330 Memoir of Dr. Thomas Young. 



every country have become first acquainted with the Rosetta 

 stone from the French designs. 



One of the most distinguished members of the Institute, 

 M.Sylvestre de Sacy, in the year 1802, first entered upon the 

 investigation which this bi-lingual inscription opened to 

 philologists. He devoted his attention only to the Egyptian 

 text in common characters. He there discovered the 

 groups which represent different proper names, and their 

 phonetic nature. For, in one of the two modes of writing 

 at least, the Egyptian had signs of sounds and of true 

 letters. This important result was never contradicted, 

 when a Swedish man of science, M. Akerblad, perfecting 

 the work of the French philosopher, had assigned, in all 

 probability, approaching almost to certainty, the individual 

 phonetic value of the different characters employed in the 

 translation of the proper names, which the Greek text 

 made known. 



The purely hieroglyphical (or supposed so) part of the 

 inscription remained untouched ; no one had attempted to 

 decypher it. 



It was here that Thomas Young first declared, as if by 

 a kind of inspiration, that in the number of signs sculp- 

 tured on the stone, and representing, whether entire animals, 

 or fantastical beings, or instruments and products of art, 

 or geometrical figures ; that such of these signs as were 

 enclosed in elliptical brackets correspond to the proper 

 names of the Greek inscription, in particular, to the name 

 of Ptolemy, the only one which remained entire in the 

 hieroglyphical transcript. Young then immediately ex- 

 plained, that in this special case of enclosure or cartouche, 

 the signs did not represent ideas but sounds. Subsequently, 

 he endeavoured to assign, by a minute and very delicate ana- 

 lysis, an individual hieroglyphic to each of the sounds com- 

 municated to the ear by the name of Ptolemy on the Rosetta 

 tablet, and in that of Berenice on another monument. 



The following, if I mistake not, are the principal points 

 in the researches of Young upon the systems of writing 

 among the Egyptians. No one, it is commonly said, had 

 perceived them, or, at least, pointed them out, before the 

 English philosopher. This opinion, though generally ad- 

 mitted, appears to me contestable. For it is certain, that 

 in the year 1766, M. de Guignes in a printed memoir had 



