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Rh that tells of purity of life. His bones are small, his skull thin, and his hands and ears thin and well formed. There is nothing flashy, heavy or coarse about his structure. He is one of nature's gentlemen.

Ideality, Sublimity, Spirituality and Hope are all large; but he has not much language to express his ideas either in speech or written forms. Such men are philosophical, thoughtful, dreamy, dutiful, harmless. Never pushing nor ostentatious, they do not come to the front in money grubbing and other pursuits of a like nature. They are frequently tossed aside, and do not gain the respect of the multitude. Many traits of his character come out in his story.

From first to last I saw no trace of insanity or monomania. He is cheerful, happy, content, and in no sense fanatical. His story will in part account for his cheerful view of life. He gave me his manuscript and all the verbal explanation necessary in the most generous manner, seeming to care more for having his experiences brought under public notice than for any possible emoluments that might result from their publication. Indeed, I had to threaten to give up all idea of making use of his strange experiences before he could be induced to take any share of financial proceeds. He would have been content to take a few copies of his book for presentation to his limited circle of friends as a sole reward for his twenty-five years of work in providing materials for the strangest story ever told by mortal man.

He has now to receive half the nett proceeds of sales so long as he requires them, as stated in the rough and ready agreement signed by the narrator and editor.

(Signed)ADAM JACOBS JOSEPH FRASER.

It is not necessary to say that the real name of the diarist is not Adam Jacobs. I am not even allowed to say whether he is a Jew or a Gentile, or

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text: The New International Encyclopædia/Wahrmund, Adolf

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/


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40

1839 Maury began the publication of a series of articles on naval reform, and other subjects of general interest, under the title of "Scraps from the Lucky Bag," and with the "nom de plume" of "Harry Bluff." They first appeared in the Southern Literary Messenger of Richmond, Virginia and the incognito was preserved for some time; but the essays attracted much attention, and were generally approved by the navy. Amongst other matters, he urged in these papers the adoption of steam as a motive power. Perceiving the change that steamships, rifled guns, and hollow shot would bring about, he proclaimed "a new era in naval warfare, that of big guns and small ships." Under the old system, the power of a man of war was expressed by the number of her guns, some having as many as 120. He predicted that in future wars few vessels would have more than six. Experience has shown how sound was his judgment.

In the early part of the same year he drew attention to "great-circle sailing,"—as a means of shortening the distance between American and English ports. He also wrote on the subject of "Direct Trade in Southern Bottoms." This question was warmly discussed by the Richmond Whig and the New York World.

In another scrap for the same paper he advised that "a


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6 to give any clue to his identity. He wants his narrative to be made public, but has a horror of personal fame or notoriety.

I have decided to let the man speak in the first person whenever what he says relates his own experiences, and to let the order of the narrative be as natural and sequential as possible. But as the experiences of years will sometimes be related in as many pages, and as the material of the diaries will have to be reduced quite nine-tenths to make a handy and readable book, the language will be almost entirely my own.

MIGHT write a volume on the details of my early and middle life, and many of my experiences would doubtless be interesting to readers in the Australian Colonies, but my experiences during the first forty-four years of my life, though stirring and eventful enough, were common to most men. Indeed there are men whom I see whenever I go to Melbourne who have gone through more than I have in the stirring times of the gold discovery.

I was born in the year 1818 in the then small town of Blackburn in Lancashire. My parents were handloom weavers and by close attention to work on all days but St. Monday, they managed to make a fair living. Power loom weaving, at that time had not reduced the rates of payment, and taken the work out of the hands of weavers as it did a few years later. My mother was a hearty, merry, affectionate woman; she had received more than the ordinary education of her class, her father having been a shopkeeper and able to send his daughters, my mother and aunt to a boarding school for a few years.

Her marriage with my father had not been approved of by her family, but a happier marriage could scarcely have been made. My father was a thoughtful man, but his education had been neglected; he could read his Bible but even that accomplishment had been taught him by mother. He was a very sober and industrious man and entirely devoted to his work, his little garden and his family. I was the third child of a family of five. The next younger than I was a brother, the rest were sisters.

Mother had some of the instincts of a lady, and had furnished a small front room as a parlor. On one of the walls was hung a large sampler in a glass frame; a mixture of queer pictures, as devoid of perspective as any work of Japanese art, and some Scripture texts worked in silk that had at one time been bright in colour. On a side table stood a kind of museum in glass, collected and constructed by father, and over a cabinet in the corner was a small hanging book-case. Of course there was the inevitable chest of drawers, and the centre table, and a bit of carpet or drugget on the floor, and sundry china ornaments on the mantelpiece and drawers.

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text: User talk:66.154.183.16

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Rh navy-yard and forts should be established at Memphis and Pensacola," and wrote:—"Pensacola and some point in Georgia, or on the Eastern Coast of Florida, cannot be too strongly fortified or too well supplied now with all the imperishable articles on the lists of outfits for shipping, with implements and instruments of war. They would be to the Gulf of Mexico and the West Indies what Gibraltar is to the Mediterranean and the Levant.

"There our vessels might rendezvous and thence hold the enemy in check. For them our merchant vessels, when pursued, would shape their course, and find safety in the strength of these two points. . . . In our present unprotected state, and without the above-mentioned defenses, all the immense wealth which is poured into and out of the Gulf of Mexico, as through a funnel, would be at the mercy of an enemy." In the same paper Maury advocated the establishment of a naval school for midshipmen, "that they might there be instructed in the higher duties of their profession," and urged the use of regular textbooks. This paper led to the building of forts at Key West and the Tortugas, and to the establishment of a naval school at Annapolis, Maryland, and the use of his (Maury's) 'Navigation' as a text-book there.

In a paper entitled "The Navy and the West," published in the Southern Literary Messenger of January 1843, Maury insisted upon the advantages which would accrue "from the building of a dock and navy yard and school of instruction for naval engineers at Memphis, so that they might be ready to understand and control the steam power which was beginning to be adopted as a motive power in the Navy."

The Memphis Eagle and Enquirer said of him, on April 9th, 1859:—"If there has been no occasion heretofore to ask the question, it is not out of place now to inquire, To whose exertions are we chiefly indebted for the establishment of the


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280 sign was followed by either a or f, and that a different sign was nsed before u. Taking these facts into consideration, Eawlinson thought he observed sufficient regularity to justify him in formulating the general law that, for some unexphiined reason, the grade of surds in each class were expressed by two signs, one used before a and 2, the other l^efore a; the grade of aspirates by one sign only, equally available before any of the thn*e vowels; and the grade of sonants by three signs, each applied to one vowel only. Tie admitted that there were numerous exceptions to the rule; indeed, the class of dentals is the only one where the series is complete, but the exceptions he was inclined to attribute chiefly to the incompleteness of the alphabet.'

When the letters of Ivawlinson's original alphabet were distributed into the various classes of gutturals, palatals, and so on, and among the subdivisions of surds, aspirates, and sonants, they were found sufficient to suggest the existence of some such law in the cases that have been named. With Holtzmann's correction of 19 (^yy) from t to f/, he had the three cVs required to complete his sonants of the dental class. His own list gave him the tliree nis required for the sonants of the nasal class; and he alreadv knew that one was used onlv bc^fore /, and the other onlv before u. He knew also that the as^nrates of three of the classes were to be found indifterentlv before anv vowel. In the case of the surds, he had found that five of them \k y^, ch ^, t ^yyy, n ^^. r ^y) are always to be found before either an a or an /. lie knew also that his second sign for /? {^ (43) and his second sign for r that the signs he still read [^ kh and (yyy^ th were also oidy found before it. It required, therefore, no
 * -^^ were only to be found before //; and he ol)served

' j.n.A.s. X. 176.


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Rh great effort to deprive them of their //, and to range them with the others as the second sii>ns in the surd grades for k and t.

Once the existence of this law was hiferred, Eawlin- son was led to make other modifications in his original alphabet, in order to bring it into strict conformity, and in every instance the alteration has been confirmed. The following Table shows the distribution of the letters into the various classes and grades, and the modifica- tions they underwent. When they fail to comply with the supposed law, the deficiencies are left blank: when they violate it, the offence is marked by '! '.

