lions of children against parents, and other heart-sickening crimes, the consequences of the right invested in one family of exercising sovereign rule, which have so often plunged whole nations into misery and blood;-but this point may be acknowledged; we may admit that elections of chief magistrates are more likely to be the source of frequent troubles. If it can nevertheless be shown, that there is that in the very essence of monarchical institutions which is in any way hostile to virtue, the question ought to be considered as settled in favour of the system that is free from this insuperable objection; for it cannot be denied, that any principle at all tending to aid the propagation of immorality, is the worst which can be admitted into the social and political compacts by which men are united together, and should most be deprecated and eschewed. No matter what apparent or real beneficial results may flow from it, they cannot counterbalance the detriment it may inflict upon the surest guarantee of permanent good to man, both in his individual and aggregate capacity-both with regard to his temporal and eternal interests. National happiness and prosperity of a durable character, are inseparable from national virtue. The evils produced by dissensions concerning the chief power in a state, are in a degree contingent and temporary; those engendered by immorality are certain and lasting. Let then the pages, not merely of the book which tells the story of George IVth of England, but of all history be consulted, and who will deny that they furnish overwhelming evidence that the moral atmosphere of courts has been at all times tainted and baleful; that they have been ever the centres of corruption and vice, and that they must ever be so? They must ever be so, we assert, because the natural and unavoidable result of raising any collection of persons above the opinion, as it were, of the rest of the world, and of surrounding them with a species of prestige which prevents their vices and follies from being viewed in their real hideousness, is to ensure amongst them the sway of immorality. They thus form a sanctuary for corruption, which can never be established in a country where no factitious distinctions exist; there profligacy can have no refuge when hard pressed by public opinion, no ramparts behind which to protect itself from the assaults of that potent enemy; and it will never in consequence be able to obtain there any other than individual dominion.

If we turn our eyes upon the condition of the English court as it now exists, although it may be less exceptionable than when George was at its head, we shall find sufficient justification of the foregoing remarks. The present sovereign, it is well known, is unfortunate in possessing a mind of that nervous description, which renders any considerable excitement a thing to be avoided; it was the effect produced upon it by his appointment to the

Lord High Admiraltyship during his brother's life, which occasioned his removal from that post. His moral character is certainly less disreputable than that of his predecessor; but who can witness, without feelings akin to disgust, the spectacle of a family of illegitimate offspring exalted in the palace, and following him in all his perambulations? It is far from our wish to cast any reflection upon those unfortunate persons, who are in no way accountable for the ignominy and guilt connected with their birth. The shame and the reproach are for the author of the stain, who exposes himself to double reprehension, by the countenance he virtually lends to the cause of immorality. William IV., however, is a paragon in comparison to his next brother, the Duke of Cumberland, a person, who, if he has given any warrant for the tenth part of the imputations which rest upon him, can only have escaped the penalties inflicted by the law on the greatest offences, because he is the brother of the king. We cannot convey a better idea of the estimation in which he is held in London, than by stating, that in all the caricatures where an attempt is made to embody the evil spirit, his person is used for that purpose.

"What poor things are kings!

What poorer things are nations to obey

Him, whom a petty passion does command!

These considerations, we repeat, are well adapted to promote the important object to which we have alluded, of causing our institutions to be properly appreciated and loved by ourselves. This is the great desideratum with respect to them—the chief thing necessary for their preservation. Our situation now is more enviable than that of any country of the earth; and all which is requisite is, that we should be aware of our own happiness, and rightly understand the source from which it springsthe republican form of government. Let us be thoroughly impressed with the conviction of the superior efficacy of this system over every other, in promoting the end for which political societies were instituted, and we are safe. We will then be furnished with the best defence against the principal enemy from which danger need be dreaded,-we mean that propensity to change, which is one of the common infirmities of the human breast, that restlessness which renders the life of man a scene of constant struggle, tends to prevent him from estimating and enjoying the blessings he possesses, and often causes him to dash away with his own rash hand, the cup of happiness from his lips. "Our complexion," says Burke, "is such, that we are palled with enjoyment, and stimulated with hope,-that we become less sensible to a long-possessed benefit, from the very circumstance that it is become habitual. Specious, untried, ambiguous prospects of new advantage, recommend themselves

to the spirit of adventure, which more or less prevails in every mind. From this temper, men and factions, and nations too, have sacrificed the good of which they had been in assured possession, in favour of wild and irrational expectations." To be satisfied, is, indeed, we fear, difficult for human nature, even where there is no good to be reached beyond what we already have obtained. A great object, in such case, is to be convinced that there is no such good to be acquired-to suppose that we have arrived at the utmost boundaries of mortal felicity.

