"Babylonian Infcriptions, &c. 93 



portance, as he propofcs to collect only thofe which relate to 

 poetry or hiftory, or which are in fome meafure interefting 

 in confequence of the celebrity of their authors. 



BABYLONIAN INSCRIPTIONS. 



Some time ago we gave a fhort account of Dr. Hater's 

 ingenious DifTertation on the Infcriptions found on fome 

 bricks, brought to this country at the expenfe of the Eaft 

 India Company, from the ruins of a city on the Euphrates 

 fuppofed to be the fite of the antient Babylon. We now 

 learn that M. Lichtenftein, intendant-general of Helmftadt, 

 in the duchy of Brunfwick, having ftudied one of thefe in- 

 fcriptions, (the one of which we gave a copy in our eleventh 

 volume,) has fucceeded in decyphering the hieroglyphical 

 characters which it exhibited, and that he means to lay be- 

 fore the learned world an explanation of the principles on 

 which his difcovery refts. This difcovery, if well founded, 

 will be of immenfe advantage to hiftory, as the characters 

 which diftinguifh the monuments of Perfepolis and the in- 

 terior of Afia, and which have hitherto baffled every attempt 

 of the learned to decypher them, feem nearly allied to thofe 

 of Babylon, from which they are probably derived. 



GEOGRAPHY, VOYAGES, AND TRAVELS. 



According to the laft letters from Mr. Humboldt, dated 

 November 26, 1801, he was then on his way to Quito, and 

 in January 1802 intended to proceed to Lima, thence in the 

 •month of May to Acapulco and Mexico, from which he pro- 

 pofed taking a paflage to the Philippines, and then to return 

 to Europe by the Cape of Good Hope. 



The following account is extracted from a letter dated 

 Leghorn, March 22, 1802, addreffed to the editor of the 

 Maga%in Encyclopedique : — " I have found here a large 

 packet of letters from Ceylon, addretTed to me by lord Glen- 

 bervie. I learn from the letters of M. de I. that he has fent 

 to London a work on that ifland. Colonel North, the go- 

 vernor of Ceylon, had fo good an opinion of it that he took 

 the trouble himfelf to correct the Englifh translation. It 

 contains information of every kind reflecting this famous 

 ifland, M. de I., having learned the Portuguefe and Cin- 

 guefe, which are the languages of the country, was enabled 

 to acquire information refpecVing the antient hiftory of the 

 country, and other branches of antiquity entirely new : this 

 part of the work, therefore, has been fent to the fociety at 

 Calcutta to be inferted in the Ajiatic Refearches. It (hows 

 that Ceylon.had for a legiflator Boudhoo, whofe laws are older, 

 perhaps, than thofe of Brahma in the peninfula of India, and 



differ 