Uawlinson's Alphabet, ai?teb Atjqust 25, 1846 * Gutturals, Followed by a ( yyy ) by i ( ^ ) by m ( /R )

k surd M aspirate ^^ — ^^

y sonant ^T*^ ^ K^*"

Palatals ch surd fr fr —

J sonant ►-Y^ ,-V^ — Dentnh

M aspirate ^^!<] y<][

d sonant R ^YY /M Labials

P surd ^ E ^ f /aspirate Y^^?? b sonant ^J ^) \ ^] I Nasals nsurd ^ ^^ ^(p ii aspirate »^Y??? m sonant *"TTT T \^ ^ \ ?
 * J: i?. ^. S. X. 186,


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Churchill, John (1650-1722)


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282 —continued Semi-coiroh Followed by o' ( m ) by e ( J5 ) by m ( /5y )

/• surd EI

ET « y aspirate ^<: K- K- V sonant -T^ T^ -IE I Sibilant s surd r^ TE TE?! sh aspirate << << x< z sonant H H?! Aspirate h <K « <K Compound fc .tr Doubtful final. K One of the results of the classification of the con- sonants according to the vowels that follow them was to introduce a considerable change in the method of transliteration. It is only in exceptional cases that the a, foUowinsi' a consonant, is found in the text, but its inherence is hiferred. When, therefore, an i or ii immediately follows a consonant with an inherent a. instead of transliterathig as formerly such a group as 4^ ^ cfi and 4^ ^fy gu.^ they are now written gai and (}au; and this modification has materially assisted the explanation of the words in which such combinations occur. An interesting proof of the accuracy of this system is aflbrded by the word * Kurus,' which was so long an object of contention. The genitive is denoted l)y the insertion of an a — ' Kuraus.' The letter »-^^ (r), which is followed by n. is used for the nominative ' Kurus '; but the letter ^ (y), which has an inherent a is substituted in the genitive. Thus:

Noui. Kunus ^ ^. »-^^ • Kft • <<

kurus

Gen. KurauSj il. <yy. ^Y. i^. ^^

k u r(a) u 8


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Rh The interchange of these two signs in ' Kurus ' finally disposed of a supposition started by Buniouf and supported so lately as Iloltzmann,^ that >-^^ might be /, and that the Persians pronounced the name of their <ifreat kin<r ' Kulus/

Considerations of the same kind greatly assisted liawlinson in rectifying some of his values. For example, in the case of ^E*", which he had hitherto read //A, he found that it replaced {^ the g before a, in order to form the locative singular ' Msrgaicw; and consequently he had no hesitation 'in placing the two characters, not merely in the same class, but in the same grade of that class/ It is therefore now found among the gutturals as g l)efore ur

Precisely the same considerations led to the rectifi- cation of 28 (►-y^) j'/t to j. He found the locative of Susiana [' uwajaiya ') written »-y^ . ^, i.e. ji, which he knew from granunatical considerations must stand for jai; and he therefore concluded that *^^^ \sj before a; which is correct.

A farther result of this classification is to supply the sounds of the missini*" vowels e and o. for when i or it follow a consonant with an inherent a, the diphthongs ai and au are produced, which correspond phonetically and grammatic^ally to the diphthongs e and 6 in Sanscrit.^ Such were the results communicated by Rawlinson in his Supplementary Note, which, as we have seen,, crossed the detailed account of Hincks's paper on the same subject. It was received in London on October 8, and its substance was read at a meeting of the Society on December G, and noticed in the
 * Athenaeunr of December 10.** The alterations in the

 * Holtzmann, lieitriif/e, p. 15i\

2 J. It A, S. X. 177. > lb, X. 176.

 * Athenmimy December 19, 1846, p. 1302. Cf. ib. November 22, 1884.


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284 method of transliteration required by the new system were, as we have said, carried out under the super\dsion of Mr. Xorris.^

Eawlinson has not drawn up a formal grammar of Old Persian, but lie loses no opportunit)^ of com- paring its forms with Sanscrit and Zend, and pointing out wherein they a^^ree and wherein they difler. He shows that the initial letter c/, so frequently employed,, is used to express the temporal augment in llie past tenses of verljs, and according to the analogy of the Sanscrit it is short. But the short a of Sanscrit terminations is clianued into lni>' a in the cuneiform; and the nmte terminal consonants of the former are usually omitted, as in the endings * as/ ' at,' ' an,' ' am,' a rule applieable to both nouns and verbs, lie shows also that the suliixes in /, so connnon in Sanscrit and Zend, are all lenirthened into 'iva'; a rule also applicable^ to the terminal ar li' lie had finished his chapter on the Vocabulary, the student might have been able from it to put together a complete grannnar. Under their initial letters we find ' adam,' the personal pronoun ' ego *; ' aniya,' ' alius *; the two demon- strative pronouns ' ava,' 'that,' and ' iyam,' 'this';^ correctly traced through all their cases so far as they were known — and the same is done for the cases of the verbs ' am4y,' ' I am,' and ' thah,' ' to say '; ^ and in each he shows the close similarity they exhibit to Sanscrit and Zend. In his notes to the translation he dwells especially on the construction of the sentences and upon the historical questions raided l)y the subject- matter of the text. He aives an elaborate analysis of each letter of the cuneiform alphabet, comparing

^ J. 1{. A. iV. X. 195, note. - 10. x. 56, 60, 65, 69.

3 lb. xi. 15, 20, 47, 72. Cf. Spiegel, pp. 180, 204, 208, 210. lb. xi. 27, 176. Cf. Spiegel, p. 209, 222.


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Rh its use and pronunciation with those of other languages. He can draw a weahh of illustration at ])leasure from the kindred languages of Sanscrit, Zend, Pehlevi, Persian, as well as from Pali, Deva- nagari, Hebrew, Chaldee, Syriac, and Turkish; and although he displays an amount of knowledge that is truly surprising, he defers with unaffected humility to ' the more experienced philologist.' ^ He classifies Old Persian as belonging to ' the Arian type, resembling Sanscrit very closely in its grammatical structure; but in its orthographical development more nearly ap- proximating to the Zend: while in the peculiarity of organisation which requires the juxtaposition of certain consonants with certain vowels it exhibits something of a Scythic character.' - He was not disposed to admit the antiquity then begimiing to be claimed for Zend. He thought that in comi)arison with Old Persian it was modern. He imagined that the latter became gradually extinct after the age of Alexander, and that it was succeeded by Zend and Pehlevi, the former as a hieratic and the other as a demotic lanj^fuaije but both derived from it.^ He was clear at least that Old Persian could never have descended from Zend, though lie reluctantly admits the possibility of their contem- porary existence. His unwillingness to allow the antiquity of Zend was due in great measure to the lewndary character of the Zenda vesta, a l)Ook which he considered could not liave been written till after the cuneiform Persian had been entirely forgotten. therwise, he said, ' the priesthood could neither liave hnd the audacity nor the desire to darken authentic history l)y the distorted and incomplete allusions lo Jemshid and the Kavanian monarchs which

1 J. i?. A. S. \. 83. '• lb. p. 40. ' Id. p. 50.


text: Dictionary of National Biography, 1885-1900/Churchill, John (d.1685)


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286 are found in the Yendidad Sade and in the ancient hymns.' ^

The appeaiance of Eavvhnson's work was received with feelings of enthusiasm in Germany. The reproach that England had hitherto neglected the cuneiform records was at length effaced, and in such a manner as to entitle her to claim the first place in the roll of dis- covery. Benfey declared that few, if any, of the con- tributions made in recent times in the lield of Oriental research could compare with it in importance.- Major Eawlinson, he says, displays an extraordinary aptitude for decipherment, and an accuracy and depth of philo- logical learning that render it peculiarly fortunate that such an important document should have fallen into his hands. In mere length, the inscription exceeds by more than a hundred lines all those published by Lassen put together. It consists of five columns of about four hundred and ten lines, and, although there is considerable repetition, it nevertheless offers a great variety of words and phrases which added innnensely to the knowledge previously acquired.^ One great difficulty with which he had to grapple was the very imperfect state of the text. A glance over the plates will show the numerous blanks left in the writinu' hi consequence of injury to the rock. Rawlinson's copy was so carefully executed that he committed only one serious error, the omission of a line in the fourth column. The other imperfections are due entirely to the ravages of time. In the first colunm there is a large fissure on the right hand, extending from the top to the twenty-fifth line, and again from the sixty-third

» J.E.A.S. xi. 51.

' Die PersUchen Keilinschrifteriy Leipzig, 1847.

' 111 the Persepolitan texts there are not more than four hundred words; the Behistun comprises ten times as many as all the rest put together. Darmesteter, quoted by Perrot, History of Art in Persia, p. 33, yiote.


