as to the first name, there could be no doubt of their doing so as to the second also; particularly as the under or second hieroglyphic group was found to have the termination indicative of a name belong ing to a female [the meaning of this peculiar termination, consisting of an oval and a semicircle, had been previously discovered by Dr. Young.] The group having been thus ascertained collectively to express the name Kleopatra, the analysis of the phonetic powers of its separate parts was particularly easy; for after deducting the feminine termination already pointed out, the remaining hieroglyphs were exactly the same in number as the letters of the Greek word; and the order in which those hieroglyphs should be taken, having been also already pointed [this is the delineation of one of the cartouches on the obelisk of Philæ, of whose existence on that obelisk the reviewer represents me as totally ignorant, and the determination of the phonetic powers of its separate characters served to corroborate the right conclusions of Dr. Young respecting the two former groups, [expressing the names Ptolemy and Berenice] and to correct the wrong ones. That, in its aggregate phonetic value, this group denoted the name Kleopatra, was ascertained as follows:-it appears in the insculptures on an obelisk, on the base of which a Greek inscription was discovered, recording, in substance, a petition from the priests of Isis, at Philæ, to king Ptolemy and queen Cleopatra. The circumstance of the two inscriptions being found on the same monument sug-out [by Dr. Young], nothing remained to gested the idea that they related to the same subject, and a slight examination of the upper one was quite sufficient to establish this point, and along with it the collective signification of the group in question. For among the hieroglyphs were observed two very conspicuous groups close to each other, and surrounded by cartouches, of which the one which was higher up, aud so first to be read, was the identical group already ascertained to denote Ptolemaios; the characters in it being the same and in the same order as before described, with no other difference than that of being placed in a vertical line instead of a horizontal one. Of course, as the two inscriptions tallied be done for determining the power of each of them, but merely to compare it with the letter to which it corresponded in the name, as is exhibited in the two lines facing figure 4 in the first plate. So easy was the operation here to be performed; yet in it Dr. Young, strange to say, failed,† and M. Champollion succeeded. The success in this instance of the latter person, as it was the occasion of his conversion to the phonetic system which he had been shortly before opposing in a work published by him at Grenoble, so is it the sole ground for his having any claim to a share in the original discovery. But the slightest consideration will show that even in this first This ingenious suggestion originated with M. Letronne. The monument itself, which has contributed so much to the verification of Dr. Young's discovery, and to the establishment of the phonetic system as far as it has been justly applied, was found by Mr. Wm. J. Bankes at the southern extremity of Egypt, in the isle of Philæ, in the Nile, and by his spirited exertions was brought to England." "Dr. Young accounted for his failure as follows in his publication of 1823"It so happens that in the lithographical sketch of the obelisk of Phila, which had been put into my hands by its adventurous and liberal possessor, the artist has expressed the first letter of the name of Cleopatra by a T instead of a K [that is, by a semicircle instead of a quadrant], and as I had no leisure at the time to enter into a very minute comparison of the name with other authorities, I suffered myself to be discouraged with respect to the application of my alphabet to its analysis.'"-p. 49. "Dr. Young's discovery had been given anonymously to the world in Decr. 1819 in the supplement to the Encyclopædia Britannica, article Egypt. In 1821 M. Champollion published at Grenoble his work entitled De l'Ecriture hieratique des anciens Egyptiens, in which he maintained, among other points, " que ce second systéme n'est qu'une simple modification du système hieroglyphique, et n'en diffère uniquement que par la forme des signes, que les caractères hieratiques (et par conséquent aussi ceux dont ils dêrivent) sont des signes de choses et non des signes de sons."-Examen crit. pp. 4-5. In January, 1822, Mr. Bankes sent to Paris a lithographic copy of the hieroglyphs on the obelisk of Phila; and in the September of that same year came out M. Champollion's letter to M. Dacier, in which he claimed the credit of being the original discoverer of the phonetic use of signs made by the Egyptians." VOL. IX. R essay of his in the right road he acted not as a discoverer, but merely as a verihier of a discovery already made. It is true that only a few of the hieroglyphs phonetically used had their powers as yet ascertained, but the means, as above described, [in the paragraph preceding this one of ascertaining them, were supplied. Still farther it must be admitted, that the correctness of these means had not yet been established by proof, but they were pointed out to the notice of any subsequent investigator, and all he had to do was to verify them by induction, which was quite a subordinate office to that of discovering them."