The architectural effect of the two greatest of the pyramids is certainly magnificent.  They do not greatly impress the beholder at first sight, for a pyramid, by the very law of its formation, never looks as large as it is—­it slopes away from the eye in every direction, and eludes rather than courts observation.  But as the spectator gazes, as he prolongs his examination and inspection, the pyramids gain upon him, their impressiveness increases.  By the vastness of their mass, by the impression of solidity and durability which they produce, partly also, perhaps, by the symmetry and harmony of their lines and their perfect simplicity and freedom from ornament, they convey to the beholder a sense of grandeur and majesty, they produce within him a feeling of astonishment and awe, such as is scarcely caused by any other of the erections of man.  In all ages travellers have felt and expressed the warmest admiration for them.  They impressed Herodotus as no works that he had seen elsewhere, except, perhaps, the Babylonian.  They astonished Germanicus, familiar as he was with the great constructions of Rome.  They furnished Napoleon with the telling phrase, “Soldiers, forty centuries look down upon you from the top of the pyramids.”  Greece and Rome reckoned them among the Seven Wonders of the world.  Moderns have doubted whether they could really be the work of human hands.  If they possess only one of the elements of architectural excellence, they possess that element to so great an extent that in respect of it they are unsurpassed, and probably unsurpassable.

These remarks apply especially to the first and second pyramids.  The “Third” is not a work of any very extraordinary grandeur.  The bulk is not greater than that of the chief pyramid of Saccarah, which has never attracted much attention; and the height did not greatly exceed that of the chief Mexican temple-mound.  Moreover, the stones of which the pyramid was composed are not excessively massive.  The monument aimed at being beautiful rather than grand.  It was coated for half its height with blocks of pink granite from Syene, bevelled at the edges, which remain still in place on two sides of the structure.  The entrance to it, on the north side, was conspicuous, and seems to have had a metal ornamentation let into the stone.  The sepulchral chamber was beautifully lined and roofed, and the sarcophagus was exquisitively carved.  Menkaura, the constructor, was not regarded as a tyrant, or an oppressor, but as a mild and religious monarch, whom the gods ill-used by giving him too short a reign.  His religious temper is indicated by the inscription on the coffin which contained his remains:  “O Osiris,” it reads, “King of Upper and Lower Egypt, Menkaura, living eternally, engendered by the Heaven, born of Nut, substance of Seb, thy mother Nut stretches herself over thee in her name of the abyss of heaven.  She renders thee divine by destroying all thy enemies, O King Menkaura, living eternally.”