536 



NATURE 



[April 4, 1895 



money for himself and other people. After all, while the effect 

 of science on the world is aImo;t incalculable, that effect can 

 only be gained in the future, a? it has only been gained in the 

 past, by men of science pursuing knowledge for the sake o( 

 knowledge and for the sake of knowledge alone ; and if I 

 thought that by anything that had droppe i from me to-night I 

 had given ground for the idea that I looked on science from what 

 is commonly called a strictly utilitarian point, that I measured 

 its triumphs by the, number of successful companies » hich it 

 had succeeded in starting, or by the amount of dividends which 

 it gave to capitalists, or even by the amount of additional 

 comfort which it gave to the masses of population, I should 

 greatly understate mythought;but I know that this great Society, 

 while it has in view these useful objects, still puts first of all 

 the pursuit of truth as its object and as the cause to which 

 every man of science pays his devotion. Truth, not profit, must 

 necessarily be the motto of every body of scientific men who 

 desire to be remembered by posterity for their discoverie?. 

 These things can be done only from a disinterested motive, and 

 it is because I believe that societies like the great Society I am 

 addressing do more than any other organisation to attain that 

 great object, because I think they bring together men engaged 

 in congenial pursuits, because the stimulus of minds brought 

 close to other minds with honourable motives, and the 

 honourable rivalry of men engaged in the same great task, must 

 lead to an enormous expansion of our knowledge of the secrets 

 of nature, that I, as an outsider, not belonging to your body, 

 but in the name of the public for which I venture to speak, 

 wish you all success and all prosperity. 



The President briefly responded to the toast. 



Mr. Veinon Harcourt proposed " Learned Societies," coupled 

 with the name of Lord Rayleigh, who briefly responded. 



Sir Henry Roscoe proposed " The Visitors," and Sir Owen 

 Roberts and Prof. Rucker responded. 



Dr. W.J. Russell proposed "The President," who concluded 

 with the roast of "The Secretaries," coupled with the name 

 of Prof. Thomson. 



SIR HENR Y CRES WICKE RA WLINSON, BA R T. 



TLJENRY CRESVVICKE RAWLINSON was de- 

 •l -^ scendedfrom the family of Rawlinsons who, in the 

 last century, settled down at Chadlington, in the county 

 of 0.xford ; he was born April ii, iSio, and in 1S62 he 

 married Louisa Caroline Harcourt, daughter of Henry 

 Seymour, of Knoyle, Wilts, and he died on March 5 

 last. At the early age of seventeen he went out as cadet 

 to India, and in a very short time made himself an excel- 

 lent Persian scholar ; in 1833 he was sent to Persia, his 

 fine command of the language of that country, no doubt, 

 influencing his selection by ''John Company." For six 

 years he served diligently, and filled many military posts 

 in the great cities of Persia, and he succeeded in infusing 

 something nearly akin to order in the forces of the " King 

 of Kings." In 1839 the relations between England and 

 Persia became "strained," and Rawlinson left the 

 country for Afghanistan ; in 1840 he was appointed 

 Political Agent of the Indian Government in Kandahar, 

 a post which he held until 1S42. During these years he 

 wielded the sword as often as the pen, and his courage 

 and personal bravery in the field made him a terrible 

 opponent of the wily Afghan. In 1S44 he was sent to 

 Bagdad as H.B.M.'s Consul for Turkish Arabia, and in 

 1851 he was made Consul-General, the importance of 

 Bagdad being, thanks to Kawlinson's labours, fully recog- 

 nised. In 1855 he was made Crown Director of the 

 East India Company, and in 1S56 he was promoted to 

 the dignity of K.C.B. ; two years later he was elected 

 Member of the India Council, and in 1859 he was sent 

 to Teheran as Minister Plenipotentiary. He represented 

 in Parliament for a short time (1865-1868) the borough 

 of Frome, but a Member's life offered no attractions to 

 him. 



