The central figure of Egyptian history has always been, probably always will be, Rameses II. He holds this place partly by right, partly by accident. He was born to greatness; he achieved greatness; and he had borrowed greatness thrust upon him. It was his singular destiny not only to be made a posthumous usurper of glory, but to be forgotten by his own name and remembered in a variety of aliases. As Sesoosis, as Osymandias, as Sesostris, he became credited in course of time with all the deeds of all the heroes of the new empire, beginning with Thothmes III, who preceded him by three hundred years, and ending with Sheshonk, the captor of Jerusalem, who lived four centuries after him. Modern science, however, has repaired this injustice; and, while disclosing the long-lost names of a brilliant succession of sovereigns, has enabled us to ascribe to each the honors which are his due. We know now that some of these were greater conquerors than Rameses II. We suspect that some were better rulers. Yet the popular hero keeps his ground. What he has lost by interpretation on the one hand, he has gained by interpretation on the other; and the _beau sabreur_ of the “Third Sallier Papyrus” remains to this day the representative Pharaoh of a line of monarchs whose history covers a space of fifty centuries, and whose frontiers reached at one time from Mesopotamia to the ends of the Soudan. The interest that one takes in Rameses II begins at Memphis and goes on increasing all the way up the river. It is a purely living, a purely personal interest; such as one feels in Athens for Pericles, or in Florence for Lorenzo the Magnificent. Other Pharaohs but languidly affect the imagination. Thothmes and Amenhotep are to us as Darius or Artaxerxes--shadows that come and go in the distance. But with the second Rameses we are on terms of respectful intimacy. We seem to know the man--to feel his presence--to hear his name in the air. His features are as familiar to us as those of Henry VIII or Louis XIV. His cartouches meet us at every turn. Even to those who do not read the hieroglyphic character, those well-known signs convey by sheer force of association the name and style of Rameses, beloved of Amen. [Illustration: CARTOUCHES OF RAMESES THE GREAT.]