hem in a startling and interesting form to arrest the attention of his
readers. In some places he has expressed his thought with such subtlety,
that the meaning is lost in the jingle of the words. The art of the
Memphite dynasties has suffered as much as the literature from the
hand of time, but in the case of the former the fragments are at least
numerous and accessible to all. The kings of this period erected temples
in their cities, and, not to speak of the chapel of the Sphinx, we find
in the remains still existing of these buildings chambers of granite,
alabaster and limestone, covered with religious scenes like those of
more recent periods, although in some cases the walls are left bare.
Their public buildings have all, or nearly all, perished; breaches have
been made in them by invading armies or by civil wars, and they have
been altered, enlarged, and restored scores of times in the course of
ages; but the tombs of the old kings remain, and afford proof of the
skill and perseverance exhibited by the architects in devising and
carrying out their plans. Many of the mastabas occurring at intervals
between Gizeh and Medum have, indeed, been hastily and carelessly built,
as if by those who were anxious to get them finished, or who had an eye
to economy; we may observe in all of them neglect and imperfection,--all
the trade-tricks which an unscrupulous jerry-builder then, as now, could
be guilty of, in order to keep down the net cost and satisfy the natural
parsimony of his patrons without lessening his own profits.* Where,
however, the master-mason has not been hampered by being forced to work
hastily or cheaply, he displays his conscientiousness, and the choice of
materials, the regularity of the courses, and the homogeneousness of the
building leave nothing to be desired; the blocks are adjusted with such
precision that the joints are almost invisible, and the mortar between
them has been spread with such a skilful hand that there is scarcely an
appreciable difference in its uniform thickness.**

* The similarity of the materials and technicalities of
construction and decoration seem to me to prove that the
majority of the tombs were built by a small number of
contractors or corporations, lay or ecclesiastical, both at
Memphis, under the Ancient, as well as at Thebes, under the
New Empire.

** Speaking of the Great Pyramid and of its casing,
Professor Petrie says: "Though th