* The “Book of the Dead” must have existed from prehistoric times, certain chapters excepted, whose relatively modern origin has been indicated by those who ascribe the editing of the work to the time of the first human dynasties.

All these, if we had them, would form “a library much more precious to us than that of Alexandria;” unfortunately up to the present we have been able to collect only insignificant remains of such rich stores.  In the tombs have been found here and there fragments of popular songs.  The pyramids have furnished almost intact a ritual of the dead which is distinguished by its verbosity, its numerous pious platitudes, and obscure allusions to things of the other world; but, among all this trash, are certain portions full of movement and savage vigour, in which poetic glow and religious emotion reveal their presence in a mass of mythological phraseology.  In the Berlin Papyrus we may read the end of a philosophic dialogue between an Egyptian and his soul, in which the latter applies himself to show that death has nothing terrifying to man.  “I say to myself every day:  As is the convalescence of a sick person, who goes to the court after his affliction, such is death....  I say to myself every day:  As is the inhaling of the scent of a perfume, as a seat under the protection of an outstretched curtain, on that day, such is death....  I say to myself every day:  As the inhaling of the odour of a garden of flowers, as a seat upon the mountain of the Country of Intoxication, such is death....  I say to myself every day:  As a road which passes over the flood of inundation, as a man who goes as a soldier whom nothing resists, such is death....  I say to myself every day:  As the clearing again of the sky, as a man who goes out to catch birds with a net, and suddenly finds himself in an unknown district, such is death.”  Another papyrus, presented by Prisse d’Avennes to the Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, contains the only complete work of their primitive wisdom which has come down to us.  It was certainly transcribed before the XVIIIth dynasty, and contains the works of two classic writers, one of whom is assumed to have lived under the IIIrd and the other under the Vth dynasty; it is not without reason, therefore, that it has been called “the oldest book in the world.”  The first leaves are wanting, and the portion preserved has, towards its end, the beginning of a moral treatise attributed to Qaqimni, a contemporary of Huni.  Then followed a work now lost:  one of the ancient possessors of the papyrus having effaced it with the view of substituting for it another piece, which was never transcribed.

The last fifteen pages are occupied by a kind of pamphlet, which has had a considerable reputation, under the name of the “Proverbs of Phtahhotpu.”