70 GRAMMAR OF THE LANGUAGE 



with and independent of speech, conveying ideas imme- 

 diately to the mind, and which may he read in all the diffe- 

 rent idioms of the earth. Philology has taught us the 

 impossibility of the existence of such a cosmopolite writing. 

 The important discoveries of M. Champollion the younger* 

 have also drawn aside the mystic veil which concealed the 

 real character of the writing of the ancient Egyptians; he has 

 shewn it beyond all controversy to be chiefly alphabetical, 

 with some auxiliary abbreviations of the hieroglyphic kind, 

 such as we use in our almanacs to represent the sun, the 

 moon, and other planets, and the signs of the zodiac, and in 

 our books of mathematics to express certain words which 

 often recur in the science. From all these lights it seems 

 to result, that a purely ideographical system of writing is a 

 creature of the imagination, and cannot exist anywhere but 

 for very limited purposes. The paintings of the Mexicans, as 

 they are called, remain to be investigated, in order to fix our 

 ideas on this interesting subject. This task ought properly 

 to belong to the learned societies and individuals of this con- 

 tinent, who, it is to be hoped, will emulate those of the old 

 world in prosecuting researches so interesting to the philolo- 

 gical sciencef. In this pursuit the method which M. Cham- 

 pollion has followed of making the oral language subservient 

 to the study of the written characters cannot be too strongly 

 recommended ; for it is by audible sounds that the ideas of 



* Precis du systeme hieroglyphique des anciens egyptiens, par M. 

 Champollion le jeune, Paris, 1B24. 1 Vol. 8vo, 410 pp. with a volume of 

 plates. 



f It is now very difficult to procure original specimens of the Mexican 

 paintings; the government of that country having lately established a 

 museum in their capital where all that can be collected are to be pre- 

 served, and taken measures to prevent any being exported to foreign 

 countries. Our learned associate, Mr Poinsett, minister to that republic 

 not only of our government but of science, gives us reason to hope that 

 correct fac similes can be obtained, by means of which this study may 

 be pursued to a certain extent ; but certainly not with the same ad- 

 vantage as in the city of Mexico, where the ancient language is still in 

 use, and where a large collection of written monuments will be at aH times 

 accessible. 



