THE ROSETTA INSCRIPTION. 321 



certain that in 1766 M. de Guignes, in a printed memoir, 

 had indicated that the scrolls in Egyptian inscriptions in- 

 cluded all the proper names. Every one might also see 

 in the same work the arguments on which the learned 

 orientalist relied to establish the opinion which he had em- 

 braced on the constant phonetic character of the Egyp- 

 tian hieroglyphics. Young then has the priority on this 

 point alone : to him belongs the first attempt which had 

 been made to decompose in letters the groups of the 

 scrolls, to give a phonetic value to the hieroglyphics 

 which composed in the stone of Rosetta the name of 

 Ptolemy. 



In this research, as we might expect, Young furnished 

 new proofs of his immense penetration ; but misled by a 

 false system, his efforts had not a full success. Thus 

 sometimes he attributes to the hieroglyphic characters a 

 value simply alphabetical, further on he gives them a 

 value which is syllabic or disyllabic, without being struck 

 by what must seem so strange in this mixture of different 

 characters. The fragment of an alphabet published by 

 Young includes then something both of truth and false- 

 hood ; but the false so much abounds that it would be 

 impossible to apply the value of the letters which com- 

 pose it to any other reading than that of the two proper 

 names from which it was derived. The word impossible 

 is so rarely met with in the scientific career of Young, 

 that I must hasten to justify it. I will say then that after 

 the composition of his alphabet Young himself believed 

 that he saw in the scroll of an Egyptian monument the 

 name of " Arsinoe" where his celebrated competitor had 

 since shown with irresistible evidence the word "auto- 

 crator ;" that he believed he had found "euergetes" in a 

 group where we ought to read " Ccesar" 



14* 



