White, Joseph; White, Joseph [Editor]: Aegyptiaca, or observations on certain antiquities of Egypt (Band 1): The history of Pompey's pillar elucidated (Oxford, 1801)

PREFACE.

in

and fuggefting matter of the moll ferious and awful
reflection. For what country may compare with Egypt
in early renown for power, and wealth, and fcience,
when other nations were fed with the produce of her
foil, and enriched with the treafures of her wifdom ?
Where elfe can we behold fuch ftupendous works of
art; which, no lefs in defign than in magnitude, feem al-
moft to exceed the ability of human agents? And, laftly,
where fhall we find a degeneracy like that of the prefent
race of Egyptians ; or where an ancient inheritance of
greatnefs and glory, which has been fo totally wafted
and loft ?

i_i • r\

Yet the various revolutions, under which Egypt re-
peatedly funk, were not always fo injurious and deftruc-
tive. The conqueft of Alexander was followed by the

metropolis; an eftablifhment, that
vith commerce, and adorned it
egance of Grecian art: for the
rering the grand conceptions of
It once the centre of trade and
nd in the day of her profperity
fs of Athens, and rivalled the


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of Egypt, while under the do-
afters, continually declining or
a 2

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