-Inquiry, pp. 141 2-3-4. man. It is needless to quote more of the chapter in order to showing the extreme discrepance which exists between the assertions of the reviewer and the real facts of the case; and I have no wish to proceed farther than my own vindication absolutely requires, in unveiling a scene that must be disgusting to every one who is influenced by the principles and the feelings of a gentleAt the vanity, the dogmatism, and the blunders of my censor, I have laughed heartily; but premeditated falsehood-malignantly employed for the destruction of a literary work, the eredit of which the detractor was unable to lower by fair means-is so vile and odious an offence, that I derive no gratification from its exposure; on the contrary, I feel a relief in laying hold of the symptoms of loss of temper which may be here detected, and in pointing them out to the reader's observation, as they go a considerable way towards clearing the offender from the imputation of having acted in this case with premeditation. In the first place, then, there breathes through the entire extract under consideration a violence of manner which, in a great measure, defeats its own object, and is very nearly incompatible with deliberation. In the second place, some blunders are to be found here which, notwithstanding the mediocrity of my assailant's talents, I hardly think he could have committed if he had been in a calm state of mind. Thus in the beginning of the extract he attacks my grammar for using the term inscription in the plural instead of the singular number. Surely no educated person in his sober senses could think of directing attention to so contemptible a subject of criticism. Even if the number were wrong, it would be most natural to suppose that a superfluous letter had been inserted in the text through a mistake of the printer; but, as it happens, the word has been printed correctly; and this is so obviously the case that I shall not insult the understanding of the reader by entering into any explanation on the point. Again, towards the end of the extract he adduces a quotation from my work which partly refutes his previous charge against me; and in the same place talks of my inexplicable inconsistency. Truly a very striking inconsistency is there exhibited, but it is not by any means inexplicable. Even my clear-headed censor, if he had not been in a paroxysm of passion, must have seen that the contradiction lies not at all between the two quotations he has given from my work, but solely between the latter of them and his own gratuitous assumption of my ignorance of all that has been as yet ascertained on the subject referred to in the former. In the third place, we are led to the same conclusion by the unguardedness I have already noticed as betrayed by him in selecting the second quotation above referred to from a note of my book, where the text and (I might have added) the adjoining notes present the most direct refutation of the truth of his charge against me. There is indeed evinced in this selection a little piece of contrivance which rather looks the other way. The quotation in question is not, as the reader may observe, what the reviewer is pleased to call it, a note to p. 143,' but only the end of a note, the whole point of which is lost by the omission of the principal part. The entire note, by a comparison of dates, brings home to M. Champollion an instance of falsehood which his 'honest admirer' wished, as the wind at present blows, to keep out of view ; but at the same time, as the concluding portion of this note merely states the dates of events which are more fully described in the text, it is put forward as my whole account of the matter, in order to give some colour to the assertion that I had only a faint glimpse of the truth.' There certainly is here exhibited a degree of low cunning which looks like deliberation; but still I can scarcely think that a designing calumniator with his wits about him, would have resorted to a trick which is so easily exposed and the exposure of which is so sure to reflect discredit on its contriver. After all, the case I have made out for the reviewer is only an indifferent one; but for this I am not to blame. He has my full concurrence to better it if he can, and should he in any degree succeed, I shall be glad to find he is not as culpable as, I confess, he at present appears to me to be. Leaving this disagreeable subject, I revert to the blunders of my assailant, to give one more example of them, in a case where he seems particularly to pride himself upon his accuracy and superior information. He has recorded the history of Dr. Young's hieroglyphic discovery quite incorrectly, in that part of it which relates to the aid in the investigation derived from the obelisk of Phila. For he represents this author as having accomplished all that could be effected with the materials in his hands; and Champollion's success in deciphering the hieroglyphs, expressing the name of Cleopatra, as owing solely to his good fortune in having received what his rival did not get at all, or at any rate not as soon-lithographic drawings of the inscriptions on the monument in question. Upon this point he expresses himself, in the first article of the Edinburgh Review on hieroglyphs, in the following terms: "The first great step had been made [viz. in deciphering the characters inside the cartouches of Ptolemy and Berenice]; and it only required perseverance and good fortune to ensure success. We say good fortune, because Dr. Young had already done almost all that was possible with his materials...... But the discovery of a new monument (and in this consisted M. Champollion's good fortune) at length removed all uncertainty in this respect, and led directly and easily to the formation of the alphabet required."