From The Saturday Review. THE RETURN OF THE DARK AGES. rigidity and limitation of thought. Their minds were nourished on good food, but still did not grow. It is by no means clear that Western Europe may not have to go through another period when again there will be no intellectual growth, and when such literary activity as there may be will take the form of going in different shapes over the same familiar ground. It is possible that the progress of thought may be like the progress of the sea on a coast affected by mutations. Sometimes the sea comes on with a rush, and a century will see a totally new indentation of the coast. Then, for a time, the sea only just holds its own, and its daily ebb and flow merely carries it up to the same point. and vulgar kind. Catholicism and the Aristotelian philosophy and Roman jurisprudence THERE can hardly be a more interesting and are among the greatest things the world has important inquiry for Englishmen of the pres-ever seen. But we nevertheless pronounce ent day than to ask whether it is possible the middle ages dark, because the men that that, in spite of all our progress and civiliz- lived in them had, on the whole, a singular ation, we should have, at some period or other, a return of the dark ages. Of course the world cannot go back exactly to what it has been. Similar as are all the generations of mankind, yet no two are alike, and even periods having a sufficient general resemblance to offer instructive parallels are really full of endless differences. We are not likely to return to feudalism, and to bloody baronial wars, and to pilgrimages to the shrines of saints. But it is not at all clear that the time may not come when the advance of thought will cease, and when learning will die out except in a few exceptional and powerless minds. It would be very rash to say that this will be so, for the most we can come to is a suspicion that it may be so; and we Perhaps the three strongest grounds on may be very sure that there would be new which most persons would be inclined to base light after the darkness, and that a natural their belief that the sea of intellectual progand necessary reaction would again give an ress must always advance, would be the great impulse to thought. But it would be very literary activity at present displayed in Westrash to say that there may not be, in the life- ern Europe, the strides we are making in time of persons now born, a time of tempo- material wealth, and the unresting daily rary eclipse-a time when the seeds perhaps gain of physical science. It is worth while, of great changes may be laid, and the prepa- therefore, to consider how far we can rely on ration begun for a vigorous burst of original these grounds. It is true that there is conthought, but when on the surface there will siderable literary activity in Western Europe be a reign of intellectual fixity and stagna- But it must be remembered that literatures tion. In the dark ages, as they are called, quite as great and vigorous as any we now there were hundreds of great men, and of see in activity have come to a stop. The anmen of enlightened views, who served their cient world was swept away by the modern, generation in their day. There was no uni- and we ought therefore, perhaps, to draw no versal paralysis of thought. There were conclusions from the decay of Greece and many great principles at work, and some of Rome. We need not be afraid of any new the chief flowers of human excellence were irruption of barbarians. And as we have acthen blossoming freely. But the ages were customed ourselves to dispose of the curious dark because the thought and feeling of men finality of Arabic and Hindoo and Chinese worked in the same groove, and everything thought by the formula that Orientals are outside was ignored. Whatever could come born with limited intellects, we cannot safely within the compass of Latin Christianity and go beyond Europe. But European nations Roman law and scholasticism and the tradi- in modern days have had their short-lived intions of the conquering barbarian tribes, tellectual flowering time. The literature of seemed intelligible, natural, and credible. Italy was one of the highest order, and the Everything beyond was a howling wilderness literature of Spain was scarcely inferior. Yet tenanted by the wild beasts of heresy and both came soon to an end. And, apparently, witchcraft. The range of thought was wide Germany has met with the same fate. Half enough to embrace many of the greatest con- a century ago, Germany was the most powerquests of the human mind. The intellectual ful agent in determining the thought of Eufood of the dark ages was not of a meagre rope. German philosophy and German poetry added a totally new element to our intellec- supposed to uphold them will be continually tual wealth. Now Germany is lost in anal- of a lower and lower character. In spite of ysis. The Germans inquire, and record the its great position, and of the efforts of the results of inquiry, but they do not create. more liberal and high-minded clergy, and of In France, there are evident symptoms of in- the attachment of educated laymen to it, tellectual decay. If the empire were to flour- the Church has begun to deteriorate perish for fifty years longer, the literature of ceptibly in many respects. The bishops of France might die out as entirely as the liter- the present day are a poorer, weaker, more erature of Rome did under the successors of timid set of men than they used to be. They the Cæsars. The French cannot even have bow down before the brass idol of middlethe satisfaction of thinking that the reign of class society, instead of bowing down before their Augustus is adorned by a Virgil and a the golden idol of good society. They go in Horace. Nor, if England stood alone, can a herd, without individual independence or we be at all sure that her intellectual activ- thought. They want to stand