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Rh line to the end, besides numerous occasional gaps elsewhere. But the second column is in a much worse condition. 'A fissure, varying in breadth, caused by the percolation of water, bisects it and destroys the continuity of the writing throughout its whole extent.' The third is nearly perfect, except at the bottom, where several lines are wholly lost. The fourth column is worse than the second; 'a fissure transects the tablet longitudinally,' and in the lower half 'the rock is more or less broken by the trickling of the water.' But when we come to the fifth, we find 'a state of such deplorable mutilation that it would be waste of time and ingenuity to undertake an analysis of the text, or to attempt anything like a connected and intelligible translation.' In the face of these difficulties he was obliged to have recourse to very elaborate and ingenious restorations. At the end of the second column, for instance, he found the Susian copy perfect, and this enabled him to 'restore' the Persian text. It is one of the first instances of a long translation from the Susian, and his version of it turned out afterwards to be correct. In the numerous repetitions that occur so frequently, he found a safe guide in other passages of the inscriptions. Sometimes, however, he had to work on much less solid foundation, as when he sought help from other sentences that were only 'of nearly similar construction'; or when his restoration was 'generally borne out by the context'; or merely by considerations of 'grammatical propriety.' In such cases he could never arrive at more than a high probability. He had frequently to measure the length of a blank and then tax his memory to supply one or more words with the required number of letters that would fit into the vacant place and at the same time make


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288 sense. Sometimes, as in the fourth column, the sense was so ol)scure that he feared his ' restorations will be considered rather bold tlian felicitous.' ^ Occasionally his courage failed him aUoc^ether, and he was oblifjed to confess that ' I cannot restore the [passage] even conjecturally.' It is remarkable how uniformly success- ful his ' conjectural restorations ' were found to be. He imposed the most admirable restraint upon the intuitive faculty with which he was so eminently gifted; and his emendations exhibit a patience and sobriety that many scholars enii^awd in similar work mii^ht advantageously study. When he had sur- mounted the imperfections of the text so far as possible, he set Inmself to the task of translation, and achieved the most notal)le success in this department of literature. Wlien we consider that he had to unravel the intricacies of long sentences, determine the gram- matical relations of multitudes of new words and fix their meaning by a patient comparison with Zend or Sanscrit analogies, the unfailing divination he displays is absoUitely marvellous. A careful ('omparison of this first translation with that now accepted as correct will show com))arati\'ely few alterations, although the labours of many scholars have since been devoted to a ri^rorous study of the sain(^ text. The main l)ody of the translation remains the same, word for word, down to the minutest particulars. Some doubtful passages, concerning which IJawlinson himself entertained doubts, have been cleared up; but it rarely happens even in these that the original translation was hi fault as to the general meaning.

The loiiu list of commentators begins with Benfev, whose tract on the subject was sent to the press in

January 1847, when he could only have seen the first • *■

' J. It. A. .V x. p. Ivii.


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Rh part of Rawlinson's work. Some of Benfey's sugges- tions have been accepted, others definitely rejected. A few instances will illustrate the nature and extent of the earliest attempt at revision. Almost the first error occurs in Column I. par. 10, where we find : ' The troubles of the state ceased which Bardius excited.' Rawlinson warns us that ' this sentence cannot be read with any certainty,' on account of a blank in the uiscription, and the doubt attaching to the word ' azada.' Benfey derives this word from the Sanscrit ' ajatii,' which signifies ' deprived of children,* and he translates the passage : ' The kingdom was de- prived of heirs because Bardius was killed.' ^ But this alteration turned out to be quite unauthorised. ' Azda,' as the word is now written, is identified with the Armenian 'azd,' ^information,' corresponding to the Sanscrit ' addha,' ' certain ' ; and Eawlinson himself corrected the passage in 1873 to 'It was not known to the state that Bardius was killed.' The accepted ver- sion given by Spiegel is ' The army had no information that Bardius was killed.' - Soon after, we are told that 'Cambyses, unable to endure his [misfortunes], died' (par. 11). Benfey attributes his death to ' overwhelming anger ' (iibergrossem Zorn) ; but Oppert showed that the word really means ' suicide.' In 1873, Eawlinson had made the rectification himself.^ Not more happy was the substitution of ' Liebet mich ' for the often repeated exclamation Kawlinson renders ' II ail to thee ! ' and which properly signilies ' Go forth ! ' as Rawlinson said in 1873.

There are, however, some instances where the

' lienfey, Dir Persischen Keilinschnften (Leipzig, 1847), p. 9. ' liecords of the PaH, U.S. i. 112. Spiegel, pp. 7, SQ. ' liecords, loc. cit. p. 112.

U


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290 commentator makes a useful correction. The erroneous readincr, * he would frequently address the state ' (par. 13), he altered to ' er mochte das Eeich mit Macht vernichten,' which approaches Spieijel, ' er mochte viele Leute todten,' or, as Eawlinson said in 1873, 'he slew many people.' So also the passage ' afterwards Dadarses remained away from me in the field ' (Col. II. par. 9), is improved to ' dann erwartete mich dem Befehl gemass Dadarses.' This EawHnson changed in 1873 to 'after- wards Dadarses waited for me there,' the accepted version being ' dort erwartete mich Dadarses so lange ' etc. It will be observed that the critic was himself liable to fall into superfluous additions not far removed from error. Sometimes, however, he avoided this trap, as when he substituted ' he lied ' (Col. IV. par. 1) for Eawlinson's ' impostor,' and ' if you so think ' (par. 5) for ' if it should be thus kept up.' But in a large proportion of cases lienfey follows his leader into error with perfect complacency. In one or two places Eawlinson is oblii:»ed to confess that the difliculties are so great that translation is almost impossible. One of these occurs in the description of the religious reform after the death of Gomates, the Magian (Col. I. par. 14). Eeferring to this passage, he says: '(3f several of the most important words the orthography is doubtful ; of others the etymology is almost impenetrable, and the construction, moreover, in some parts renders the division into sentences a matter of serious embarrass- ment.' ^ But the difficulties have been found almost as insuperable l)y his successors. They have not been able to derive assistance from the Susian and Babvlonian (columns, where the difficulties are even greater. The meaning of some words still remains a mystery, and even the general drift of the passage is open to

» J, R. A, S. X. 206.


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Rh discussion. Spiegel ^ warns his readers that the explanation of the whole paragraph is still so uncertain that no opinion as to the religious history of the times can be prudently based upon it. But such j^assages as these are fortunately of rare occurrence; and from the moment of Rawlinson's publication the contents of the inscription were known as thoroughly as they are at the present day. The careful study of two generations of scholars has ('hanged a word here and a word there, and cleared up the meaning of a few doubtful passages, but in all substantial respects the translation i-emains unaltered.

Eawlinson s revised translation of the inscriptions published two years before by Lassen forms the concluding chapter of his Memoir. We have already had occasion to contrast the merits and demerits of the two translators, liawlinson's transliteration pre- sents an entirely modern appearance in consequence of the (correctness of the values of so many signs. There are still a few errors, owing chiefly to the pro- longation of the final syllable in such words as ' thatiya,' ' tyaia,' and others, an error already signalled by Ilincks. But these are of small importance. As regards the translations, he brouijfht from the studv of the Behistun record a knowledge of the language that no one else then possessed, and he was able at once to resolve difficulties that had baflfled all previous attempts. Such expressions as ' generosus [sum] ' finally dis- appeared for the correct rendering ' he says.' Sentences

welche Gaumata der Mager zerstiirt hatte, bewalirte icb dem Volke, die AVeidepliitze (?), die Hoerden, die Wohniingen je nacli Clain'ii, was Gaumata der Mager ibiien weggenommen hatte ' (p. 9). Wcissbach (1893): * Die Tem])el, welche Gaumata, der MagiT, zerstort hatte, stellte icb wieder her, fiir das Volk die Hilfsmittel, die Herden und das Wobnen in don Ilausern (?) welcbe Gaumata, der Mager, geraubt hatte '(p. 15).
 * Spiegel,!). 89. Spiegel translates (1881): * Die Piiitze der Anbetung,

u 2


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292 that were hitherto entirely misapprehended now appear hi their correct form. ' The son of xA.rcis ' gives place to ' the son of a Persian, an Arian of Arian descent/ The last paragraph of the same inscription is satis- factorily explained. Even where he fell short of success, as m the end of the I inscriptioii, he made important contributions to the elucidation of intricate passages.