—No. lxxxix, p. 122. How the reviewer could suppose that Mr. Bankes would withhold from Dr. Young the advantage of information with which, through the Academy of Inscriptions in Paris, he supplied M. Champollion, it is difficult to conceive; but the above extract renders it evident that he so represents the matter. In one of the notes to the paragraph which I have been obliged to quote from my work, the reader may see Dr. Young's virtual admission that he obtained as soon as any one else, a copy of the drawings alluded to, (he did not attribute his The last point I shall notice in the reviewer's attack is, the insinuation conveyed in the following sentence of the passage, in which he declaims upon my ignorance, of which the principal part has been already canvassed. "As to the method' here referred to, of ascertaining the ideagraphic significations of hieroglyphs', we can give no opinion respecting it; because, although we have read Dr. Wall's book with more attention than it deserves, we have not been fortunate enough to discover, that he proposes any method of accomplishing the object in question; or that he possesses a single, clear and distinct idea on the subject of hieroglyphic interpretation." The effective reply to this undoubtedly would consist in the production of copious extracts from the sixth chapter of my work, in which a considerable portion of the twelfth and fourteenth lines of the Rosetta hieroglyphs are deciphered by means of the very method whose existence is here insidiously called in question. But I have not space now left for such a course, nor could I in any case adopt it but with reluetance, as I should thereby virtually become my own reviewer. I hope, however, I may without indelicacy advert briefly to the subject, so far as to give to the less learned part of the public some idea of the present state of the hieroglyphic problem, and to point out what really remains yet to be done in order to its solution; as I may perhaps be fortunate enough thus to induce some competent persons to undertake the task. Had not a far more important subject opened to my view, to the development of which I feel it a duty to devote all the spare time I can command, I should have been delighted to carry on this investigation myself; and if any one of moderate information and clear intellect prosecutes it on the principles I have laid down, he will, I promise him, derive from the pursuit an abundant share of gratification and amusement. The great value of the Rosetta inscription consists in the circumstance of its being expressly stated, in the Greek portion of it, that this and the other two portions are, all three of them, records of the same decree; so that we have here to a certainty presented to us the general meaning of the hieroglyphic and enchorial texts to which the above-mentioned Greek is subjoined; but we do not possess the same advantage in reference to any other collection of hieroglyphs as yet found, and consequently it is plain that the Rosetta monument is the great touchstone by which every attempt at deciphering such characters is to be tried. Now Champollion did not submit his phonetic system to this test; and even from this circumstance alone a very strong presumption arises against its correctness. He has indeed given the meanings of some of the more prominent of the Rosetta hieroglyphs, which, by the way, he borrowed from Young without acknowledging the source whence he derived them, and which are on all sides admitted to be ideagraphically expressed; but the main body of those hieroglyphs he most cautiously avoided, and, in fact as far as respects this record the investigation has not advanced a single step beyond the point at which the English author left it. It may perhaps strike the reader that, the general meaning of this hieroglyphic text being known, the discovery of that of each separate character ought to follow as a matter of course; and so undoubtedly it would, if each hieroglyph corresponded to a word of the subjoined Greek, as is the case with those whose ideagraphic significations were ascertained by Young. But in most instances it is not a single hieroglyph, but a combination of several that is to be read by one of the Greek terms; which, by the way, is the only circumstance that has given the least colour to the hypothesis of their being the letters of a word, whereas, in truth, they are signs of the ideas which compose the meaning of that word. This method of combining symbols greatly reduced the total number of those employed in the hieroglyphic writing of the Egyptians, which, as far as it has been as yet determined by reference to existing monuments, is, I believe, under a thousand, that is, about a fortieth part of the amount of characters made use of by the Chinese, who read out a word for every character. But although a thousand characters is a very small number for any ideagraphic system, it evidently would be quite too great for one in which the major part of the writing was phonetic. From the description I have just given of this Egyptian writing, it is obvious that the great desideratum is to ascertain the meaning of each separate hieroglyph ; and then the forming them into groups corresponding in signification with the Greek, becomes a comparatively easy operation. Now the method I have proposed for this purpose is to observe a character in two places, where the general_meanings are known and different from each other; and to try what common ingredients there may be in those meanings. A very considerable limitation is thus put on the signification of the character under examination; but if we are so fortunate as to find it in a third place where the general context is known, we then can advance in our path so much farther as to be tolerably secure of arriving at the object of inquiry. The characters whose precise significations can by such means be most easily and certainly fixed are those which most frequently occur; and they obviously are also