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eyes in all the feelings of thy youth, and in all the fulness of thine adornments. Let us look upon thy bright young brow, as it lightened on the day in the hour of life; let us print a kiss upon thy lips as they glowed in arch seduction when thy lover passed thee by; let us stand beside thee and press thy gentle hand in ours, and learn from thee what was beauty and love in the land of Khem *—what was maiden's coquetry in the hundred gates of the mighty Thebes, and in the streets of the merchant-city of Memphis. Names, dark and gloomy, and weird enough; it seems almost a mockery to bind up woman's grace with them!

The morning has risen, bright and unclouded; the majestic sun sweeps forth from her † chamber, dazzling in her virgin splendour, to greet the young day-god, the bashful Ehôout, as he springs up from his lotus throne, where all night long he has slept, hanging his fair head, and closing his silent lips with his hand. But fair as the young child of Athor the Beautiful §, is that sweet maiden, who now opens her long almond-shaped eyes upon the new day. Sweet have been her dreams in the night, and favourable || the omens that first greet her. Not sounds of weeping-not words of wrangling and discomfort-but childhood's merry laughtermusic, mirth, and joy-these the morning auguries to Egypt's graceful maid. The uncovered opening in the chamber, which served her for the more modern window-for the ancient Egyptian was too wise to glaze these apertures, when such a burning sun beat down upon them-looks into the gardens of the city, where she may feast her eyes upon all those glorious flowers which the skilful Theban imitates so well, or rest them upon the quiet green of the palm, and the acacia, and the pear-tree, and the figleaf. She may hear the Nile as it wanders by-Egypt's fertilizing god! and she may turn her heedless soul to higher thoughts, as her glances catch the streamers which flutter on the pillars of the pyla belonging to the temples. The princely halls of the nobles

* Khem is Ham, or blackness. Khemi, Egypt.

The sun is feminine in Egyptian mythology; the moon, masculine. Ehôou, by some is supposed to be the sun; but Sir G. Wilkinson, with greater propriety and poetry, has given him his place as the youthful day-god, third of the triad, of which Athor is second.

§ Of all the Egyptian deities, Athor most nearly corresponds to the Grecian Aphroditè. Isis is more the mystic Silene, Rhea, &c., than any deification of physical beauty.

evil.

All chance, whether of deed or sound, served as omens for good and

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have also these same banners, but their gateways are not so, majestic, nor are the pillars so lofty; and our fair young coquette cannot see even the shadow of the streamers which wave round that sacred place where dwells the one she would fain call "brother."*

She opens her dark eyes, bright with the memory of the dreams that linger round her; she turns her smooth cheek, fresh and warm and glowing, like a rose-bud glancing up from a field of ebony as she throws off from it the straying hair; and her full lips part, and heave a gentle sigh, that she has wakened from such blessed idealities to the truth of an existence whose reality is below its promise of hope. The bed, itself, is a very world of wealth; luxury has done her utmost on it; and taste and refinement have made it the fit habitation for a god. That foreign deity, of whom the strange merchants from Ionia and Attica speak so long and warmly, Aphrodite the Seaborn, might have cushioned her dainty limbs upon it, and never have found that it was a mortal's bed she shared ! Our fair coquette is loth to leave her midnight couch. The toilette is none so short nor light a task to her; so much must be done before she may show her charms abroad, that she shrinks from the labour, and would fain lie still upon that worked bronze frame, with all its luxurious pillows, and fine linen scented with costly perfumes; its carved alabaster headpillow, painted and gilded, and lying beneath her head, as the lotus beneath the young deity of the morning. No heavy curtains close her in, to shut out the fresh air that comes through the window up from the Nile; but she lies, like a flower beneath the sky, pillowed upon her arm, with nothing but the lofty ceiling of the chamber to enroof her. The bed-linen, perfumed with the costliest drugs and essences of Arabia, is of fine manufacture, worked with the needle and ornamented with colours,-in some parts with gold. But our coquette is extravagant, as all coquettes must be; and she pays for the night-gear, which no eye sees but her own, the same price that many would give for their stateliest robes of ceremony. All that snowy drapery which now enwraps her came from the Theban looms; it is the finest that Egyptian fingers can spin; and the land which sends forth" woven air to India, Greece, Babylon, Tyre-perhaps even to the Central Flowery Land, that mysterious place of the stationary or conserva

* Equivalent to husband.

tive principle-does not manufacture to little avail! The cushions are made of feathers, and covered with fine linen, some with embroidered blue or scarlet stuff. They are fit to receive the impress of that delicate form-to kiss the dainty cheek, and to be enlaced by all that long black hair; and if fitted for this, they must be all beauty and grace.

The maiden rises. She thrusts her little feet into a pair of the beautiful slippers of Anthylla,* and calling her slaves-happy in their servitude !—she begins the momentous business of the toilette. A true Eastern, she must first refresh herself with a bath, that greatest luxury of the East! While there, sweet essences are poured over her; perfumes are burnt in bronze or gilded censers; and fresh flowers are constantly waved before her; while others are heaped up in jars of fine porcelain, or flung in handfuls upon the water. Her slaves wring out her dripping tresses; they smooth them with their hands, still pouring rich unguents upon the shining threads, until each separate hair gleams and glistens, as though it were stolen from the plumage of the raven. Her delicate skin must only be touched with the softest napkins, fringed and embroidered round the edge; they have been many a day's work to the patient handmaid, who has woven them so skilfully. As the slaves spread them forth, a pleasant and faint odour steals out, as when you pass by a bed of lilies hidden among the trees, or bruise the scented grass with your foot, unconscious of its secret, or pillow your head upon moss tufted with violets, whose large leaves have hidden both their beauty and their being until then. It is a pleasant hour, which the young coquette passes in the bath. In a continuation of the last sweet dream, in which were images of love and joy, she lies there, awakened only for a more intense enjoyment. Increase and deepen, ye images! until ye have such substance and reality that life may not be needed for ye!