Eawlinson added the inscription on the Venice vase, not known to Lassen. It had been recently published by Longperier in the 'llevue Archeologique ' (1844), who thouijht it should be referred to Artaxerxes I. Eawlinson translated it 'Artaxerxes the Kino-' and assigned it to Artaxerxes Oclius. Opinion has since been divided upon the subject; Spiegel and Menant follow Longperier; Oppert and Weissbach follow Eaw- linson.

Very few additional inscriptions in Old Persian have been brouaht to liiiht since the date of Eawlinson's Memoir. But a good deal of lal)our has been spent in clearing up the doubtful passages in those already known. Li some cases the text was, as we have said, so much mutilated as to defv inieUi^ible translation. This was the case with the fifth column of the Behistun; and Eawlinson thought it best to omit it altogether from his revised edition of ISTo.^ This diiiidence, however, may have stinndated M. ])pert to attempt a restoration of the text. We havi' ah-eady described the process followed by Eawlinson. It consisted in selectinii' a word or words containing: the number of letters required to fit into the space left vacant by the erasure of the text, and which would at the same time make some kind of sense. It is obvious how much of the success of this operation will depend upon the ingenuity of the restorer; and still more upon the

' Records, 0. S. i. 128.


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Rh restraint he exercises over his imagination. No one is more distinguished than M. Oppert for the ingenuity of his conjectural restorations; and the column that Eawlinson abandoned as hopeless appears in Oppert's edition as the ' Complementary Behistun Text/ and in a comparatively perfect condition. In this case he could receive no assistance from the translations, because both the other columns are destroyed; and not much by comparison, for there are few parallel passages. His work is, therefore, the more admirable as a display of the imaginative faculty. But his reading has not been accepted by Menant or Spiegel, or by Weissbach.^ No doubt we owe the ' Testament of Darius at Naksh- i-Kustam ' to the same method which appears to have Ijeen exercised upon the few lines copied by Westergaard from the long inscription below the one known and which Spiegel declares it is clearly impossible to translate.^' One of the three short inscriptions engraved above the figures of the Tomb has also given rise to some discussion. Mr. Tasker, an English traveller, sent them to Eawlinson, by whom they were published in the ' Journal of the Asiatic Society,' and an improved version appeared some time afterwards.^ Even at that period considerable difference of opinion existed as to the meaning of at least one of these short legends. According to Eawlinson, Xorris, and Oppert, Aspathines is the 'keeper of the arrows' of Khig Darius; but Norris adds ' chamberlain ' and Oppert ' quiver-bearer.'

^ Ih. Lx. 68, 69. Cf, Spiegel, pp. 41, 109; Menant, Les AchhrUnides, p. 122; Weissbacb, Altpersischen Keilinschriften, p. 31.

'^ Records, O.S. ix. 77; Kawlinson, J,R. A. S. x. 311; Spiegel, p. 121. M. Benfey attempted to restore this inscription, but in 1852 Oppert de- clared that the labour was a simple loss of time. It is perhaps to be regretted that he did not adhere to his first impression. Journal Asiatique^ xix. 172 (March 1852).

'* Vol. xii. p. xix, XV. p. 432; Spiegel, p. 69; Oppert, Rec, O.S. ix. 78.


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294 Elsewhere Oppert translates it quite diflerently: 'Aspathines, minister of King Darius, who makes the law observed.' Spiegel's version is : ' Aspacana des Konigs Darius genosse, Ziigelhalter (?).' ^

In the autumn of 1846, when Rawlinson's 'Memoir' was passing through the press, Dr. Frederick Hitzig published a tract on the Persian Text of the Tomb Inscription of Darius ; but his translation shows little advance beyond the point reached by Lassen.^ The edition of the Persian inscriptions by Theodore Benfey made its appearance early in 1847. His transliteration suffers from having been made before the method of writing explained by Hincks and Eawlinson in the previous year had l)ecome generally known. We have already sufficiently noticed Benfey 's translations, which show considerable improvement on those of Lassen, but fall far short of the comparative excellence obtained by Eawlinson. In the course of the summer, another writer appeared whose name has been already men- tioned and who was destined to occupy a very im- portant place in the future history of Cuneiform Research. M. Oppert was born in Hamburg in 182-5, and studied successively at Heidelberg, Bonn and Berlin. At ]ionn he was a pui)il of Lassen, and to this cir(!umstance probably we owe his early interest in cuneiform and the publication of a tract on the subject at the age of twenty-two. The promising youth was precluded by his Jewisli faith from holding a professorship- in Germany, and consequently he went to Paris in 1847. His later writings have all appeared in the French lanuuaae, and for this reason he is generally included among the number of French scholars, of whom, till quite recent years, he was by far the

^ Spit'gel, pp. 51), 122.

'^ Die Grahschnft des Darius^ Ziiricli, 1847.


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Rh ablest representative. So far as we are aware, the pamphlet on the 'Lautsystem des Altpersischen' was his first effort in this department of knowledge. In it he explains the principle that regulates the employment of the consonants in substantially the same manner as Hincks and Eawlinson had done in the previous year. He had evidently arrived at his conclusion independently, and it is remarkable that he was not better informed of the progress that had recently been made. It might be supposed that the attention of everyone interested in the subject would be directed to the appearance of Eawlinson's ' Memoir,' which was then eagerly expected. It was in fact published before May 1847, and Oppert's tract was not sent to press till July.

With the publication of Eawlinson's Memoir, in 1846-7, the decipherment of the Persian inscriptions may be considered accomplished. In 1850, he could write that there ' are probably not more than twenty words in the whole range of the Persian cuneiform records upon the meaning, grammatical condition or etymology of which any doubt or difference of opinion can at present be said to exist.' The value of his own contribution to the general result received the fullest recomiition. Professor Max Mliller declared to Canon Eawlinson that, 'thanks mainly to your brother, we have now as complete a knowledge of the grammar, construction and general character of the ancient Persian language as we have of Latin.' He was greeted as the ChampoUion of the new decipherment, a position he has retained to a large extent in Germany and France. So late as 1895, M. Oppert found


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296 occasion to remark that, 'after Eawlinsou it was only possible for other scholars to obtain gleanings in the field of Persian cuneiform interpretation.' ^ In his own country, however, he seems to have suffered for a time from the shigular aff'ectation that was so long in fashion, of looking to Germany alone for all the springs of knowledge. As a matter of fact, in this department at least, few Germans, with the exception of Grotefend, made any important contribution. Kask, Lassen, Westergaard, were all Scandinavians, and it is certain that for many years Eawlinson continued to be the source whence Continental writers drew most largely; and the neirlect into which he fell at home occasioned the surprise of at least one eminent Frenchman. ' Young English and Germans,' says M. Oppert, ' pre- tend not to know him. An Englishman once told me he had never read a line of Eawlinson. I replied: '^ I supposed just so; if you had read liim, your i)apers would be less imperfect tlian they are." ' ^' This testimony to the i>*reat services of Sir Henry Eawlinson is cfiven by the scholar who for many years occupied by far the most prominent position among Continental writers upon cuneiform subjects, and who has himself contri- buted largely to the progress of the study.

In 1851, ^[. Oppert undertook a complete revision of the whole series of Achaemenian inscriptions. The work appeared in the 'Journal Asiatique,' between February ISOl and rel)ruarv 1852, and was after- wards published in a separate form.^^ He introduced a considerable ninnl)er of alterations, in both the trans- literation and translation, and, so far as we have noticed, a large proportion of them have been accepted.

^ Memoir by Canon R^iwlinson, p. 824. * Ih. p. 33.

^ Mhnoire sur les hiscn'ptions des AcheincnideSjl*€Lr[s,lSb'2,Svo. Journ, Asiatifjue (4® serie), vols, xvii.-xix.


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Rh He criticised some of Rawlinson's opinions, but rarely Avitli asperity, and he generously acknowledges that the Enirlish scholar ' a OTandement nierite de Thistoire du genre humain.' ^ He subsequently revised his own translations for his book on the ' Expedition en Mesopotamie,' published in 1858. In the same year Itawlinson made an amended version of the Behistun Inscription for the edition of Herodotus published by liis brother; and again in 1873 for the ' Records of the Past.' - The other inscriptions were once more revised by Oppert in 1877 for the same useful publication.^ But meanwhile a complete edition of the whole Persian inscriptions had been pubHshed by Spiegel in Germany in 1802,^ and hi France in 1872, by M. Menant.^ The latest publications on the subject that have come under our notice are the valuable treatises on the languages of the first and second columns by Weissbach,^ and of the third column by Dr. Bezold,^ accompanied in each case by a revised text, transliteration and trans- lation.

