IN DECIPHERING THE EGYPTIAN HIEROGLYPHICS. 71 



his inquiries, and of the analytical process by which he deci- 

 phered the characters that had so long baffled the ingenuity 

 of the learned. 



Among the specimens of Egyptian art which the remark- 

 able events in the political world, attended by the successive 

 occupation of Egypt by two hostile armies from Europe, ul- 

 timately became the means of securing for the British Nation, 

 was a huge broken block of black stone, which had been dis- 

 covered by the French, in digging for the foundation of Fort 

 St. Julian, near Rosetta, and called from this circumstance 

 the Pillar of Rosetta, or the Rosetta Stone. On this stone, 

 which is now deposited in the British Museum, are the remains 

 of three inscriptions; the first in Hieroglyphics, the second in 

 what have recently been termed the enchorial characters of 

 Egypt, and the third in Greek. On the circulation of a correct 

 copy of these inscriptions, by the Society of Antiquaries, several 

 of the best scholars of the age, in particular Porson and Heyne, 

 employed themselves in completing, illustrating, and transla- 

 ting the Greek text. This proved to be a decree in honour 

 of Ptolemy Epiphanes, who reigned in Egypt from 205 B.C. 

 to 182 B.C. ; and the inscription ends with the information 

 that the decree was ordered to be engraved in three different 

 characters, the sacred letters, (or Hieroglyphics,) " the letters 

 of the country," (or enchorial characters,) and the Greek. It 

 was evident, therefore, that the Hieroglyphic inscription was 

 here accompanied by a Greek translation, and hence great 

 expectations were excited that a key to the former would be 

 found in this precious relic of antiquity. 



M. de Sacy, a distinguished orientalist of Paris, and M. 

 Akerblad, a Swedish diplomatist, equally attached to philolo- 

 gical researches, made some progress in identifying the sense 

 of the several parts of the second inscription ; but they scarcely 

 at all considered the sacred characters ; and it was left for 

 British learning and industry, in the person of Dr. Young, to 

 convert to permanent profit a monument, which had before 

 been a useless, though a glorious trophy of British valour. 



I have remarked that the method which Dr. Young adopted 

 for the solution of this problem in Archaeology, resembled 

 rather an investigation in mathematics or in physics, than a 

 philological inquiry; and to this circumstance I have in a 

 great degree attributed his success. That such was truly the 

 character of his method, will be manifest from the following 

 sketch of it, in the abstract, as given by Dr. Young himself. 



" Every analysis of an unknown object of this nature must 

 unavoidably proceed, more or less, by the imperfect argu- 

 mentation sometimes very properly called a circle, but which 



