name of Cleopatra contained in an oval; and the several steps by which this name was first ascertained, deserve to be recorded, since, while they exhibit the progress of the discovery, they furnish also a plain and popular proof of its authenticity.

The account is given in a long note to a pamphlet on the phonetic system of hieroglyphics, published by the late Mr. Salt, our consul-general in Egypt, of which I will endeavour to give an abridgement.

It was a constant observation, that when two figures appear sculptured, or engraved, on any monument, the first, or most forward, figure represented the male; the second, or most backward, the female. In most instances, one figure alone is seen, and then it represents a male; for instances of the female being represented alone

are very rare.

It was also observed, that when two figures, or a pair, appear once on an edifice, they were, in the same manner of association, repeated throughout the building; and the same repetition took place with the single figure, whether male or female, to an endless multiplication.

From this circumstance, Mr. Bankes suspected such figures to have been intended for portraits, or representations of the founder of the building, or occupier of the sepulchre. To ascertain this point, he caused a search to be made for the original sarcophagus in one of the few tombs at Thebes, where the female figure was seen represented singly

throughout, both on the sarcophagus and the walls; and, having discovered such a tomb, he, on the granite cover of the sarcophagus, actually found a female figure, habited as Isis, sculptured in alto relievo. This was a strong presumption that the female upon the walls was the same with the female whose sarcophagus occupied the tomb.

Again, he observed, that as the Greek inscription among the ruins of the ancient city of Diospolis Parva, furnishes the only example of the name of a Queen Cleopatra preceding that of King Ptolemy; so the sculpture on the same building furnishes the only example of a female figure taking precedence over that of a male. By comparing the signs which he supposed to represent the name of the man, he found them to agree exactly with those which Dr. Young had thought must represent the name of Ptolemy on the Rosetta stone; and Mr. Bankes very properly concluded, that the characters written over the female might be those which designated Cleopatra. This supposition became demonstration, upon seeing that these very names were perfectly similar to those engraved on the obelisk of Philoe. You know, that this obelisk was a monument raised by the priests of Isis, in the island of Philoe, on which they engraved a memorial of King Ptolemy and his two queens, each of the name of Cleopatra, and under which there is a Greek translation of the original hieroglyphics engraved on the several faces of this pyramid. By comparing this transla

tion with the original hieroglyphics, the conclusion became undeniable, that these signs represented the name of Cleopatra.

Such was the progress of the learned in the science of hieroglyphics, when M. Champollion, in the year 1822, published his first essay, in the form of a letter to M. Dacier, in which he imparted to the public the first solid notions on hieroglyphics. He published as his own some of the opinions advanced by Dr. Young, in regard to demotic characters, and the application of them to hieroglyphics, he began by re-analyzing the characters contained in the oval rings on the Rosetta stone, as well as on the obelisk of Philoe expressing the names of Ptolemy and Cleopatra ; and thus by giving a greater latitude, and a more certain, more firm, and philosophical basis to the surmises expressed by Dr. Young and Mr. Bankes, he ascertained the real import of the several hieroglyphics which make up these names.

Then turning his attention to the description of Egypt, published by the French Government, he was enabled to read the name of Alexander in the oval, or cartouche, engraved on one of the edifices at the temple of Karnac, at Thebes; and this trial produced the discovery of some new characters. Assisted by these and other discoveries, M. Champollion published an alphabet, in which he gave the import of about one hundred hieroglyphical characters, which were used phonetically, that is, as letters of an alphabet. But as the number

G

of the Egyptian alphabetical letters was very small,— according to some, no more than sixteen, according to others, twenty-three,-it followed, that several of these hieroglyphics must have been employed to represent the same letter, and used indiscriminately in the representation of this letter. For instance, the letter a was represented sometimes by a hawk; at other times by a quail, by the figure of an eye, by that of a feather, of a stretched arm. The letters sometimes by a crooked line; sometimes by a broken one; at other times by a goose, by a kind of star, by a gridiron, and even by the figure of a boy, and so on. To explain this curious circumstance, M. Champollion asserted, that the Egyptians, in wishing to express by hieroglyphics any letter of the alphabet, employed the figure of any object, the name of which contained, either entirely or partially, the sound of the letter which they wished to note. Thus, for instance, the hawk in Egyptian was called ahé, therefore was taken to represent the letter a, with which it began. A bird was called halet, and, therefore, stood for the same letter; the mouth was called ro, therefore the figure of it represented the letter r, and so on. This was a great discovery, but not the only one which he had made; for in this letter to M. Dacier, M. Champollion also asserted, and proved, that the use of phonetic characters in Egypt must have preceded the empire of the Greeks and Romans: that it must have been more ancient than Alexander; and he annexed to this produc

tion four tables, containing the names of several of the Roman emperors, and of Egyptian kings and queens, the explanation of whose names seemed to give a greater evidence, a greater degree of certainty, to the alphabet which he also published.

In this letter, M. Champollion had given to the world the first insight on the subject of hieroglyphics; and though his information was not extensive, yet it was of a nature which rendered future discoveries not only probable, but certain; for in this letter, with very few exceptions, we had the ground-work firmly established on which future scholars might lay the result of future research, and by following the light which he had exhibited, they might have proceeded with sure steps through the dark mist of this intricate labyrinth. Important as some of the discoveries are which he published in this letter, it is not my intention to state them to you; because my object is to make you acquainted with another work of this most extraordinary man, which he published in 1824, under the title of "Precis du Système Hieroglyphique." It is this magnificent work which has immortalized the name of Champollion, and has secured for its author the respect and admiration of the present and future generations. In this work the critic may, indeed, find a few blemishes, and even the scholar and the man of taste discover two or three hazardous and contradictory notions; but these faults will never prevent the philosopher and the impartial reader from consider