applied to Literature and to Science. 41 



son and sun are precisely alike, so that we are every now and 

 then obliged, in speaking, to translate them into another lan- 

 guage, if we wish to distinguish them ; but the written words 

 have hieroglyphical significations totally distinct from each 

 other. 



It is generally admitted that the Chinese characters were 

 originally, and still are, the signs of things only, and not of the 

 sounds of the words, being even read very differently in different 

 provinces, although in some particular cases, especially those 

 of foreign names, they are of necessity used phonetically, 

 if not altogether alphabetically. Mr. Champollion has very 

 ingeniously shown that the Egyptian Hieroglyphics were some- 

 times used to denote the sound of the first letter only of the 

 name of the thing depicted : but he has not shown that they 

 were generally so used, when they were employed phonetically ; 

 and it is certain that they were not always so read : the symbol 

 representing AMUN, or Jupiter, for example, was seldom if 

 ever u.:ed for A, but very commonly for MN, as Dr. Young 

 has observed. So much for the universal application, which 

 you give Mr. Champollion credit for having discovered 

 (p. 146). 



With respect to the passage of Clement, so often quoted, 

 his words, in my opinion, could never have conveyed to a Greek 

 the sense attributed to them by Mr. Champollion ; nor do I 

 believe they were ever so understood by himself or by any 

 other person, until he had analysed the alphabetical names of 

 the Roman emperors, and obtained from his investigation the 

 interpretation which he assigns to the passage. What Clement 

 did mean I do not pretend to explain ; my conjecture is, that 

 like many other people, he talked of what he understood but 

 very imperfectly, and was therefore likely to express very ob- 

 scurely. If, however, he had heard accidentally of the manner 

 of expressing foreign names which had become usual in his 

 days, it would add little or nothing to the probability that the 

 same system could have been adopted two or three thousand 

 years before ; and the disagreement between Manetho and the 

 tablet of Abydus is sufficiently obvious, to my apprehension, to 

 destroy any inference in the affirmative from his authority. 

 But, as Dr. Young has somewhere obser\ed, (Journ. R. I. 



