And now I will leave Ptah-hotep to speak for himself. It may be thought that he has been introduced at too great length; but I would point out that his book has been strangely overlooked by the educated public hitherto, although it would be difficult to over-estimate its importance, to literature as the oldest complete book known, to ethics and theology as the earliest expression of the mystery we name Conscience, and to lovers of antiquity as one of the most instructive and touching relics of a people and a power that once were great and are now brought to nothing. By a happy chance the words of our sage have been justified, in that he said, '_No word that hath here been set down shall cease out of the land for ever_.' Would indeed that we had more of such books as this, whereby we may a little lighten the darkness that lies behind the risings of a million suns; and learn how little the human heart, and the elements of human intercourse, alter throughout the ages. And what of the other writers of that time, whose works and whose very names are entirely swept away? To this there is no better answer made than in the lamentation made by the harper close upon five {40} thousand years ago, which was written up in the tomb of King 'Entef: _Those that built them tombs_, he sang, _have now no resting-place. Lo! what of their deeds? I have heard the words of Yemhotep and of Hardedef, whose sayings men repeat continually. Behold! where are their abodes? Their walls are over-thrown, and their places are not, even as though they had not been._' The burden of Egypt. BATTISCOMBE G. GUNN. 3, PARK HILL ROAD, CROYDON. [1] Much ingenuity has been expended to show that Egyptian manners and customs, books, and other things, were "much the same" as our own, as though the supposed similarity reflected any credit either on them or on us. Except in customs which are common to all times and places, as drinking beer, writing love-letters, making wills, going to school, and other things antecedently probable, the Egyptian life can show very few parallels to the life of to-day. [2] The monuments leave no doubt of this. Pen and ink were used in the First Dynasty, and speech had been reduced to visible signs before that. [3] About B.C. 1770. In all Egyptian dates given in this book I follow Professor Petrie's chronology. [4] These are round figures, of course, and in the case of Solomon and Moses traditional dates. Modern criticism places _Genesis_ and _Proverbs_ much later than 1500 and 1000 B.C. [5] See Appendix for the literature of this papyrus. [6] These were kings of the Eleventh Dynasty, about 2986 B.C. [7] In the translation these divisions are indicated, for purposes of reference, by numbers and letters, which are not, of course, in the original. So also in the Instruction of Amenemhe'et (Appendix). [8] Pwenet: the identification is not certain. [9] Fragments of another are in the British Museum.