HIEROGLYPHICAL RESEARCHES. 805 



with the Young of 1816. Young was the initiatory 

 genius. He gave Champollion the key, which he used 

 subsequently with that masterly skill and sagacity 

 which have rendered his name illustrious. But Pea- 

 cock emphatically affirms that Champollion passed 

 over Young's special researches in connection with the 

 papyri of Grey and Cassati ; that whatever principle 

 of discovery had been perceived and established or made 

 known, was appropriated without acknowledgment, the 

 dates which would have proved the unquestionable 

 priority of Dr. Young being carefully suppressed. 



The Dean of Ely obviously felt very sore in regard 

 to the treatment of Dr. Young. ' It is not our object,' 

 he says, ' to underrate the merits of the great contri- 

 butions which were made by Champollion to our know- 

 ledge of hieroglyphical literature, but to protest against 

 the persevering injustice with which he treated the 

 labours of Dr. Young; and we feel more especially 

 called upon to do so in consequence of finding that an 

 author like Bunsen, occupying so high a position 

 among men of letters, should have supported with the 

 weight of his authority some of the grossest of his mis- 

 representations.' Peacock acknowledges his own obli- 

 gations to the valuable labours of his friend Mr. Leitch; 

 but he also claims to have pursued an independent 

 course by consulting the unpublished documents in his 

 possession, which were unknown even to himself until 

 he was compelled to study them in connection with the 

 publications which had been founded upon them. * It 

 was only,' he says, 'after this perusal that I became 

 fully aware how imperfectly the published writings of 

 Dr. Young represented either the extent or the charac- 

 ter of his researches ; or the real progress he had made 

 in the discovery of phonetic hieroglyphics many years be- 

 fore Champollion had made his appearance in the field/ 