^ Journal AsiaU'r/uff xviii. 560.

" liec. O. S. i. 107. 2 Id. ix. 67.

' Die Altpei'siachen Keilinschriften^ von Fr. Spiegel, second edition, Leipzipf, 1881.

•' Zf/» Achemhiides et les Inscn'jytions de la Perse, par Joachim Menant, Paris, 1872.

'• Die Altperjivtchen Keilinschriftcnj von F. II. Weissbachund AV. Rang, Leipzig, 1893. Die Achiimenidenijischriften zweiter Art, von F. II. Weis- bacb, Leipzig, 181X).

' Die Achiim. Ins. des. Bahylonischen Textes, von I>r. Carl Bezold, Leipzig, 188l>.


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298 CHAPTER V

DECIPIIKRMKM OF THE SECOND OR SUSIAN COLUMN — WESTEKGAAKD TO OPPERT A.D. 1844-o2

The sijiiial success that had been achieved in the deciphennent of the Persian column of the Achae- menian inscriptions greatly facihtated the accomphsh- ment of the difficult task that still remained. In the other two columns it was comparatively easy, especially in the short inscriptions, to identify the combinations of signs that corresponded to the proper names in the Persian, and to check them by their recurrence in the positions where they were again to be expected. The satisfactory application of this process left no doubt that the writing- in both colunms was from left to ri<xht ; and that they were translations of the same text. When the groups of characters composing the proper names were ascertained, the next process was to separate them into letters or syllables, and to identify each with the corresponding letter in Persian. The result of this hiquiry was to show clearly that the writing was partly syllabic and to raise the suspicion that it was also partly ideogra})hic. It was seen that the signs were too numerous to be limited to an alphabet, and that long words could be exj)ressed with compara- tively few signs. In some cases its ideographic character was illustrated 1)V the occurrence of only one si^n to represent an entire word — such as 'King.' It was also observed that in the second column a vertical wedge usually prec'eded proper names as a determinative.


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Rh From the time when Niebuhr pointed out that there were three essentially different styles of writing, and that each style was uniformly reproduced in the same relative position in all the inscriptions, the subject had given rise to much speculation. It was at first thought that the three columns repeated the same text in the same language written in different characters.^ Grote- fend, however, recognised that the languages also were different, but he thought they were dialects closely related to each other. The first, as we have seen, he considered to be Zend, which he called the Median language ; the second he thought was Parsi, or the language of the Persians ; and the third another dialect of Persian, possibly Pehlevi.^' Subsequently he changed the order of the last two, and described them respec- tively as resembling Pehlevi and Parsi.^ As regards the signs, Miinter thought that in the second column they were syllabic and in the third ' hieroglyphic ' ; Tychsen and Grotefend thought that both had signs for vowels and consonants, which were at times replaced by an ideogram. Grotefend further saw that the second included siuns for the combination of a consonant and vowel ; the third he considered had no vowel signs, but used signs for the triple combination of consonant, vowel and consonant.'* He entirely rejected the idea that either system was purely ideographic. In 1824, he prepared a Table for the third edition of Heeren, showing some words that corresponded to each other in the three languages. The inscriptions he selected

M^sopotamie, 1809, ii. 2) ; in the passage referred to Niebuhr merely says there are three alphabets, but says nothing about their being in the same language (Niebuhr, ii. 113).
 * This opinion is attributed to iS'iebuhr by M. Oppert {Expidition en

' Heeren, Historical licsearches (Eng. ed.), ii. 324. Durow, Die As- sy rische Ki'ilschrifteyi erliiutert ("Wiesbaden, 1>^20), p. 38.

^ Beitriige, 1837, p. 24. * Heeren, ib. pp. 329-30.


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300 were the G of Niebuhr, the inscriptions at Murgab and on the Cavlus vase. These he arranired word for word in parallel colninns opposite to one another. He used a full stop to indicate the conil )ination of wedges that went to form each letter or S3dlable; indeed at that period it required scarcely less skill to divide the words into letters than to distinguish the words themselves. No attempt was made to assign values to the characters, and for manv vears no farther proi^ress was made. In 1837 he still thouglit the three columns represented dialects of Old Persian, though they mii>iit not exactly correspond to Zend, Pehlevi and Parsi. The two first he considered nearer to eacli other as regards Ian- guage; but he remarked that the two latter presented a closer reseml)lance to one another as regards the writini^. Still he said the resemblance was by no means so close as that between the third column and the Babylonian inscriptions. He saw hideed that the writing of the third column was a mere simplification of the ll^bvlonian; and he liasarded the useful con- jec'ture that the writing of the second might be only an arbitrary modification of the third. He would not even yet admit that either could be, strictly speaking, described as syllabic; and he entirely rejected the idea that the third was a Semitic lanaua^e.^

But the study was now upon the point of entering on an entirely new phase. We have already seen the success with which Burnouf and Lassen applied the discovery made by Grotefend to the lonii* list of names in the I inscri})tion. The visit paid in 1843 by Westergaard to Xaksh-i-Pustam resulted in the re- covery of a farther list of provinces from the Tomb of Darius. On his return to Germany, lie made over his copy of the first column to Lassen, who was best

1 Beitriige, 1837, p. 39.


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Rh qualified to turn it to arcount, and he devoted himself to an attempt to decipher the language of the second column. The result appeared in the 'Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes ' of 1844; and the same year, in English, in the ' Memoires des Antiquaires du Xord.' ^ In 184G, the Memoir was republished m German, along with Lassen's Second Memoir, and this, as the latest, must be regarded as the mqst authorita* tive version." The investigation is based upon an analysis of the various jDroper names contained in the inscriptions. Westergaard began with the well-known names of the Kings which Grotefend had turned to such good account, and afterwards reviewed those of the provinces recently deciphered by Lassen. From these he obtained a sufficient number of values to attempt a transliteration of the more common words occurring in the Persian version, and especially in the well-known form that opens so many of the inscrip- tions. He has given us a transliteration of this passage, which is the first ever made into Eoman characters of a Susian inscription."^ His work was necessarily based upon Lassen's defective decipherment of the Persian signs; and it was therefore inevitable that it should re- produce the same erroneous values. He transliterated all the various inscriptions, beginning with those of Xerxes as the shortest and simplest, and 2)roceeding to those of Darius, including the one at Naksh-i-Rustam, which he was the first to copy.** It is curious to (!oin- pare the earliest attempts at transliteration with those subsequently made by Oppert and Weisbac^h. It will

 * Copenhagen, 1844.

' Bonn, 1845. Westergaard wrote a later essay on the same subject in Danish, which we have not been able to consult (Kjubenhavn, 1866). ^ Copenhagen edition, pp. 330, 338.

seen at page 347. Cf. with Weisbach, Die Inschriften Zweiter Art, p. 82.
 * lb. pp. 340, 3(34. The E inscription from the seventeenth line may be


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302 he seen that few of the words in his glossary could now be recognised. He had little opportunity of displaying his skill as a translator, for in this department he implicitly followed Lassen's rendering of the corre- sponding Persian column, and we find the same errors in both, from ' Arça ' downwards; but he concludes with the K inscription, which has no Persian counterpart, and here he achieved a respectable success. He was able to make out sufficient to show that Darius laid claim to the foundation of the Persepolitan platform. In the German edition he omits his adventurous transliterations (as well as the declination of Ku, 'king,' which it will surprise some scholars to hear takes the forms of 'Kuvoni' in the accusative singular, and 'Kuthin' or 'Kuthrar' in the genitive plural), and he has consequently lessened the interest, if not the value, of that work.

The result of his investigations was to show that the language was partly alphabetical and partly syllabic. Down to 1837, Grotefend had recognised about sixty different signs. Westergaard rightly calculated, from the relation of the vowels to the consonants, that they must exceed a hundred, but his actual identification only reached eighty-two. He noticed two other probable groups, but he was unable to decide whether they formed one sign or two. One of them has now gained admission. In consequence of the great care he exercised in the collation of his copies only four defective sicfus found their way into his list. He


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Rh noticed the recurrence of twelve other sij^nis, which he ascribed to the error of the copyist, though he thought three of them might be genuine. It turned out that three were genuine, but only one of those that seemed to him likely to be so.^ In addition to the determinative sign before proper names, which Grote- fend had pointed out, he recognised another, the hori- zontal wedge, which is sometimes inten^hangeable with it. It will remain a curiosity in the history of decipher- ment that Westergaard should have gone out of his wav to declare that the words for God, Ormuzd and Heaven were not preceded by a determinative — * their importance being, no doubt, thought too great to need any such distinction.'^ He, in fact, mistook the determinative sign itself for the vowel which happens to precede his rendering of these three names.

