1814-22. Mt. 41-48.] PROFESSOR YOUXG. 249 



that the publication in which they are engaged is 

 suffering, and is likely to suffer, by your means.' 



In 1814 he was asked to contribute to the new 

 supplement of the c Encyclopaedia Britannica,' but he 

 declined, because ' it was necessary to abstain as much as 

 possible from appearing before the public as an author 

 in any department of science not immediately medical.' 



During the next ten years of Dr. Young's life the 

 failure of his efforts to succeed as a physician led him 

 to the highest literary success that could be attained. 



In 1814 he began his < Hieroglyphical Eesearches,' 

 and throughout the summer and autumn he worked at 

 the Rosetta Stone. 



At the end of the year he wrote to Mr. Hudson 

 G-urney, who had got him Champollion's book ' Egypt 

 under the Pharaohs :' 'I have only spent literally five 

 minutes in looking over Champollion, turning by means 

 of the index to the parts where he has quoted the in- 

 scription of Rosetta. He follows Akerblad (a Swedish 

 attache at Paris, a good classical and first-rate Coptic 

 scholar, who had written a letter on this stone to Sil- 

 vestre de Sacy) blindly, with scarcely any acknowledg- 

 ment. But he has certainly picked out the sense of a 

 few passages in the inscription by means of Akerblad's 

 investigations, although in four or five Coptic words 

 which he pretends to have found in it he is wrong in all 

 but one, and that is a very short and a very obvious one. 

 My translation is printed ; it is anonymous, and must 

 for some time remain so, but everybody whose appro- 

 bation is worth having will know the author.' In the 



