in the triple Inscriptions of the Persians, Sc. 313 
I have but one further remark to make on this subject. Major Rawlinson 
has, in his analysis of the Behistun record, frequently declared that he was 
enabled to restore mutilated parts of the tablets in the first kind of cuneatic writ- 
ing by the aid of those in the second or third kind; from which it would seem, 
at first blush, to follow that he had succeeded in deciphering the latter two kinds 
of writing. Now, while I deny this conclusion, I feel myself bound, in justice 
to our author, to add, that I have a perfect reliance on his veracity. A brief 
example will suffice to remove the apparent inconsistency between these two 
statements. The name of the royal son of Hystaspes, I have already observed, 
was characteristic, and denoted ‘a coercer,’ through a close affinity to some term 
of that signification in the Persian language of his day, the root of which most 
probably was,—as that of an equivalent term is known to a certainty to be in 
both Sanscrit and Zend,—dri. A Persian, therefore, of former times, about the 
period when the legends were insculped, would have read any group of symbols 
representing ‘a coercer,’ by some modification of either dri, or, at all events, a 
root cognate thereto; the similarity of which derivative to the word Darius 
would serve to remind him of that name, provided he was previously familiar 
with its sound, and aware of the personal character of the sovereign to whom 
it was applied. Let us, then, suppose the Major to have noticed a certain group 
occurring in the Behistun tablets of the second or third kind, in several places 
corresponding to others in the tablets of the first kind, in which the name 
DARIWUSh is inserted. He might thence clearly infer that this group was 
intended to denote the sovereign so named, and could by its aid, if it occurred 
in a part of either of the former kinds of legends corresponding to a mutilated 
place in one of the latter kind, restore the alphabetic name in that place. By 
such a mode of investigation, I have not the slightest doubt but that he has, in 
accordance with his assertion, identified the groups in the third kind of cuneiform 
character, which served to designate, in some way or other, the persons and places 
distinguished by the spoken names he has specified ; and it was quite natural for 
him, as habituated solely to alphabetic modes of writing, to assume, in the first 
instance, that those designations were phonetic, and, consequently, that he could, 
by resolving them into their separate ingredients, arrive at the elements of an 
alphabet. But the gross absurdities in which, as I have shown more particularly 
under the last head, the views of very able and ingenious investigators are in- 
VOL. XXI. QR 