He thought he had discovered siufus for six vowels (a, ^/, z, ^, a and o)^ and eighteen consonants.^ Of the former only one {n) turned out to l)e correct. His a and i have l)oth syllabic values [an and in). His long a is a defective sign (No. 10). His e should be i and his o an a. Only four of his consonants were ultimately found to be used as alphabetical signs, and for these his values are (^orrect (^, M, s and m), A few of the others represented correct consonantal values, though used syllabically. For example, hisyy is ay>, his r is ra, his s is as^ his n is na. He was more fortunate in his syllabic values, sixteen of which have been accepted as strictlv correct, if we include two where w is

^ No. 12 in Weisbach's list : the others art* (V{ and 65 in the same list.

edition (p. (i>, where he merely says that neither of the two determinatives he had recognised preceded these words. Cf. ib. p. 124.
 * Copenhagen edition, p. 278. This statement is softened in the Bonn

^ He thought possibly the vowels might be limited to the long and short sounds of a, i and m, and in that case he was disposed to change his e into /, which would have been correct (p. 118).


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304 substituted for the more usual m; and eight others may be passed as approximately correct (Nos. o, 11, 12, 22, 23, GO, GO, 81). The values he attached to about fifteen other signs were, however, higlily inaccurate and mis- leading?; and he was unable to assign anv value what- ever to twenty- two out of his eighty-two signs. ^

He could not identifv the sion for /: no doubt because there was no corresponding sound in the Persian l)v which he was guided, and he thought that no syllable beiran with in. He considers all the svllal)les bei^in with a consonant, though he detected two possible exceptions, where the syllables appear to be as (Xos. 8 and 82). Neitlier of these are in reality exceptions, l)ut there are numerous other instances where the vowel is the initial. None of his syllables exceed two letters, though later investigation has shown that there are several cases where a vowel separates two consonants. lie noticed that the sylla- bic sign was frequently replaced by two signs to express the simple consonant and the vowel. He observed the peculiarity that the language knows of no dillerence between the sounds of m and /r, both being written with the same letter; and he also showed that the sonants are generally absent, for while 1% ^>, t are represented, he could not find //, />, or , the two together denoted the surd.

At a time when the affinities of the language were entirely unknown St. ^lartin had given it the name of Median, no doubt under the supposition that it was

' Bonn edition, pp. 118-119. See Appendix C.


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Rh allied to Persian and spoken by the Median branch of the common Aryan race.^ The investigations now concluded by Westergaard showed for the first time that its affinities were with the Scythic or Turanian family of languages, and the inconvenience of retaining the name of Median first became apj^rent.- There could be no doubt that the Median conquerors were Aryans, as may be shown from the names of their leaders, and their close relationship to the Persians in race and language was accepted l)y all the early his- torians as self-evident. It is clear, therefore, that the language of the second column is not theirs, yet Westergaard determined to adhere to the name of Median as its most appropriate designation. He was led to adopt this course chiefiy because there appeared to be no other district except Media where it could have been spoken, and also bec^ause its graphic system seems to indicate contact with Assyria. There can be little doubt that his decision was fully justified at the time, and, to avoid unnecessary confusion, in referring to the earlier writers we have in this chapter generally followed their description of the language of the second column as Median. On the other hand, modern discovery has tended to increase the importance of Susa, by showing that at least a portion of its territory had become the hereditary dominions of Cyrus, before his accession to the Persian throne. At the same time the connection between the lanjjua^^e of the second column and that of the ancient inscriptions found in the district has been more completely recognised. There appears good ground to l)elieve that the Aryan race had been established throughout Media long before they rose into

 * Bumouf, Memoire sur Deu.r InscriptioTis (1836), p. 2.

' Westergaard (Bonn edition), pp. 4, 123. C/. Coi)enhagen edition,


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306 historical importance. The incoiivenieuce of calling a Scythian language after the Aryan Medians has there- fore manifestly increased, while the name of ' Susian,' though not free from objection, has become more apjjropriate, and is the one now generally adopted. How far the Ihiiguage was spoken beyond the limits of Susiana, among the subject tribes of Media, may still be open to conjecture. There is, as we shall see, some evidence in favour of its extension.

It will l^e recollected that early in 1846 Rawlinson had been able to translate the whole of the last para- graph of the second colunm of the Behistun inscription from the Median or Susian text, the Persian version of that passage having been found illegible.^ Several years later Mr. Nori-is, with all his special knowledge, was o])lii>'ed to confess that he was ' unable to a'ive a better transhition than Colonel Kawlinson lias prepared' of that very paragraph.- In the same year Rawlinson announced the opmion liis studies had led him to adopt upon this subject. It does not appear that he was as yet acquainted with Westergaard's essay: but he had arrived at the same conclusicm with reference to the Scvthic aflinities of the lanOTaiie. He likewise esti- mated the number of the siuiis at about a hundred, ' the vowels, unless they commence a syllable, l)eing for the most part inherent.' He does not appear to have noticed the absence of sonants, but he saw that there must be considerable interchantreability in letters of the same class, and perhaps even between a and /. He added that the language evinced a repugnance to r. He held that ' it i-esembles the Scvthic in the em- ])loyment of post-positions and pronominal possessive suifixes.' In the declension of nouns it uses post-fixed })articles that are frequently the same as in modern

' J. R. A. S. X. L>28. - lb. XV. 115.


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Rh Turkish, and he notified the existence of a Tartarian gerund. The pronouns are, he says, Semitic; the adverbs Aryan; the vocabulary a strange agglomera- tion of Turkish and Semitic. Although its construction is more akin to Aryan than Scythic, yet upon the whole he decides that its affinitv is with the Scythic, and suggests that that would be a more appropriate name for it than Median.^ He thought some of its peculiarities might be explained by comparison with the Georgian, which, when time permitted, he proposed to undertake.- He su^irested that it was the lanofuai^fe of the al)orimnal race whom the Aryan Medes had con- quered, and whose settlements reac^hed at least to Itehistun, where an inscription had l)een found without the Persian translation, apparently indicathig that it was locally comprehensible.'"^

Wlien Uawlinsonhad finished liis Persian Memoir he devoted himself to a more elaborate study of the Median, and he appears to have nearly completed an essay upon the sul)ject. Meanwhile, however, lie was drawn from this branch of inquiry to the more attractive and useful study of the Babylonian colunni: and his work on Median was never pul)lished.^ He did not, however, los(^ his interest in the subject. He handed over his <'opies and other materials to Mr. Xorris, who under- took the investigation of the subject and to whom he continued to give valual)le assistance as occasion arose.

The study of Median was taken up in the meantime by Dr. llincks from the point where it was left by Westeriiaard and Pawlinson. Hincks's contribution is contained in three papers read l)efore the Irish Academy

' J.ll.A.S. X. 1>0, note.

- Western^aard was also struck by the similarity <>t* the Georgian plural iitKx *bi.' Coi)enhagfn edition, \)\). 800, 80«">. ' J.ILA.Kx. 37. ' lb. vol. ix. Report, 1S4H, and li.'port, May ]f<4X.

V •)


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308 between June 1840 and January 1847; and the last two appeared after he had seen the opinions of Rawlin- son to which we have referred.^ These papers were communicated without dehiy to the Asiatic Society in London, as we k^arn from a note by the Secretary, who says he had just received (June 1840) a ('ommunication on the Median cuneiform from ' a learned clergyman in a remote part of Ireland.' -

Hincks diflered in some material points from Westergaard. He would not admit the long vowels, and limited them to a, i and u, adding, however, er to their number. He restricted the simple consonants to m, ]>^ t^ k^ 5, and n; and from tliese he thought all the other signs were combined. He rightly admitted the compound syllabic form, consisting of two consonants joined by a vowel, which Westergaard had overlooked, and he even allows the occasional use of a double syllable, such as ' ersa ' and ' washa.' He showed that the vowel is never omitted, though not always necessarily pro- nounced. Thus the group ' an-na-ap ' reads simply ' anap '; and he did not consider that the simple conson- ants i)recediiig its syllabic form altered the sound as Westergaard had suggested.^ Hincks adopted the eighty- two signs distinguislied l)y Westergaard, and attempted the identification of sixty-seven, or seven more than Westergaard. His identification of the three vowels, a, i and u,, was correc^t: and his limited number of con- sonants were also correct so far as they went, with the exception of 7>, which is the syllable ' pir ' (No. 40). He, however, allotted more than one sign to some of his consonants: thus k is j-epresented l)y three signs, t by

^ In his last paper he made several corrections in the values of the letters (TranM. Ii\ I, Acad. x\'\. 241) which Menaut has not taken into account in his Table. Lfs Etrituren cuuclformes (second ed. lS(h4), p. 138.

