Records Of The Past.

RECORDS OF THE PAST .

NOTICE II . We continue the highly interesting resume , from the " Times , " of these important publications . " The second volume of the records

contains Egyptian translations , and among them some of the most important inscriptions of the A alley of the Nile . The hieroglyphs were soon known after the revival of learning in Europe , and many objects inscribed

with them were in European capitals , but all attempts at deciphering them failed at the hands of the learned charlatans who essayed the task . A torn bilingual page of black granite , found by the French at Eossetta , in

1799 , by a fortunate coincidence , was at the same time a monument of British success by its transfer from Alexandria to London . When Young , in 1818 , discovered that the miscellaneous articles which appeared as hieroglyphs in an oval ring only spelt the name of

Ptolemy , the secret of the language was exposed to view . But it required the genuis of the French Champollion le Jeune to advance with a bound , of which Young was incapable , to the real deciphering of the texts , the

elimination of the grammar , and the exposition of the history . Since the death of Champollion , a school of followers and improvers has arisen , and in no country has the study been pursued with greater zeal and success than in England .

Egypt , indeed , has not such Biblical attractions as Assyria , and the principal points of interest in her history are the extreme limits of her chronology , and the probable period of the Exodus , the light thrown on the later

contemporary history of Central and Western Asia , and the comparison of her religious thought and ritual with that of the other Semitic nations , her imitators , and her neighbours . Still , the monuments of Egypt present an almost

unbroken chain for more than 20 centuries before Christ , and heiratie papyri , only slighly more coherent than tinder , of that antiquity are known , so that a mass of literature—monumental on

rocks , and literary on paper—has come down as the jetsam and flotsam of the stream of history . On the whole , it is more interesting in its variety than the Assyrian , for in addition to historical composition , treatises on morals and

medicine , geometry and religion , novels or polite literature for youthful princes , songs , chants , and dirges diversify the matter , spur the flagging ardour of the student , and pique the latent curiosity of the public . The number of texts

published during the last half century has placed an unexhausted quarry at disposition of the student . The researches conducted by the numerous Egyptologists have reconstructed the history of Egypt on a sound basis , done much to

fathoming the depths of time between the dawn of civilization and the present day , and partly penetrated the esoteric meaning of the outward and visible signs of the Egyptian religion . The contents of the second of these volumes are the combined efforts of most of the principal English and other Egyptologists . Of the historical contributions to this

volume may be cited the annals of an officer named Una , in the service of the Monarchs of the fifth dynasty , engaged in the warlike operations of conquering some of the neighbouring tribes or nations by means of an army of negroes ,

levied from the tribes of the Upper Nile . These black troops were officered and drilled by the Egyptians , and were quite a success , plundering the towns of the enemy , and cutting down the vines and fig-trees of his territory . It is the

first historical mention of the negro . Besides his military exploits , Una was occupied in the construction of the pyramids and coffins of his royal masters , and had ascended the Nile in a war galley , higher than ever Egyptians had reached before , in search of the necessary materials . The annals of Thothmes III ,, a monarch who reigned