aE EE 
PHONETIC SYSTEM. 323 
tus, Tiberius, Claudius, Nero, Domitian, &c. Thus, to 
speak briefly, we find, on one hand, the lively discussion, 
to which the age of these monuments had given rise, 
completely terminated ; on the other, we observe it estab- 
lished beyond question that under the Roman dominion 
hieroglyphics were still in full use on the banks of the 
Nile. 
The alphabet which had given such unhoped for re- 
sults, whether applied to the great Obelisks at Karnac, 
or to other monuments which are also recognized as be- 
ing of the age of the Pharaohs, presents to us the names 
of many other kings of this ancient race; the names of 
Egyptian deities ; we can say more, substantives, adjec- 
tives, and verbs of the Coptic language: Young was 
then deceived when he regarded the phonetic hiero- 
glyphies as a modern invention ; when he advanced that 
they had served solely for the transcription of proper 
names foreign to Egypt. M. de Guignes, and above all, 
M. Etienne Quatremere, established, on the contrary, a 
real fact and one of great importance,—that the reading 
of the inscriptions of the Pharaohs is corroborated by 
irresistible proofs, while they show that the existing 
Coptic language was that of the ancient subjects of 
Sesostris. 
We now know the facts; I may then confine myself to 
confirm, by a few short observations, the consequences 
which appear to me to result from them. 
Discussions of priority, even under the dominion of 
national prejudices, will have become embittered if they 
can be reduced to fixed rules, but in certain cases the 
first idea is every thing; in others, the details offer the 
chief difficulties ; Sometimes the merit seems to consist 
less in the conception of a theory than in its demonstra- 