- J. 11. A. ♦V. vol. ix. lte]»rt, lS4(i, p. xvii.

^ Traiisaction$y\h,\^\). \'2'> i'8.


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176 This was another Philadelphia fact I accepted on faith. It was not until I began to think about Philadelphia that I saw how consistent Philadelphians were in their inconsistency. Their position in the matter was what their past had made it, and the inconsistency is in their greater liberality to-day. For Pennsylvania has never been Catholic, has never had an aristocratic Catholic tradition like England: to the Friends there, all the aristocracy of the traditional kind belongs. The people—the World's People—who rushed to Pennsylvania to secure for themselves the religious liberty William Penn offered indiscriminately to everybody, found they could not enjoy it if Catholics were to profit by it with them. They had not been there any time when, as one of the early Friends had the wit to see and to say, they "were surfeited with liberty," and the Friends, who refused to all sects alike the privilege of expressing their religious fervour in wood piles for witches and prison cells for heretics, could not succeed in depriving them of their healthy religious prejudice which, they might not have been able to explain why, concentrated itself upon the Catholic. Episcopalians approved of a doctrine of freedom that meant they could build their own churches where they would. Presbyterians and Baptists objected so little to each other that, for a while, they could share the same pulpit. Moravians put up their monasteries where it suited them best. Mennonites took possession of Germantown. German mystics were allowed to search in peace for the Woman in White and wait hopefully for the


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A New Method of Determining the Parallax of the Sun

It is well known that this distance of the sun from the earth, is supposed different by different astronomers. Ptolemy and his followers, as also Copernicus and Tycho Brahe, have computed it at 1200 semi-diameters of the earth, and Kepler at almost 3500; Riccioli doubles this last distance, and Hevelius makes it only half as much. But at length it was found, on observing by the telescope, Venus and Mercury on the sun's disk, divested of their borrowed light, that the apparent diameters of the planets were much less than hitherto they had been supposed to be; and in particular, that Venus's semi-diameter, seen from the sun, only subtends the fourth part of a minute, or 15 seconds; and that Mercury's sem-diameter, at his mean distance from the sun, is seen under an angle of 10 seconds only, and Saturn's semi-diameter under the same angle; and that the semi-diameter of Jupiter, the largest of all the planets, subtends no more than the third part of a minute at the sun. Whence, by analogy, some modern astronomers conclude that the earth's semi-diameter, seen from the sun, subtends a mean angle, between the greater of Jupiter and the less of Saturn and Mercury, and equal to that of Venus, viz. one of 15 seconds; and consequently, that the distance of the sun from the earth is almost 14,000 semi-diameters of the latter. Another consideration has made these authors enlarge this distance a little more: for since the moon's diameter is rather more than a quarter of the earth's diameter, if the sun's parallax be supposed 15 seconds, the body of the moon would be larger than that of Mercury, viz. a secondary planet larger than a primary one, which seems repugnant to the regular proportion and symmetry of the mundane system. On the contrary, it seems hardly consistent with the same proportion, that Venus, an inferior planet, and without any satellite, should be larger than our earth, a superior planet, and accompanied with so remarkable a satellite. Therefore, at a mean, supposing the earth's semi-diameter, seen from the sun, or which is the same thing, the sun's horizontal parallax, to be 12 seconds and a half, the moon will be less than Mercury, and the earth larger than Venus, and the sun's distance from the earth come out nearly 16500 semi-diameters of the earth. I shall admit of this distance at present, till its precise quantity be made to appear more certain by the trial I propose; not regarding the authority of such as set the sun at an immensely greater distance, relying on the observations of a vibrating pendulum, which do not seem accurate enough to determine such minute angles; at least, such as use this method will find the parallax sometimes none at all, and sometimes even negative; that is, the distance will become either infinite, or more than infinite, which is absurd. And it is scarcely possible for any one certainly to determine, by means of instruments, however nice, single seconds, or even 10 seconds; and therefore, it is not at all surprising, that the exceeding minuteness of such angles has hitherto baffled the many and ingenious attempts of artists.

While I was making my observations in the island of St. Helena, about 40 years since, on the stars round the south pole, I happened to observe, with the utmost care, Mercury passing over the sun's disk: and contrary to expectation, I very accurately obtained, with a good 24-foot telescope, the very moment in which Mercury, entering the sun's limb, seemed to touch it internally, as also that of his going off; forming an angle of internal contact. Hence I discovered the precise quantity of time the whole body of Mercury had then appeared within the sun's disk, and that without an error of one single second of time; for, the thread of solar light, intercepted between the obscure limb of the planet, and the bright limb of the sun, though exceedingly slender, affected my sight, and in the twinkling of an eye, both the indenture made on the sun's limb by Mercury entering into it, vanished, and that made by his going off, appeared. On observing this I immediately concluded, that the sun's parallax might be duly determined by such observations, if Mercury, being nearer the earth, had a greater parallax, when seen from the sun; for, this difference of parallaxes is so very inconsiderable, as to be always less than the sun's parallax, which is sought; consequently, though Mercury is to be frequently seen within the sun's disk; he will scarcely be fit for the present purpose.

There remains therefore Venus's transit over the sun's disk, whose parallax, being almost 4 times greater than that of the sun, will cause very sensible differences between the times in which Venus shall seem to pass over the sun's disk in different parts of our earth. From these differences, duly observed, the sun's parallax may be determined, even to a small part of a second of time; and that without any other instruments than telescopes and good common clocks, and without any other qualifications in the observer than fidelity and diligence, with a little skill in astronomy. For we need not be scrupulous in finding the latitude of the place, or in accurately determining the hours with respect to the meridian; it is sufficient, if the times be reckoned by clocks, truly corrected according to the revolutions of the heavens, from the total ingress of Venus on the sun's disk, to the beginning of her egress from it, when her opaque globe begins to touch the bright limb of the sun; which times, as I found by experience, may be observed even to a single second of time.

But by the limited laws of motion, Venus is very rarely seen within the sun's disk; and for a series of 120 years, and upwards, is not to be seen there once; viz. from 1639, when Mr. Horrox was favoured with this agreeable sight, and he the first and only one since the creation of the world, down to 1761; at which time, according to the theories hitherto observed in the heavens, Venus will pass over the sun on May 26 in the morning; so that (vide Phil. Trans. N0 193) at London, nearly at 6 o'clock in the morning, she is to be in the middle of the sun's disk, and but 4 minutes more southerly than his centre. The duration of this transit will be almost 8 hours; viz. from 2 till near 10 o'clock in the morning. Consequently her ingress will not be visible in England: but the sun at that time being in 16° of Gemini, and almost in 23° of north declination, will be seen not to set throughout the whole northern frigid zone; and consequently the inhabitants of the coast of Norway, as far as its northern promontory, beyond the town of Drontheim, may observe Venus entering the sun's disk; and perhaps this ingress into the sun at his rising may be seen by the inhabitants of the north of Scotland and those of Zetland. But when Venus is nearest the sun's centre, he will be vertical to the northern coasts of the gulph of Ganga, or rather of the kingdom of Pegu; and consequently, in the neighbouring countries, when the sun shall, at the ingress of Venus, be almost 4 hours distant to the east, and almost as many to the west at her egress, her apparent motion within the sun's disk will be accelerated almost twice as much as in the horizontal parallax of Venus from the sun; because Venus at that time moves retrograde from east to west; while in the mean time an eye, on the surface of the earth, is carried the contrary way, from west to east.

Supposing the sun's parallax, as was said, to be 12 seconds and a half, Venus's parallax will be 43 seconds; and subtracting the sun's parallax, there will remain half a minute at least for the horizontal parallax of Venus from the sun, and consequently, Venus's motion will be accelerated ¾ of a minute at least by that parallax, while she passes over the sun's disk, in such elevations of the pole as are near the Tropic; and still more so near the equator. For Venus will at that time accurately enough describe within the sun's disk 4 minutes an hour; and consequently, at least 11 minutes of time (by which the duration of this eclipse of Venus will be contracted by reason of the parallax) answer to ¾ of a minute. And by this contraction alone we might safely determine the parallax, provided the sun's diameter and Venus's latitude were very accurately given; which yet we cannot possibly bring to a calculation, in a matter of such great subtlety.