well with the ity would long remain unimpaired. If we great banking interest, and the great grocer had no contemporary living thought to excite interest, and a hundred other great interests and correct our own, we should at least lose of the kind. A large proportion of the riswhat, for the last two centuries, has been our ing clergy are literates—that is, men turned greatest intellectual help. out after the narrow pattern of theological seminaries. The clergy are still learned and honorable and upright, for great institutions do not change all at once, but they are not so much so as they were. They are quite as zealous as ever, and perhaps they are more zealous than they used to be at the beginning of the century. But unlearned zeal is exactly what flourished in the middle ages. It is possible that the Church may pass through a time when it will be worked by a clergy of the type of zealous Sunday-school teachers, headed by a set of bishops laboring for the welfare of the institution and for nothing else, and ruling their subordinates with a rod of iron. So far as intellectual progress concerned, what is this but the Church of the middle ages stripped of its poetry? is Putting aside for the moment physical science and material greatness, what is there in English thought to make us very confident that it could stand this trial? There are the great recollections, the noble history of the country, and that political continuity of our institutions which makes us feel as if we were in a manner still living in the England of Shakspeare and Milton and Bacon. But the intellectual triumphs of England have been, at least in recent years, associated in a very intimate degree with the independence of the upper classes, who have been in the habit of thinking as they pleased, and speaking their thoughts out. Now, it is conceivable that this independence should diminish and that it may even now be on the wane. We have popularized thought, and have given social and political influence to a large number of half-educated persons. We may be swallowed up by our own creation. The Church, for example, may pass for a season under the tyranny of Sunday-school teachers. It may come to pass that a theology will be taught, the essence of which shall be not that it is true, but that it is what can be taught in schools and preached in pulpits without offence and without trouble. No one can deny that some advance to this has already been made, and that theological questions are treated by a large number-we might almost say by a large majority-of lay-in commerce and locomotion, and the invenmen and clergymen, not with reference to truth, but with reference to the safety and welfare of institutions. If the institutions themselves deteriorate, then that which is If we can conceive English thinkers deprived of the two great aids of Continental thought and a sincere and learned theology, we shall at least see that they are exposed to great dangers, and that it is not quite impossible that English thought may for a time cease, as Italian and German thought has ceased, and as French is ceasing, to display itself with its old energy. This danger would also be enormously increased if the political independence of the upper classes were cut away by sweeping changes, and if six-pound householders reigned supreme. It is true that the English mind would still find an outlet for itself tiveness which leads to wealth. But thought is only in a very slight degree connected with this. Commercial enterprise secures a nation from complete torpor; but it by no means impels the ence. limitations of the beneficial effects of physical science. As it is really very remote from human life, it is yery easy to get rid of it in some way or other, and to quietly ignore it. Some formula is soon invented by which, as it is said, physical science is reconciled with the fancies or belief of the formulist, and then seems to have been disposed of forever. And then, again, this remoteness of physical science from human life disconnects it from all literary activity and from any very salutary control over the national character. The Ger intellect into the higher regions of thought. | roundabout guesses for explanations. But, It might even for a time give a fatal consola- on the other hand, there are two obvious tion to the better order of minds for the suppression of originality and intellectual independence, and for the loss of political influThe last hope is in physical science, and we must acknowledge that the indirect effects of the pursuit of physical science are invaluable. Physical science confers two benefits on mankind, the value of which cannot be over-estimated. It offers a range of boundless inquiry. There is no end to the investigations that may be made, no limit to the hypotheses which must be framed. It therefore tends in an eminent degree to pre-mans have lately done great things in physical vent anything like fixity of thought. In the second place, physical science forces men to come to direct issues, and to place before themselves the distinct question whether a thing is true or not. Physical science checks the tendency of men living in old, longestablished, comfortable societies to palm off vague phrases for reasons, and to substitute science, but their success has been achieved since German thought ceased to influence Eu rope largely. Therefore we must not rely on physical science too blindly. It may do something to prevent the return of the dark ages, or to mitigate the darkness if they do return, but it may not wholly preserve us from a season of fixed thought and of intellectual depression. THE UNTIED STATES.