298 Researches 
and if they knew the meaning of the- 
name a husbandman, they would, con- 
sider themselves at liberty to write it 
alphabetically, by breaking it up into 
three sylables, Ge-or-ge; which three 
syllables could not be expressed with 
less than six hieroglyphics, or else to 
picture the meaning thus :— 4-3 
consisting of man and field, and implying 
husbandman. The Egyptian hieroglyphic 
would not be very dissimilar to express 
the same thing. 
But this does not present so great a 
difficulty as the fact, that the enchorial 
character differed, not only from the 
hieroglyphical, as modern manuscript 
differs from print, but that the latter, as 
is the case in China, has certain solemn 
and ancient turns of expression, distin- 
guishing it from the vulgar or demotic. 
Another main difficulty is, as we stated 
above, that sometimes the pictural writ- 
ing and the alphabetic were employed 
together,—as, for instance, in the name 
of Ammon, written enchorially fy and 
evidently a debased representation of 
the hieroglyphic of the Deity £8 
consisting of a dird and a vase. Now, 
this hieroglyphic enters into the compo- 
sition of the name Ammonorytius ; and, 
accordingly, it forms the two first 
characters, as Trot —the latter 
sounds being expressed alphabetically. 
But, again, it enters equally into the 
name Ammonius:— but, in this case, 
the whole is written alphabetically, 
+7) wol3r>- Indeed, it appears 
that the Egyptians must have used, in 
some cases, a newly-invented character 
to express sound, and, in others, a 
vitiated form of the original hierogly- 
phic, such as most of the Chinese letters 
are. In this, too, the Chinese differ 
from them, employing the same symbol, 
so vitiated, both for alphabetical and 
hieroglyphical purposes. Thus, the 
name of Osiris is writen enchorially 
fo but hieroglyphically “4 —that of 
Thoyth Ky enchorially, but, hiero- 
glyphically, nin! ¥- Some of the 
names bear a resemblance, as that of 
Berenice, IQA) to the 
onguial form, Gents 2)- 
in Egypt. [May I, 
the female termination e or a bd is 
distinguishably converted, in the running 
hand, to \<: the Ibis, to 2: 
emblem of water, tO sue ; the feathers, 
to ne the basket, to Ly. — But, 
generally, there is not the slightest 
trace of a resemblance: frequently, in 
the enchorial writing, there are more 
characters employed than in the arche- 
type,—as, frequently, there are more 
characters employed to express a short 
name than a long one; and, what is still 
more discouraging to ,the systematizer, 
names almost the same, as Chapo-crates 
Chapo-chonsis—as Pe-tentemis and Pa- 
tentemis—as Peto-phois and Peto-siris— 
as Pyrrha and Pyrrhius,—are expressed 
in characters entirely dissimilar, initial, 
medial and final. : 
From this we infer, that the work of 
interpretation is yet to do, and that 
neither Akerblad, Dr. Young, nor Cham- 
pollion, have established their respec- 
tive themas satisfactorily. That of 
Champollion, indeed, is liable to one 
strong and striking objection,—that, 
conceding to us, or any one, the full 
licence of his dissimilar, yet symphonetic, 
characters,—and any given name, even 
.those of George the Fourth, or Louis 
the Eighteenth, may be found upon any 
given Egyptian monument,—a danger- 
ous controul over history and authority, 
to yield into the hands of any enthusias- 
tic speculator. 
Let us proceed from the Phonetic to 
the Hieratic character; and here, though 
in the dark as to the meaning of most 
of the signs, we have, at least, plain- 
sailing before us, and this certain pole- 
star to guide us, that the Hierocracy of 
China and Egypt, though they have dif- 
fered in the conventional signs they 
chose to affix to the same things, must, 
in inventing their written language (that 
of China is strictly so, as much as the 
“ universal character” which Bishop 
Wilkins proposes), must have been 
compelled, by the unchangeable nature 
of the simple elements of grammar, to 
resort to the same process, This pro- 
cess (and it is a theory which the writer 
of this explained, fifteen years ago, in a 
lecture at Scots-hall), we apprehend, 
was something of the following descrip- 
tion, and a practical universal character 
might be, at any time, modelled on the 
same plan. A visible object is first re- 
presented picturally, as a Wing, This 
: is 
the 
