of this trade from the magnificence of the Temples, which, of old times, in the East was generally proportionate to the amount and value of the commerce carried on under their protection. From these sources the growth and splendour of the new capital were fed for many centuries. We see from the tombs that in its best days the wealthy were not afraid to use, and to display, their wealth. The arts that embellish life, and which had been inherited from the old monarchy, made great advances. Society developed tastes and arrangements not altogether unlike those of our own time. At last the thunder-cloud, which had long been gathering in the north-east, drifted down to Egypt, and the storm burst upon it. The Persian had come. And the grand old ship went to pieces. In Asia the days of Sethos and of Rameses had never been forgotten. The gods, that had in their arks gone up with them to battle and to victory, were now defaced and dishonoured. The temples which had been built by the captives, and with the spoils brought out of Asia, were now sought for at Karnak, and dilapidated. The ruthless work the Egyptians had done was repaid ruthlessly. It was delightful to the soul of the Persian, now that his opportunity had come, to job the iron into the soul of the Egyptian. But such a civilization as that of old Egypt takes a great deal of killing. It is the working of a thoroughly organized community in which every man is born to his work, has natural instructors in his parents and class, and so knows his work by a self-acting law of Society, which possesses the regularity and precision of a law of Nature. It survived the Persians. It Egyptianized the Greeks. It was not stamped out by the Romans. Christianity gradually enfeebled, absorbed, and metamorphosed it. At last came the Mahomedan flood, and swept away whatever germs might have even then remained of a capacity for the maintenance of a well-ordered and fruitful commonwealth. CHAPTER XVII. THEBES—THE NECROPOLIS. Hæc omnis, quam cernis, inops inhumataque turba est. ... Hi, quos vehit unda, sepulti. Nec ripas datur horrendas, ac rauca fluenta Transportare prius quam sedibus ossa quierunt.—VIRGIL.