the visitor should next direct his attention to a dark granite statue, mutilated, of a high military officer, supposed to have flourished about the 12th dynasty.  Among other fragments hereabouts, the visitor should not fail to examine the fragment (104) found in Alexandria, at the base of Pompey’s Pillar, upon which are clearly traceable the figure of the great Rameses, being crowned by divinities, and a list of his dignities; the red granite colossal fist (106), presented to the Museum by Earl Spencer; and a curious fragment, which represents parts of a royal scribe, with his writing slab attached to his leg (103).  Passing the curious double statue (110), of a State officer of the time of the eleventh Rameses, the visitor should once more halt before a basalt statue of a functionary (111), of the 26th dynasty, found in 1785, in the Natron Lakes, near Rosetta, and a granite group (113), representing, side by side, a chief, and a royal nurse, with the chief’s daughter.  Amid another group of fragments, the visitor should remark particularly an arragonite torso (121); the upper part of an officer, holding a standard (122); and a red granite bust of a monarch wearing the neumis (125).  A small black basalt statue, of the period of the 26th dynasty (134) should be noticed.  The figure, that of a palace officer, is kneeling, and has dedications to the deities.  Further on is a statue of the third Thothmes, of the 18th dynasty (168), the head of which has been restored.  Here the visitor should remark the nine bows which symbolise the enemies of the Egyptians.  Having thus far noticed the collection of statuary which represent human beings, the visitor will gladly turn to those strange revelations of the ancient Egyptian mind developed in the

Egyptian sphinxes.

In these strange conglomerations of various races of animals—­the lions with human heads and hawks’ heads—­there is generally preserved that majestic repose, and that mighty force of execution, which rescue the most incomprehensible of the ancient Egyptian monuments from contempt.  Not at all farcical or barbarous could the effect have been, when the Egyptian approached his place of worship through an avenue formed by rows of these colossal sphinxes—­all grandly fashioned and full of majesty.  Mr. Long says:  “Most speculations on the origin of the compound figure, called a sphinx, appear unsatisfactory; nor, indeed, is it an easy matter for the modern inhabitants of Western Europe to conceive what is meant by the symbolical forms which enter so largely into the ancient religious systems of the Eastern world.  It seems to us altogether an assumption without proof, that either the andro-sphinx, or the sphinx with the female head, ought to be considered as the original type of this compound figure.  The sphinx differs from other compound figures, which occur very often in the Egyptian pictorial representations, in always having the body of a lion, or, it may be, a panther, or some