The above brief statement of facts will indicate suffi- 

 ciently the abilities of Rawlinson, who was a man equally 

 able as a statesman, diplomat, and soldier ; but there is 



NO. 1327, VOL 51] 



yet another side of him of which nothing has been said, 

 and it is that of the scholar. Before Rawlinson had 

 been five years in India, he had read the greater part of 

 the literature of Persia, and he was even at that time 

 (1S32) a skilled and lluent talker in Persian ; long pas- 

 sages from the finest poets he had learned by heart, and 

 his conversations were so full of extracts from them, that 

 a native once described his talk as "a garden of pearls 

 in metre." From modern Persian to the ancient language 

 is, relatively, but a step, and when Rawlinson found 

 himself in Persia in 1S33, he turned his mind to the study 

 of the remains of the kings who had cut their records in 

 the rocks in the cuneiform characters. So far back as 

 1835, he copied the tablets at Hamad.in, and without the 

 help of books, or even any knowledge of the alphabet 

 worked out by Grotefend in 1S02, by making the same 

 guesses as Grotefend, he identified correctly the names 

 of Hystaspes, Darius, and Xer.xes. In 1S36 he collated 

 the first paragraphs of the great Behistun inscription 

 with the tablets at Elwend,and identified the old Persian 

 forms of the names Arsames, Ariaramnes, Teispes, 

 Achaemenes, and Persia; by this time he had made an 

 alphabet of eighteen characters. Early in 1S37 he had 

 copied all the other paragraphs of the Behistun inscrip- 

 tion, and in the winter of that year he sent to the Royal 

 Asiatic Society his translation of the two first paragraphs 

 which recorded the genealogy and titles of Darius Hys- 

 taspes. Without any desire to belittle the work of other 

 investigators, we must say that these would have been 

 inexplicable if the systems of transliteration followed by 

 (jrotefend and Saint Martin had been employed, and 

 whatever else may be theirs, Kawlinson's discovery at 

 this period of the phonetic values //;, /', iii and n is 

 beyond all doubt. About this time he decided that the 

 translation of the Persian cuneiform texts could only be 

 eftected by a knowledge of /.end, and he set to work to 

 master the contents of the work of .\nquetil du Perron 

 and M. Burnouf's commentary on the Vacua, which 

 was, however, not in his hands until 1S3S ; he obtained 

 some assistance, too, from a priest of Yezd, who trans- 

 lated for him some /end MSS. In 1S38 Rawlinson dis- 

 covered the phonetic values of //, 7i', /', ■;', //; and ///. and 

 in 1839 he had practically settled the alphabet, which in 

 all essential points agreed with that of Lassen, published 

 in his .llt-ficrsisclten Kdlinschriftcn. Here must be 

 noted the fact that Rawlinson never contested the 

 priority of alphabetical discovery with Lassen, even 

 though there is abundant proof that all he owed 

 to Lassen was a single phonetic value ; but what he 

 did claim, and claim rightly, was the credit of having 

 translated literally and grammatically two hundred lines 

 of cuneiform writing which contained historical state- 

 ments of the greatest value, /cr t lie first time, as early as 

 1S39. In this year, while he was putting the final touches 

 to his work, political necessity caused him to be sent from 

 Persia to .\fghanistan, and his studies were so much 

 interrupted during the next five years, that he was unable 

 to publish the result of his labours until 1847^ 



Aleanwhile the nunind of Kouyunjik, which marks the 

 site of the palaces of ancient Nineveh, was being ex- 

 plored by Mr. l.ayard, and the mound of Khorsabad, 

 some few miles off, had begun to yield splendid results 

 to its talented excavator, .M. Botta. That Kouyunjik 

 formed part of old .\ineveh was always well known, and 

 so far back as 1820 Mr. Rich picked up three fragments 

 of clay tablets inscribed in cuneiform writing. As soon 

 as Rawlinson could obtain copies of the inscriptions dug 

 out by Mr. Layard he devoted himself to the study of 

 them, and the practical outcome of these labours were 

 his publications : — "A Commentary on the Cuneiform 

 Inscriptions of Babylonia and Assyria ; including 

 readings of the inscription on the Nimrud Obelisk, and 



' In ihc tenth volume of the J^Hiniat of the Royal AsiatU Siiciit)- 

 (London, 1847.) 



