THE ROSETTA INSCRIPTION. 821 
certain that in 1766 M. de Guignes, in a printed memoir, 
had indicated that the serol/s 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 hé 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 «he word “auto- 
crator ;” that he believed he had found “euergetes” in a 
group where we ought to read “Cesar.” 
14* 
