Dr. Young. 131 



Young had received a papyrus from Egypt, sent to 

 him by Mr. Salt, who had found it in a mummy- 

 case ; and that very evening he had proved it to 

 be a horoscope of the age of the Ptolemies, and 

 had determined the date from the configuration 

 of the heavens at the time of its construction. 

 Dr. Young had already made himself famous by 

 the interpretation of hieroglyphic characters on a 

 stone which had been Brought to the British Museum 

 from Rosetta in Egypt. On that stone there is an 

 inscription in Hieroglyphics, the sacred symbolic 

 language of the early Egyptians ; another in the 

 Enchorial or spoken language of that most ancient 

 people, and a mutilated inscription in Greek. By 

 the aid of some fragments of papyri Dr. Young dis- 

 covered that the Enchorial language is alphabetical, 

 and that nine of its letters correspond with ours ; 

 moreover, he discovered such a relation between the 

 Enchorial and the hieroglyphic inscription that he 

 interpreted the latter and published his discoveries in 

 the years 1815 and 1816. 



M. Champollion, who had been on the same pur- 

 suit, examined the fine collection of papyri in the 

 museum at Turin, and afterwards went to Egypt to 

 pursue his studies on hieroglyphics, to our know- 

 ledge of which he contributed greatly. It is to 

 be regretted that one who had brought that branch 



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