the hieroglyphs whose significations are the most important to be determined in order to the further progress of the investigation. Among the characters of most frequent occurrence are the limbs of the human body. Some one or more of them may be seen in about ten distinct places of the two lines I have examined, in each of which places the context includes a verb. But, however verbs may otherwise differ, they all suggest the notion of action, of which undoubtedly the limbs of the body afford a natural representation. With one or more of these is always joined some symbol limiting the action to the particular species of it which is intended to be expressed. By examining other parts of the above two lines corresponding with portions of the Greek in which vorbs occur, it will be found that action is denoted also in another way, viz. by means of a combination in which the principal hieroglyph is a sceptre, the emblem of power; and it is plain that power is the source from which action flows. Here as well as in the former way the action is limited to a particular kind by the addition of a symbol de signating either the agent, or the instrument, or an effect, or some concomitaut circumstance. To render the foregoing observations more easily understood, it is necessary that I should subjoin a few examples. In the Greek, corresponding with the second line, occurs the verb IEPATETOTZI, which may be construed, "they act the priest," and the equivalent portion of the hieroglyphs is fixed to a certainty by a figure known to denote a priest, immediately after which comes the expression for action by means of the sceptre accompanied by the subordinate signs for connexion and the plural number. A littlejbefore in the Greek there is written, STEPANHOPEZOTZI, which is literally, they shall wear garlands," but may, to accommodate it to the hieroglyphic mode of expression, be construed, "they shall act with garlands, or they shall garlandize ;" and the correspondent place of the hieroglyphs is clearly shewn by the figure of a garland, immediately followed by an expression for action in which the sceptre is the principal ingredient. Still nearer the commencement of the Greek of the whole line occurs an expression which may be literally translated, "making sacrifices and libations, and doing other suitable things ;" and the only place between the hieroglyphs last analyzed and the beginning of the line where a sign for action occurs, is one in which a stretched-out arm, accompanied by an emblem of goodness, is flanked by garlands, one at each side. Hence it appears that, while the Egyptian hieroglyphist used the expression "to garlandize," to signify wearing a garland," he denoted "the making sacrifices and libations" by a combination which in strictness means, "piously garlandizing;" and that his mode of expressing "the doing other suitable things," was by putting the same descriptive noun (if I may so call it,) at the other side of his representation of piously acting. I shall only add oue more example. In two places of the 14th, and in one of the 6th line, where from the context it is certain, that the operation of "raising" is expressed, the same tall figure occurs, which therefore must be considered as some sort of machine to assist in raising heavy bodies. In the first place in 14th line, the object stated to be raised is the stone with the inscription on it in the three kinds of writing; and the action is denoted by a stretched-out arm and two feathers (the emblem of honor) accompanying the elevating machine, as much as to denote, that the stone was to be respectfully raised. In the second place, a reference is made to the statue of King Ptolemy, and the action is more energetically expressed, either on account of the greater weight or greater dignity of the object, the descriptive noun being here accompanied, not only by the arm, but also by the under limbs. In the 6th line, where the expression for raising comes immediately before the statue, the mode of denoting this operation is the most emphatic of all; for here the elevating machine is accompanied by a combination of all the three general emblems of action, the sceptre, the outstretched arm, and the legs. I am conscious that the sketch just given must convey a very inadequate notion of the nature of my key to the deciphering of the Egyptian hieroglyphs; but if it serves to awaken public attention to the subject, and to shew the practicability of this mode of conducting the investigation, I shall be satisfied. Every new line that is analyzed in the proposed manner will not only add its own stock of deciphered combinations to the fund already formed, but will also afford new points of comparison, and thus essentially aid the progress of the operation in two ways; 1st, by affording opportunities of applying the key to other combinations in the same lines which have not as yet been deciphered, and 2d, by enabling the investigator to verify or correct the decipherings already made. This method, though slow, will, I anticipate, be found sure; and by every step gained, the farther working of the problem will be rendered not only more easy but also less liable to erroneous determinations. The twelfth and fourteenth lines, which contain rather more than one fifth part of the remains of the Rosetta hieroglyphs, were selected by me for examination; because M. Klaproth endeavoured to analyze the former line according to the phonetic system now in vogue, and Dr. Young, the latter according to the ideagraphic one. My original object was merely to confirm by a practical illustration the arguments I had previously urged against the phonetic method; but I trust it will be found that I have effected more than this, and that I have corrected |