"See, this is new! it hath been already of old time which was before us *[1]."
We find, in these very countries, how a later calamity, of the same public nature, the conquest of the Saracens, occasioned a similar downfal of literature, by the burning the Alexandrian library under the fanatical caliph Omar. We see how soon after, they flourished, planted by the same hands that before had rooted them out.
The effects of a revolution occasioned, at the period I am now speaking of, by the universal inundation of the Shepherds, were the destruction of Thebes, the ruin of architecture, and the downfal of astronomy in Egypt. Still a remnant was left in the colonies and correspondents of Thebes, though fallen. Ezekiel †[2] celebrates Tyre as being, from her beginning, famous for the tabret and harp, and it is probably to Tyre the taste for music fled from the contempt and persecution of the barbarous Shepherds; who, though a numerous nation, to this day never have yet possessed any species of music, or any kind of musical instruments capable of improvement.
Although it is a curious subject for reflection, it should not surprise us to find here the harp, in such variety of form. Old Thebes, as we presently shall see, had been destroyed, and was soon after decorated and adorned, but not rebuilt by Sesostris. It was some time between the reign of Menes, the first king of the Thebaid, and the first general war of