Nothing, however, that we have advanced as fitted to aid that object, inasmuch as it respects our political condition, is of such influence for its accomplishment, as the contemplation of the actual state of the European world. When the tempest howls without, the domestic hearth is invested with a doubly inviting aspect; we gather round it with eagerness, in proportion to the dismal appearance of external nature, and bless it for the security which it affords from the rage of the heavens. Should we not, in like manner, embrace with redoubled fondness, the institutions which maintain us in prosperity and peace, now, especially, whilst we are enabled to behold the fearful operation of the consequences of monarchical rule-the horrors in which they are involving the fairest and most civilized portions of the globe; and when we know, too, that the motive which inspired the inhabitants of those countries with courage to encounter the storm, by which they are tossed about on the sea of revolution, was the hope of being driven by it into some haven like that which shelters us from the fury of winds and waves? When, if ever, they will attain to the possession of the blessings which we enjoy,-how all the troubles by which they are agitated will end, is what no human ken is competent to discern; but the philanthropist and the Christian need never despair. Out of chaos came this beautiful world; and the same Being who called it into existence, still watches over its concerns,—is still as potent to convert obscurity into brightness, as when He first said, "Let there be light," and there was light!

ART. III.-Essay on the Hieroglyphic System of M. Champollion, Jr. and the advantages which it offers to sacred criticism. By J. G. H. GREPPO, Vicar-General of Belley. Translated from the French by ISAAC STUART, with notes and illustrations. Boston: pp. 276.

IN former numbers of this journal, there are several articles devoted to the subject of Egyptian hieroglyphics, particularly as connected with the labours of Mons. Champollion. Every day seems to give opportunity of additional observation, by furnishing new and interesting facts. How much further the investigations may be carried, it would be unsafe even to conjecture; but, in the present state of things, we are fully authorized to consider the problem of hieroglyphics as at last solved, and such general principles established, as must render subsequent investigations comparatively easy. Every age seems to be productive of some great genius peculiarly adapted to the accomplishment of some great design, connected either with the advancement of learning, or the melioration of the moral condition of mankind. The present appears fruitful of great men, and France, particularly favoured, whether we regard the great political events which have called out the most gigantic exhibitions of practical wisdom, or look at the onward march of science, which seems in no wise impeded, by convulsions which scatter every thing but science, like the yellow leaves of autumn. Let us not, however, be diverted from our object,—the sober investigation of a sober subject, alike deeply interesting to the philologer, the student of history, and the inquirer into the sacred truths connected with divine revelation.

The work which stands at the head of this article, purports to be an investigation of the hieroglyphic system developed in the published works of Mons. Champollion, Jr. and the advantage which it offers to sacred criticism. It is the performance of a clergyman of the Roman Catholic Church, J. G. H. Greppo, Vicar-General of Belley. The original work, however, is not before us. We examine it through the medium of a translation made by Mr. Isaac Stuart, son of the Rev. Moses Stuart, one of the most eminent scholars of our country, who vouches for the accuracy of the translation, having inspected the whole, and compared it with the original. Dr. Stuart has added some notes, where he has seen occasion to differ from Mr. Greppo, on some points of Hebrew philology and criticism. The reasons for his difference of opinion are given with that candour for which the writer is distinguished, and the intelligent reader is left to judge as to the merits of the question.

It is well known to the learned, that Mons. Champollion, the VOL. IX.-No. 18.

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younger, has been spending several years in the uninterrupted study of the Egyptian hieroglyphics. In his capacity of Professor of History at Grenoble, he found his labours embarrassed by the immense hiatus which occurs in Egyptian history, and, to the filling up of this, he set himself to work with all the zeal and energy which genius could inspire. In this work, he had the advantage of youth, and a very superior education in the Coptic and other oriental languages, connected with a patience of investigation, which appears almost miraculous. He had the advantage of knowing, moreover, that, if ever any just conclusion was to be gained, he must seek it by getting some starting point, different from that whence all his predecessors had set out. There had been a variety of learned men whose investigations were directed to this point, such as Father Kircher the Jesuit, whose different works on Egyptian antiquities had been successively published in Rome, from 1636 to 1652-Warburton, the highly gifted author of the Divine Legation of Moses, the learned Count de Gebelin, and others of equal and less name. But these had all confessedly failed, and the learned almost gave up the subject in despair, so much so, that Champollion himself, states it as the only opinion which appeared to be well established among them, viz. "that it was impossible ever to acquire that knowledge which had hitherto been sought with great labour, and in vain."

In the midst of these discouragements, a circumstance occurred, familiar probably to our readers, but to which we allude merely to observe, that it seemed at once to open a new era of investigation, and is among the many evidences of the fact, that events of apparently the most inconsiderable description, are connected with results whose magnitude cannot be estimated. At the close of the last century, while the French troops were engaged in the prosecution of the war in Egypt, it is well known, that a number of learned men were associated with the expedition, for the prosecution of purposes far more honourable than those of human conquest,-we mean the exploration of a hitherto sealed country, with the express design of advancing the arts and sciences. One division of the army occupied the village of Raschid, otherwise called Rosetta; and, while they were employed in digging the foundation for a fort, they found a block of black basalt, in a mutilated condition, bearing a portion of three inscriptions, one of which was in the Egyptian hieroglyphics. The fe of the military expedition, lost to the French the possess this stone, as it fell into the hands of the British, by t tulation of Alexandria; it was afterward conveyed to I and placed in the British museum. Previously to the terr of the war, however, the stone and its characters had rectly delineated by the artists connected with the