,
And shared, in every agony,

Perhaps, in mercy, shared thy death!

Oh, were the strangers kind to thee?
Did they with gentleness attend?
They might-but in their ministry
They could not their whole being blend.
There's but one heart on earth, my child,
Could fifty tend thy dying couch,

Could soothe thy moans with accents mild,
And smooth thy bed with tenderest touch.

'Tis o'er-thy little life is quenched,
Thou art as nothing-save to me,
From me my deepest joy is wrenched,
Yet imaged in my memory.
Like to a star in the clear wave,
It shines in every silent tear.
Thy heart is mouldering in the grave,
Thy mother's heart is breaking here!

THETA.

THE

NEW-ENGLAND MAGAZINE.

OCTOBER, 1833.

ORIGINAL PAPERS.

ANCIENT EGYPTIANS.

IN some address, which met our eye a few months since, the subject of which was concerned with negro slavery, we saw a statement to this effect, that the negroes, so far from being incapable of high advance, in the arts and science, were once highly distinguished in them; were, in fact, if not the inventers, among the earliest cultivators of them, and carried them to a high degree of perfection. By way of proof the Egyptians were adduced, affirmed to be Ethiopians, and Herodotus was given as authority for their being negroes. This statement is certainly very much at variance with divers passages that have presented themselves to us, in the course of our reading, of one sort or another, and the illustration and the authority are liable to much gainsaying. To afford a little variety to our readers we are disposed to lay before them a few of the things that have occurred to us on the subject, without, however, pretending to go into any very learned or deep investigation of it, and let them come to what conclusion they may deem best. Except as a matter of historical correctness, we care not whether or no the Egyptians were as black as the darkness that once invested their land.

In a subject presenting so many points that seem to offer a hold for one's grasp, and requiring, in some degree, to be handled separately, it is not altogether so easy, as might at first sight be imagined, to determine where to begin, in order to proceed lucidly to an end. On mature consideration, however, we have determined to begin at the end, that is, taking the matter above cited as our theme. Before canvassing the doctrine itself we shall just turn over the authority cited in proof, and look at it on its other sides, in order to see what it amounts to. This authority is Herodotus, termed by some the "Father of History," and by others represented as little better than the "Father of Lies." In this, however, we do not altogether agree with them; for though we think that the old Grecian, like some other travelers, could and did sometimes draw a long bow pretty stoutly, yet we believe that, in the main, he was pretty conscientious and worthy of credit, due allowance being made for the excitement and exaggeration 35

VOL. V.

apt to be produced by the unknown and the marvelous, and for the divers mystifications put upon him by his good friends, the Egyptian priests, who doubtless had the usual desire of exalting themselves and their nation in the eyes of a foreigner. Without impeaching, then, particularly, the credit of the witness, let us see what he says.

In speaking of the kingdom, state, or whatever it was, of Colchis, said to have been founded by Sesostris, who left there a colony, in a sort of plundering and fighting expedition, called a conquest, which he made as far as the borders of India, he says, that in his day the traces of their origin were very perceptible in the persons of the inhabitants, mentioning particularly their hair and complexion, to which respectively he applies the epithets hog (oulothrix) and usλas (melas) which have commonly been translated wooly-haired and black; and hence it has been concluded that the ancient Egyptians were negroes.

