There is no country on earth which more curiously substantiates the saying of the wisest of kings, that "there, is nothing new under the sun," than Egypt. Every art of European life, and even of European luxury, finds its delineation among the tombs; every incident of society, whether serious or trifling, has its record on those subterranean walls; we find every occupation, every enjoyment, every national festivity, and every sport, from the nursery up to the assemblage of the wrestler, the runner, and the dancer, in short, the whole course of public and private existence, three thousand years ago, is revealed and revived for the intelligence and admiration of the nineteenth century of the Christian era. Why those miscellanies of life should be in tombs, where they must have been shut up from the living eye--why such labour of delineation, why such incongruity of subject to the place, why such cost lavished on designs in the grave, are all problems, which must remain beyond human answer, but which render Egypt the most interesting of all dead nations to the living world. Are those wonders, those intimations of greater wonders, those achievements of the arts, fully explored? Certainly not. We quite agree with Miss Martineau, that the most fortunate boon for Europe would be some mighty van or ventilator, which will blow away all the sands of Egypt. What a scene would then be opened! "One statue and sarcophagus, brought from Memphis, was buried 130 feet below the surface. Who knows but that the greater part of old Memphis, and of other glorious cities, lies almost unharmed beneath the sand? Who can say what armies of sphinxes might start up on the banks of the river, or come forth from the hill-sides of the interior, when the cloud of sand had been wafted away? The ruins which we now go to study might then occupy only eminences, while below might be miles of colonnade, temples intact, and gods and goddesses safe in their sanctuaries!" If this is the language of enthusiasm, there can be no question that barbarism and time have covered a large portion of the old glories of Egypt from the eye of man; and that, while what remains for the view of the traveller is mutilated and worn away, the much finer portion may be reserved for the triumph of the investigator spade in hand. One of the best features of the book is the dexterity with which those tomb-pictures are interpreted by Miss Martineau's narrative. Every one knows, that the majority of those pictures, though often brilliantly coloured, exhibit nothing but isolated or ill-placed figures, of the rudest outline, and the most ungainly attitudes. They have a meaning; yet to ascertain that meaning, and combine their action, demands considerable imaginative skill. We have a clever instance of this art in the description of one of the tombs.