400 
has contributed much to the elucidation of the inscriptions I have’ 
mentioned.* He lately favoured the Bath Literary Club with a 
paper on Babylonian Myths, and has since been elected a member 
of that Club. 
Such achievements do honour not only to the individual but to 
the city to which he belongs. 
Professor Rawlinson observest “Assyria, Media, Semitic 
Babylonia, Persia, as they derived from Chaldza the characters 
of their writing, so were they indebted to the same country for 
their general notions, for their architecture, their decorative art 
and still more their science and literature. 
Chaldza stands forth as the great parent and original inventress 
of Asiatic civilisation. 
The alphabet as well as the language of these various races 
differ ; but as all assume the wedge as the ultimate element out 
of which their letters are formed, it seems almost certain that they 
learnt the art of writing from one another. If so Chaldza has 
on every ground the best claim to be regarded as the teacher of 
the others. 
As the national result of these archological investigations we 
have now ancient history written from existing monuments. We 
are not compelled to rest as hitherto upon the testimony of the 
Greek and Roman writers, but have their testimony confirmed or 
corrected, and its deficiencies supplied by the reading of their 
lettered stones, or clay tablets and cylinders, Thus the same 
gentleman who has for two years been investigating at Nineveh, 
and is now gone out a third time, has written a small volume on 
the “History of Assyria from the Earliest Times to the Fall of 
Nineveh,” This has been published by the Christian Knowledge 
* Mr. Sayce who conducts an Assyrian class in London. The reading of 
the cuneiform inscriptions has therefore become an atknowledged part of 
education. 
+ See ‘‘ Great Monarchies,” vol. i., p. 216. 