The sleek hair is smoothed; the soft body, refreshed with the bath, is dried by the handmaids, and scented anew with the perfumes in those long glass bottles and porcelain vases; and beautiful as a young Naiad of Hellas, she emerges from the waters, more

* Anthylla was celebrated for its vines and its slippers. It became, after the Persian rule, the city of the queen's pin-money. Its wines gave her cash, its hides gave her shoes; and it was not bon ton to wear any but the slippers of Anthylla. Even Egypt had her fashionable cordonniers pour les dames!

fresh, more winning, more seductive, than the loveliest of her sisters.

And now the most important part of the daily labours must be commenced. As yet she has but laid the foundation for that superstructure of dazzling beauty, which must soon glow upon the morning air. Her handmaids cluster round her, each busied in some graceful art, or proud to show her skill in some elegant adornment. One holds the coloured strings, with which the other ties the long, sleek plaits, into which she arranges the jetty hair; another offers the little box of alabaster, shaped as a column, and covered with painted hieroglyphs, which is filled with the mysterious black powder that works such mischief to the peace of Egypt's youth; and the petted beauty, taking it from her hand, carefully moistens the slender bodkin, then applies the far-famed kohl to the lids of her long eyes, and thus gives them the last grace of art to perfect their beauty of nature. Ointments, perfumes, and essences, do their work. The smooth brow is bound with a golden fillet, in which a lotus-flower is placed; the slender arms are encircled with bracelets, or of gold or of lazule stone, or of gems or of vitrified porcelain; the taper fingers are decked with rings; chains glitter upon the swan-like throat; the small, round ear is hung with costly jewels; the swelling waist, unconfined by any barbarity of modern times-by stay, or bone, or lace -shows each pulse beneath its costly zone, and the bosom heaves with the gentle breath, making the jewels resting on it sparkle in the changing light. The dress, of thinnest linen, is thrown over under-garments of thicker, though still light, material. These may be, to-day, of deep blue, striped with slender bands of white. The robes reach to those lovely feet, which peep out half shyly from beneath them, and are but partially covered by the gorgeous sandals; at her neck they are confined by gems, over which is thrown the more simple lotus necklace; the sleeves extend but midway to her arm, showing the white and firm flesh, which puts to shame the Red Sea pearls that clasp it; and the zone before mentioned, gathers the plaits round that faultless waist, whose beauty seems to be increased, not hidden, by its covering. If the Egyptian women overlaid fair Nature's work with the allurements of art, they yet had too fine a sense of the beautiful to substitute, or to transform, that which Nature had bestowed as her best charm. If they acted on the truth of the approbation of the one sex being the happiness of the other, they had too much wisdom

to make other laws than those which experience had framed, and to offer false fashions in the place of natural allurements, through the attractions of a refined sensuousness. The small body, out of proportion with the limbs and the stature, was never half so attractive, even to an eye barbarised by long custom, as the yielding waist, where the touch meets nothing harsh to oppose it, and where the eye is not pained by the hard whalebone, the sharp pins, and the suffocating ligatures, by which our maidens wage eternal war with symmetry, ease, and grace.

The bright eyes of the coquette light upon the jewels which deck her bosom. She examines them; then, dissatisfied with their arrangement, tears them off, looking over her stock to see what better mixture she may make. In good faith her casket is richly stored! Come they from lovers, friends, or by inheritance, they are a dowry, these jewels, which might portion half the maids of Memphis! Of varied shapes, too, and of strange materials, they form a curious collection of wealth and simplicity. Diamonds gleam beside vitrified pottery; the deep green emerald of the mines is cased together with the xenite, or the pale pink carnelian; the lapis lazuli, with its brilliant blue, is almost rivalled by the Theban stained glass, and mock pearls cheat the eye by assuming all the beauty of the true. The shapes of these jewels are the same mixture of elegance and imperfect taste. Some are in the form of bells hanging from a slender string; others are oblong beads strung together, with smaller ones intervening; some are beautiful exceedingly, being golden leaves twined round the stalk; while deeply-cut scarabæi depend from a broad band, and circle the throat with a mysterious loveliness.

Her bracelets, next, the fair maiden reviews. Some are too plain simple gold bands with perhaps a devout or loyal apostrophe engraved in the centre, they have scarce sufficient lustre for her! That little snake, made of plates of gold, and elastic and flexible, seems to suit her better; and she chooses this, using the plain band to gird her arm fast above her elbow. Ear-rings of light fanciful devices, with large pearls or sparkling emeralds set, as drops, in a mass of filagree work, she next considers; and taking out those which her handmaids have already fastened in, those massy rings, with the figure of a sacred scarab worked on them, she surveys herself in her mirror, while fastening the others, the proudest and the gladdest dame in Memphis. And that round

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