vincingly proving that scarcely a single page which had hitherto been written upon Egyptian history or religion deserved the least credit. A splendid work which he had begun on the Egyptian Pantheon was even discontinued in consequence of the fresh information on the Egyptian religion which he was perpetually discovering. During his lifetime, Champollion had many opponents and detractors, but not a single person can be named who in the slightest degree contributed to the modification or development of his views. Whatever corrections he adopted resulted from his own studies. His immediate disciples did not advance a step beyond what they learnt from him. One of them, Salvolini, was guilty of the infamous wickedness, after his master's death, of using the manuscripts of the latter for the purpose of winning glory for himself at the expense of the generous friend who had lent him his most valuable papers. It was not till 1837, several years after the death of Champollion, that his philological system was subjected to a thoroughly scientific criticism by Dr. Lepsius in his Letter to Rosellini, in which the obviously erroneous portions of the system were eliminated, the relations between the Coptic and the old Egyptian languages were set in a truer light, and a more accurate method of transcription was adopted. His Successors. For a good many years after this, Egyptian archaeology was chiefly cultivated by dilettanti, whose knowledge of the language seldom extended beyond the decipherment of royal names. Whole systems of Egyptian chronology have been devised by men incapable of reading and understanding a single line of Egyptian. Till 1850, the only genuine scholars who can be mentioned in addition to Lepsius, are Mr. Birch and Dr. Hincks in this country, M. Emmanuel de Rougé in France, and Dr. Brugsch (then a very young man) in Germany. But every one of these was a scholar of more than average ability, and has left his mark for ever upon the science. The important discoveries of M. Mariette belong to the next period, as also do the first works of M. Chabas and Mr. Goodwin, two scholars whose translations of some of the most difficult texts in the language caused the study of it to advance with gigantic strides. Since 1860, and particularly since the foundation in 1863 at Berlin of a journal in which everything connected with the language or archaeology of ancient Egypt might be discussed, the number of highly distinguished scholars has greatly increased. A very valuable journal of the same kind was founded in Paris in the year 1872. The names of Dümichen, Lauth, Ebers, Stern, Eisenlohr, Wiedemann, Bergmann and Reinisch in Germany and Austria, Pleyte. in Holland, Lieblein in Sweden, Golenischeff in Russia, Dévéria, J. de Rougé, Horrack, Maspero, Lefébure, Pierret, Grébaut, Robiou, Baillet and Rochemonteix in France, Naville at Geneva, Rossi, Szedlo and Schiaparelli in Italy, are authorities familiar to every Egyptologist. To these I must add Canon Cook and Professor Lushington in this country. Recovery of the Ancient Language. It is not without a melancholy feeling that I enumerate these names (many of them belonging to dear and valued friends), for the hand of death has already thinned our ranks, and some of us are growing old and disabled. The spell, however, is broken; the language of ancient Egypt has really been recovered-slowly, it is true, and step by step. The decipherment of a language does not at once put us in possession of a language. The ancient Etruscan writings are read with ease, but they are as unintelligible as ever. The relationship between Coptic and old Egyptian happily enabled Champollion to find the meanings of many words and the general sense of entire inscriptions. But the old Egyptian vocabulary, besides representing an earlier stage of the language, is very much more extensive than the Coptic, and the greater part of the words which compose it had to be recovered, one after another, by an inductive process. The truth of the vocabulary which has thus gradually been built up is verified by its enabling us to read and understand entire documents of every kind. This alone ought to be considered sufficient proof, for no imaginary vocabulary can possibly adapt itself to the needs of an indefinite number of texts. But sceptics who are incapacitated by the imperfect acquaintance with the processes of philological science from feeling the force of this proof, may at least be referred to the confirmation of our vocabulary by the bilingual inscription of Canopus. In 1866, Dr. Lepsius discovered a tablet at San, in Lower Egypt, of the same nature as the Rosetta stone; that is to say, containing inscriptions in old Egyptian, demotic and Greek, but much more considerable in extent and quite perfect. The sense of this tablet, according to the vocabulary already received among Egyptologists, exactly agreed with that given by the Greek text. And the truth of the Grammar is proved in the same manner. Already in 1860, M. de Rougé declared that there was no kind of Egyptian text the translation of which might not be undertaken if only the necessary pains were employed. We are now able to read and understand not only the splendid and accurate texts of the public inscriptions, but the wretched scrawls of manuscripts in the cursive character. And some scholars-Mr. Goodwin, for instance, and M. Chabas, and before them Dr. Birch and M. de Rougé— have successfully translated texts so frightfully mutilated that in many places only fragments of letters in Holland, Lieblein in Sweden, Golenischeff in Russia, Dévéria, J. de Rougé, Horrack, Maspero, Lefébure, Pierret, Grébaut, Robiou, Baillet and Rochemonteix in France, Naville at Geneva, Rossi, Szedlo and Schiaparelli in Italy, are authorities familiar to every Egyptologist. To these I must add Canon Cook and Professor Lushington in this country. Recovery of the Ancient Language. It is not without a melancholy feeling that I enumerate these names (many of them belonging to dear and valued friends), for the hand of death has already thinned our ranks, and some of us are growing old and disabled. The spell, however, is broken; the language of ancient Egypt has really been recovered-slowly, it is true, and step by step. The decipherment of a language does not at once put us in possession of a language. The ancient Etruscan writings are read with ease, but they are as unintelligible as ever. The relationship between Coptic and old Egyptian happily enabled Champollion to find the meanings of many words and the general sense of entire inscriptions. But the old Egyptian vocabulary, besides representing an earlier stage of the language, is very much more extensive than the Coptic, and the greater part of the words which compose it had to be recovered, one after another, by an inductive process. The truth of the vocabulary which has thus gradually been built up is |