better
than any other, knows the vastness of the dead men's majority; and if,
like the ancients, he believes in the Elysian fields, where no death is
and decay is unknown, he alone will realise the excellent nature of the
company into which he will there be introduced.

There is, however, far more living going on in the world than dying; and
there is more happiness (thanks be!) than sorrow. Thus the archaeologist
has a great deal more of pleasure than of pain to give to us for our
enrichment. The reader will here enter an objection. He will say: "This
may be true of archaeology in general, but in the case of Egyptology,
with which we are here mostly concerned, he surely has to deal with a
sad and solemn people." The answer will be found in the next chapter. No
nation in the world's history has been so gay, so light-hearted as the
ancient Egyptians; and Egyptology furnishes, perhaps, the most
convincing proof that archaeology is, or should be, a merry science, very
necessary to the gaiety of the world. I defy a man suffering from his
liver to understand the old Egyptians; I defy a man who does not
appreciate the pleasure of life to make anything of them. Egyptian
archaeology presents a pageant of such brilliancy that the archaeologist
is often carried along by it as in a dream, down the valley and over the
hills, till, Past blending with Present, and Present with Future, he
finds himself led to a kind of Island of the Blest, where death is
forgotten and only the joy of life, and life's good deeds, still remain;
where pleasure-domes, and all the ancient "miracles of rare device,"
rise into the air from above the flowers; and where the damsel with the
dulcimer beside the running stream sings to him of Mount Abora and of
the old heroes of the elder days. If the Egyptologist or the
archaeologist could revive within him one-hundredth part of the elusive
romance, the delicate gaiety, the subtle humour, the intangible
tenderness, the unspeakable goodness, of much that is to be found in his
province, one would have to cry, like Coleridge--

"Beware, beware!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread,
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise."

PART II.

STUDIES IN THE TREASURY.

"And I could tell the