CHEOPS and CEPHREN.(432) These two princes, who were truly brothers by the similitude of their manners, seem to have vied with each other which of them should distinguish himself most, by a barefaced impiety towards the gods, and a barbarous inhumanity to men. Cheops reigned fifty years, and his brother Cephren fifty-six years after him. They kept the temples shut during the whole time of their long reigns; and forbid the offering of sacrifices under the severest penalties. On the other hand, they oppressed their subjects by employing them in the most grievous and useless works; and sacrificed the lives of numberless multitudes of men, merely to gratify a senseless ambition of immortalizing their names by edifices of an enormous magnitude, and a boundless expense. It is remarkable, that those stately pyramids, which have so long been the admiration of the whole world, were the effect of the irreligion and merciless cruelty of those princes. MYCERINUS.(433) He was the son of Cheops, but of a character opposite to that of his father. So far from walking in his steps, he detested his conduct, and pursued quite different measures. He again opened the temples of the gods, restored the sacrifices, did all that lay in his power to comfort his subjects, and make them forget their past miseries; and believed himself set over them for no other purpose but to exercise justice, and to make them taste all the blessings of an equitable and peaceful administration. He heard their complaints, dried their tears, alleviated their misery, and thought himself not so much the master as the father of his people. This procured him the love of them all. Egypt resounded with his praises, and his name commanded veneration in all places. One would naturally conclude, that so prudent and humane a conduct must have drawn down on Mycerinus the protection of the gods. But it happened far otherwise. His misfortunes began from the death of a darling and only daughter, in whom his whole felicity consisted. He ordered extraordinary honours to be paid to her memory, which were still continued in Herodotus’s time. This historian informs us, that in the city of Saïs, exquisite odours were burnt, in the day-time, at the tomb of this princess; and that during the night, a lamp was kept constantly burning.