-In the year 1852 I wrote an account of a tour in the Northern part of the American Union, which was published in the Dublin University Magazine, in six numbers. A great portion of it was devoted to an inquiry into the causes of the peculiar phases which society and government present in the United States. The expression of a strong opinion as to the inevitable and speedy approach of disruption and dismemberment excited some opposition at the time. I found few persons who considered my theories to be sound; many ridiculed them as romantic; and nearly every one believed my prognostications to be false. Perhaps some of your correspondents can inform me where similar anticipations to those which here follow are to be found. Probably others may have formed opinions as strong at a still earlier period. Extract from "A Flying Shot at the United States, 6th Round," Dublin University Magazine, April, 1853, p. 517 :— ture will be the signal for others. From the rivalry among the great cities, it may be seen that equality will not long be recognized among them; and when we notice the frequent use of the terms Empire City, The First City in the Union,' we are naturally led to believe that new divisions may, ere long, be made, and that New York, Boston, New Orleans, Cincinnati, etc., are likely each to become the centre of systems which have not yet started into existence. What may be the ultimate fate of the Union is an enigma to be solved. It has not yet reached the limit of human existence, nor numbered years threescore and ten.' The question whether it may last five, fifty, or five hundred years, affords matter for speculation; without doubt it stands upon a shaky foundation. "About the time of the first resistance to English authority on the part of America, a great eruption of Mount Vesuvius took place; and in the middle of the nineteenth century, when the pope offers a present of a block of Italian marble to make a statue of Washington, it appears that a piece of lava from the burning mountain has been selected as an appropriate pedestal." "What may be the end of the negro controversy it is difficult to say, but the fate of the Union probably hangs upon it. When the American insurgents, with the view of increasing popular When I wrote the above I certainly entertained excitement, fished up Forefather's Rock,' it is a somewhat superstitious belief that the limit of said that the trophy broke into halves. What was human existence would not be exceeded in the then hailed as an omen of success was perhaps life of the Union. The election of Mr. Lincoln, typical of the future division of the Republic. It if it should turn out to be the beginning of the is folly to suppose that any strong bond of union, end, would just about finish the seventy years. or any germ of real stability can exist in a counTHE AUTHOR OF "HEARTHS AND try which so unequivocally recognizes the right--Notes and Queries. WATCHFIRES." of revolution. The different States will only hold together so long as their several interests are furthered by the compact, and the first great rup *It may here be remarked, that the American democracy properly dates its commencement from the year 1789. From The Saturday Review. SHARPE'S EGYPTIAN ANTIQUITIES.* gen Inius had its natural home at Athens. The Ptolemies had advantages over every other MR. SHARPE has the great merit of having, dynasty of the ancient world. They had as far as we can know, written the only His- not the guilt of destroying freedom, like the tory of Egypt which can be understood by Tyrants in Grecce itself. They did not rule those who do not glorify themselves with that over a brave, turbulent, half-civilized people hard name 66 Egyptologist." We do not like the Macedonians, at once tempted to know how far Sir George Lewis would have constant aggressions against the neighboring accepted even Mr. Sharpe's history as au- republics to the south, and driven to resist thentic; still, as contrasted with Baron Bun- constant aggressions on the part of the neighsen, Mr. Sharpe gives us something which, boring barbarians to the north. The Egypt whether it really happened or not, at any tians, so long as their religion and its usages rate might have happened. We at least were respected, made the most docile of subknow what he means, which is more than we jects. Indeed, after the bigoted domination can say after toiling diligently through the of Persia, the tolerant rule of the Greek large octavos of Baron Bunsen. And Mr. kings may have called forth something alSharpe has also the still greater merit-one most like active loyalty. Thus Alexandria almost unparalleled in a professed Egyptian became a great Greek colony, the grand censtudent of seeing that the later and more tre of a particular form of Greek intelleccertain Egyptian history is at least as im-tual life. Nor must it be thought that this portant as that which is earlier, and, we makes the later history of Egypt merely a must venture to say, more doubtful. He history of Greeks in Egypt, and not a hisfully grasps the fact that the time when Egypt tory of Egypt itself. The old Egyptian nahad a real influence upon the world in tional life lived on by the side of the Greek ⚫eral was not in the days of its old barbaric life of Alexandria, and at last re-asserted its grandeur, but in the days of its apparent equality with it. Under the Roman governbondage under the Ptolemies and the Caesars. ment, Egypt sank again from a kingdom to a Probably Mr. Sharpe would not venture to province, and the rule of the Caesars was far assert this in quite so strong a form as we less liberal than that of the Macedonian have put it; but a large part of his history kings. Then came Christianity, with its shows that he practically recognizes it all the teaching addressed alike to Egyptian, Greek, same. Egypt, in these later times, served and Roman, and which was zealously adopted the world, or, at any rate, influenced the by the native population, though in a form world in two distinct ways. It afforded a differing from European orthodoxy, Eastern field for the development of some particular or Western. Then, too, the foundation of phases of the Greek mind for whose