Reasons are not wanting to show that the premises are somewhat halt and maimed, and it need not, therefore, be thought wonderful if the conclusion should be deemed "most lame and impotent." Admiting the fact, that Sesostris did plant at Colchis a colony of his soldiers, and that they were wooly-haired and black, this does not prove the conclusion, for it has yet to be shown that this colony was composed of native Egyptians, of the original race of the Delta and Thebaid. Those whose historical reading has made them at all acquainted with the modes of oriental warfare, must know, that nothing was more common than for the armies of a conqueror to be recruited from the population of conquered countries, and that, of all the various and dissimilar tribes or nations united under the sway of one, each sends its contingents into the field, and that these often compose the bulk of the forces. It may well therefore be supposed, that under such a monarch as Sesostris would be collected many of the inhabitants of Africa besides the Egyptians, and there seems to be no reason why the colony settled at Colchis should not have been wholly or in part composed of negroes, with perhaps an Egyptian governor. The granddaughter of this governor, at any rate, was the far-famed Medea, the mistress of Jason, the Argonaut, who went to Colchis in search of the golden fleece, whatever that was, whether gold dust entangled in the wool of sheepskins stretched in the bed of rivulets, or, as has been conjectured by some, a race of fine-wooled sheep, the Merino or Saxony of ancient days. Grecian taste, however, would, without any thing farther, seem to be a sufficient warrant, that the lovely mistress of this celebrated hero could not have been a negro or even a mulatto; so that whatever the colony in the main consisted of, it seems fair to presume that the governor was neither black nor wooly-haired; and, if he was an Egyptian, the presumption may extend to his countrymen.

This leads us to a piece of criticism we once met with, though we cannot recollect where, (we are afraid our organ of locality is not properly developed,) which was devoted to an examination of the very epithets above cited, for the express purpose of proving that the common translation of them was by no means the necessary one, nor precisely answering to the originals, being a great limitation of their signification. The conclusion arrived at by the critic was, that melas, though often, perhaps generally, rendered black, in English, was, in reality, expressive of almost any dark hue, as dun, swarthy, dusky, and might

even mean blue, or brown, or dusky red; and that oulothrix, though it might mean wooly-haired, really and properly meant only soft and curly-haired.

Thus the Greeks applied the epithet melas to the Nile, which at no time deserves the epithet black, but the color of which, at its most remarkable period, that is, during an inundation, is of a brownish red. It may moreover be remarked, that the Arab name of the Abyssinian branch is, at this day, Bahr-el-Nil, or Bahr-el-Azrek, the Blue rivers.

If this criticism be correct, and we do not see that it can be shown to be otherwise, except by proving the point in dispute from other sources, the authority of the Father of History will go not a great way to establishing the negro-head of ancient Egypt. Still, it may doubtless be argued, that as these epithets might mean what they are usually rendered, that meaning will only be made doubtful, and not disproved, by this criticism; and that proof must be brought from other quarters, to disprove absolutely, as well as to establish, the common version. This is true, and other proofs are at hand;—we will call into court the ancient Egyptians themselves. Here! Crier! summon the tombs of the kings of Boban el Malluk, and let Champollion the younger be sworn as interpreter! What does he say? "Horus, the shepherd of the people, is here represented leading twelve men, who belong to four distinct races. The three first (those nearest the god) are of a dark red color; they have well-shaped figures, a pleasant physiognomy, noses slightly aquiline, long twisted hair, and are clothed in white. The legend describes them thus, ROT-EN-NE-RÔME, the race of men; that is, by way of excellence, the Egyptians."

"The three who follow next are very different in aspect; their complexion is yellow and swarthy; their noses are very aquiline; their beards are long and black, and terminate in a point. Their clothing is of various colors, and they are designated by the name of NAMOU." "The three next are easily known as Negroes. They are here called NAHASI."

"The three last are of a delicate white complexion. Their noses are straight or slightly arched; their eyes blue, their beards are of a light or red color, and they are tall in figure. They are clothed with the skins of oxen, and are painted like savages. These are named TAMPOU."

"In comparing this tablet with the corresponding one in the other royal tombs, I am convinced, that it was the design to represent here the inhabitants of the four parts of the world, according to the Egyptian system. 1. The inhabitants of Egypt. 2. The Asiatics. 3. The proper inhabitants of Africa-the Negroes. 4. The Europeans."

The next testimony of the ancient Egyptians may be found in the grottoes of Eilithias. These, it is said, are extremely interesting, "inasmuch as they represent, in the paintings with which the walls are decorated, many of the pursuits and habits that illustrate the private life of the ancient Egyptians." It may be observed that the complexion of the men is invariably red, that of the women yellow; but neither of them can be said to have any thing in their physiognomy at all resembling the Negro countenance."

66

As a third witness we shall introduce the Sphynx. Of this, Dr. Richardson says, "The whole face has been painted red, which is