The historical novel was an Egyptian invention. Several of the works
that have survived are examples of it. But light literature of every
kind was much in fashion. A tale written for Seti II. when he was
crown-prince contains an episode which closely resembles the history of
Joseph and Potiphar's wife, and the reign of Ramses II. produced a
sarcastic account of the misadventures of a tourist in Canaan, the
object of which was to ridicule the style and matter of another writer.
Poetry--heroic, lyrical, and religious--flourished, and a sort of
Egyptian Iliad was constructed by the poet Pentaur out of a deed of
personal prowess on the part of Ramses II. during the war with the
Hittites.

Reference has already been made to the work on mathematics that was
composed when the Hyksos were ruling Egypt. A century or two later a
work on medicine was written, a copy of which is known as the Ebers
Papyrus. It shows that medicine has not advanced very rapidly since the
age of the Eighteenth Egyptian dynasty. Diseases were already carefully
diagnosed and treated, much as they are to-day. The medical
prescriptions read like those of a modern doctor; we have the same
formulæ, the same admixture of various drugs.

The Egyptians were not only a people of scribes and readers, they were
also a people of artists. They had the same power as the Japanese of
expressing in a few outlines the form and spirit of an object; their
drawing is accurate, and at the same time spirited. It is true that
their canon of perspective was not the same as our own, but the greater
difficulties it presented to the artist were successfully overcome.
Their portraits of foreign races are marvellously true to life, and
their caricatures are as excellent as their more serious drawings. It
was in statuary, however, that the Egyptian artist was at his best. The