develop- Constantinople transferred much of the inment room could hardly have been found in tellectual life of Alexandria to the New Greece itself. The old republics of Greece Rome, and the native Egyptian mind was thus enabled in some sort to conquer the were pre-eminently the cradles of Greek genius-of genius alike in politics, in poetry, Macedonian colony which had been so long in oratory, in contemporary history, in ar- planted on its shore. Hence arose that rechitecture, and the other fine arts. But, ligious and political antagonism between just because they were so pre-eminently the Egypt and Constantinople which forms the cradles of pure genius, they were not so key to so much of the history of the fifth, well adapted to receive a less glorious, but sixth, and seventh centuries, and which far from contemptible, after-growth of the proved the cause of the speedy conquest of Greek mind, for which a more natural abode the country by the Saracen invader. Here was provided at the court of a great Greek we can distinctly see the old Egyptian namonarchy out of Greece. The learning and tionality directly influencing some of the science of Greece, as distinguished from its most important events in history, and playoriginal genius, had their natural home at ing a really greater part in human affairs Alexandria just as much as its original ge- than it ever could have done in the days of its barbaric isolation. Mr. Sharpe stands, as far as we know, alone, in having written, with great common sense and with respecta *Egyptian Antiquities in the British Museum. Described by Samuel Sharpe, Author of the "History of Egypt." London: John Russell Smith. We cannot help being amused—indeed, we are not quite sure that Mr. Sharpe does sent volume is to illustrate the Egyptian reMr. Sharpe's immediate object in the prenot himself intend a little quiet sarcasm-at mains in the British Museum. He gives a the following exposition of the utter uncernumbered list, with many illustrations, and tainty of the professed Egyptian chronology: a description of each object, containing many "The dates are here given to the kings ac- remarks distinguished by his usual good sense. cording to the author's History of Egypt; It is only fair to quote his general estimate but it is almost unnecessary to remark that of Egyptian art as compared with that of not a little doubt hangs over those given to some of the oldest of the Egyptian monu- Greece. No doubt he gives the old barbaric ments. Those monuments which have kings' sculptors credit for more than many will be names upon them, and are more modern than inclined to allow; still there is, in Mr. the reign of Shishank, who fought against Sharpe's criticisms, an utter absence of that the Jewish King Rehoboam about the year extravagant admiration which generally disB.C. 975, are seldom so far doubtful as tinguishes "Egyptologists." Mr. Sharpe twenty or thirty years. As to the earlier Theban monuments of Amosis, Amunothph, first of all explains some disadvantages under Thothmosis, and Rameses, some of our anti- which the Egyptian artists labored, and quaries would place them about 200 years shows the effect this produced on their earlier than the dates in this catalogue; and works:— there are a few monuments which they consider even 1,000 or 1,500 years older than our dates. Such are some of those found near the pyramids of Memphis, and such also are the Theban inscriptions which were made before the time of Amosis, who drove out the Hyksos, or shepherd kings, about the year B.c. 1540, according to this chronology. In the case of those monuments which have no kings' names upon them, their age has been judged from their resemblance, in respect to their mythology and style of art, to those which have names. 66 If the reader should wish to know the dates given to the Egyptian kings by the best-known German scholars, he may learn them by adding to our chronology three intervals of time, for which we have no buildings in Egypt; one of 200 years, one of 500, and one of 800. To our dates immediately before the year B.c. 1000, or between the kings of Lower Egypt and the great kings of Thebes he may add 200 years. This is to be done upon the supposition that Rameses II. and not Thothmosis III. is the Menophra of the Sothic period, or of B.c. 1322. To our dates before the year B.C. 1450 he may add 500 more, or 700 in all. This is for the time when the shepherds tyrannized over Egypt, and is to be placed between the great kings of Thebes and the earlier kings, as if no native kings were then reigning; but this interval is not allowed by either Eratosthenes "The Egyptian bas-reliefs show us a sideface and legs walking sideways with a front chest and a full eye. They are rather less stiff than the statues; they have rather more of the freedom of drawings, but not so much as we might have looked for. This perhaps may be explained from the artists' very little practice in either drawing or painting. They had very little wood, which was what the Greeks painted upon; they had not invented oil-colors, and so could not paint on canvas; and they had no large sheets of paper. They were limited to narrow strips of papyrus, to the walls of their public buildings, and their wooden mummy-cases. Hence the art of copying the human form was chiefly studied in making statues; and whatever stiffness arose therein from the nature of the sculptor's materials and tools was carried into his drawings, and he lost that freedom which a more frequent use of the brush and pencil would have given him." Presently, on coming to the colossal statue of King Amunothph III., whose date, in his system, is about B.c. 1250, he gives us a fuller exposition of the whole matter:— "We have no better specimen in this country of Egyptian sculpture. The whole figure is quiet and grand and in good proportions, except that the thighs are too short. The nose and beard are broken. The rest of |