178 On the Elucidation of 



The original mode in which the language was written having 

 thus fallen into disuse, it happened, at length, that the signification 

 of the characters, and even the nature of the system of writ- 

 ing which they formed, became entirely lost ; such notices 

 on the subject as existed in the early historians being either 

 too imperfect, or appearing too vague, to furnish a clue, 

 although frequently and carefully studied for the purpose; 

 The repossession of this knowledge will form, in literary history, 

 one of the most remarkable distinctions, if not the principal, of 

 the age in which we live. It is due primarily to the discovery 

 by the French, during their possession of Egypt, of the since 

 well-known monument called the Rosetta Stone, which, on 

 Iheir defeat and expulsion by the British troops, remained in 

 the hands of the victors, was conveyed to England, and depo- 

 sited in the British Museum. On this monument the same 

 inscription is repeated in the Greek and in the Egyptian lan- 

 guage, being written in the latter both in hieroglyphics and in 

 the demotic or enchorial character. The words Ptolemy and 

 Cleopatra, written in hieroglyphics, and recognized by means of 

 the corresponding Greek of the Rosetta inscription, and by a 

 Greek inscription on the base of an obelisk at Philse, gave the 

 phonetic characters of the letters which form those words: 

 by their means the names were discovered, in hieroglyphic 

 writing, on other monuments of all the Grecian kings and 

 Grecian queens of Egypt, and of fourteen of the Roman empe- 

 rors ending with Commodus ; and by the comparison of 

 these names one with another, the value of all tJie- phonetic 

 -characters was finally ascertained. i«wi k;JaiiiEd3 sbfvt 



The hieroglyphic alphabet thus made out has been subse- 

 quently applied to the elucidation of the earlier periods of 

 Egyptian history, particularly in tracing the reigns and the 

 . succession of the Pharaohs, those native princes who governed 

 Egypt at the period of its splendour ; when its monarchy was 

 the most powerful among the nations of the earth; its people 

 the most advanced in learning, and in the cultivation of the 

 firts and sciences ; and which has left, as its memorials, con- 

 structions more nearly approaching to imperishable, than any 

 other of the works of man, which have been the wonder of 

 eyery succeeding people, and which are now serving to re- 

 estabh5h,-at the expiration of above 3000 years, the details of 