We must therefore have another observation, if possible, in places where Venus possesses the middle of the sun at midnight, viz. under the opposite meridian, that is, 6h or 90° more westerly than London, and where Venus enters the sun's disk a little before his setting, and goes off a little after his rising; which will happen in the said meridian in about 56° of N. lat. that is, at Nelson's harbour in Hudson's Bay. For, in the neighbouring places Venus's parallax will protract the duration of the transit, and make it at least 6 minutes longer; because while the sun seems to tend under the pole from west to east, these places on the earth's surface will seem to be carried with a contrary motion towards the west, that is, with a motion conspiring with the proper motion of Venus; consequently Venus will seem to move slower within the sun's disk, and continue longer on it.

If therefore in both places this transit happen to be duly observed by proper persons, it is evident that the Mora will be longer by 17 entire minutes in Nelson's harbour, than in the East-Indies; nor does it matter much whether the observation be made at Fort St. George, commonly called Maderas, or at Bencoolen on the western coast of the island of Sumatra near the equator. But if the French should incline to make the observation, Pondicherry on the western coast of the gulph of Ganga, at the elevation of 12°, will be a proper place for that purpose: and for the Dutch, their famous emporium Batavia is a fit place. And indeed I would have several observations made of the same phenomenon in different parts, both for further confirmation, and lest a single observer should happen to be disappointed by the intervention of clouds from seeing what I know not if those either of the present or following age shall ever see again; and upon which, the certain and adequate solution of the noblest, and otherwise most difficult problem depends. Therefore again and again, I recommend it to the curious strenuously to apply themselves to this observation.

By this means, the sun's parallax may be discovered, to within its five hundredth part, which will doubtless seem surprising to some: but yet, if an accurate observation be had in both the places above-mentioned, it has already been shown that the duration of these eclipses of Venus differ from each other by 17 entire minutes, on the supposition that the sun's parallax is 12½ seconds. And if this difference be found to be greater or less by observation, the sun's parallax will be greater or less nearly in the same ratio. And since 17 minutes of time answer to 12½ seconds of the sun's parallax; for each second of the parallax there will arise a difference of upwards of 80 seconds of time; therefore, if this difference be obtained true within 2 seconds of time, the quantity of the sun's parallax will be got to within the 40th part of one second; and consequently his distance will be determined to within its 500th part; at least if the parallax be not found less than what I have supposed it; for 40 x 12½ is 500.

Here I have had no regard to the planet's latitude, both to avoid the trouble of a more intricate calculation, which would render the conclusion less evident, as also on account of the motion of the nodes of Venus not being hitherto discovered, and which can only be duly determined by such conjunctions of the planet with the sun as this. For it was only on the supposition, that the plane of Venus's orbit is immoveable in the sphere of the fixed stars, and that her nodes would continue in the same places as they were in 1639, that it was concluded, that Venus would pass 4 minutes below the sun's centre. But if in 1761 she should pass more southerly, it will be evident, that there is a regression of the nodes; and if more northerly, that there is a progression of them; and that at the rate of 5½ minutes in 100 Julian years, for each minute by which the path of Venus will at that time be more or less distant from the sun's centre than the said 4 minutes. But the difference between the durations of these eclipses will be somewhat less than 17 minutes, by reason of the southern latitude of Venus; but greater if, by the progression of the nodes, she shall pass over the sun to the north of his centre.

But for the sake of such as are not thoroughly acquainted with the doctrine of parallaxes, I shall further explain the matter both by a figure and a somewhat more accurate calculation. Therefore, supposing that at London, May 25, 17h55m, 1761, the sun be in 15° 37' of Gemini, and consequently that at his centre the ecliptic tends towards the north in an angle of 6° 10'; and that the visible path of Venus within the sun's disk at that time descends towards the south, forming an angle with the ecliptic of 8° 28'; then the path of Venus will tend a little towards the south in respect of the equator, intersecting the parallels of declination in an angle of 2° 18'. Supposing likewise that Venus be near the sun's centre at the said time, and distant from it towards the south 4 minutes, describing, by a retrograde motion on the sun's disk, 4 minutes an hour. The sun's semi-diameter will be nearly 15' 51", and that of Venus 37½". And supposing, for trial sake, the difference of the horizontal parallaxes of Venus and the sun to be 31", such as it is on the supposition of the sun's parallax being 12½". Therefore let a small circle, as AEBD, fig. 3, pl. 5, be described from the centre C, whose semi-diameter let be 31", representing the earth's disk, and in it drawing DabE and cde the ellipses of the parallels of 22 and 56° N. lat. in the same manner as is now used by astronomers for constructing solar eclipses: and let BCA be the meridian in which the sun is, to which let be inclined the right line FHG, representing the path of Venus, in an angle of 2° 18', whose distance from the centre C let be 240 such parts as BC is 31; and from C let fall the right line CH perpendicular upon FG. Then supposing the planet in H at 17h55m, or 5h55m in the morning, let the right line FHG be divided into the horary spaces III; IV, IV; V, V; VI, &c. equal to CH, that is, 4 minutes. Let the right line KL be also equal to the difference of the apparent semi-diameters of the sun and Venus, or 15' 13½". Then the circle, described with the radius KL, and from any point within the small circle, representing the earth's disk as a centre, will meet the right line FG in the point denoting what o'clock it is at London, when Venus shall touch the sun's limb in an angle of internal contact, in that place of the earth's superficies that lies under the assumed point on the disk. And if a circle, described from the centre C and with the radius KL, meet FG in the points F and G, the right lines FH, HG will be = 14' 41", which Venus will appear to pass over in 3h40m. Therefore F will fall upon 2h5m at London, and G upon 9h35m in the morning. Whence it is evident, that if the earth's magnitude should vanish, as it were, into a point, by reason of the immense distance; or if, divested of its diurnal motion, it should always have the sun vertical to the same point C, the entire mora of this eclipse would continue for 7¾ hours. But in the mean time while the earth revolves with a contrary motion to that of Venus through 110° of long. and consequently the duration of the said mora is shorter, suppose by 12 minutes, it will be nearly 7h8m, or 107°.

How in the meridian itself Venus will be near the sun's centre at the eastern mouth of the Ganges, where the elevation of the pole is about 22°. Therefore that place will be equally distant from the sun on both hands, in the moments of the planet's ingress and egress, viz. 53½°; as the points a, b, in the greater parallel DabE. But the diameter AB will be to the distance ab, as the square of the radius to the rectangle under the sines of 53½° and 68°, that is, as 1' 2" is to 46" 13"'; and on making a due calculation, I find that the circle described with the radius KL, from the centre a, will meet the right line FH in the point M, at 2h20m40s; but described from the centre b, it will meet HG in N, at 9h29m22s at London; consequently, the whole body of Venus will be seen the banks of the Ganges, within the sun's disk, for 7h8m42s. Therefore we have rightly supposed its duration 7h8m, since here a part of a minute is inconsiderable.

But adapting the calculation to Nelson's harbour, I find that Venus shall pass over the sun's disk, when he is just about to set, and emerge out of his disk immediately after his rising, that place in the mean time being carried through the hemisphere opposite to the sun from c to d, with a motion conspiring with that of Venus. Therefore the mora of Venus within the sun's disk will become longer by reason of the parallax, suppose by 4 minutes, so as entirely to be 7h24m or 111° of the equator. And since the latitude of the place is 56°, it will be as the square of the radius is to the rectangle under the sines of 55½° and 34°, so is AB = 1' 2" to cd = 28" 33"'. And on duly making the calculation, it will appear, that the circle, described from the centre c, with the radius KL, will meet the right line FH in O, at 2h12m45s; but described from the centre d, it will meet HG in P, at 9h36m37s. Therefore the duration of the mora at Nelson's harbour will be 7h23m52s, viz. greater than at the mouth of the Ganges by 15ml0s of time. But if Venus should pass without latitude, the said difference will become 18m40s; and if she shall be 4 minutes more northerly than the sun's centre, the difference will be increased to 21m40s, and will be still greater by increasing the planet's N. lat.

From the above hypothesis it follows, that at London Venus will rise when entered into the sun, and at 9h37m in the morning in her egress touch internally the sun's limb, and quite leave his disk not before 9h56m.

It is evident from the same hypothesis, that Venus should touch with her centre the extreme northern limb of the sun on May 23, 11h, 1769, so that, by reason of the parallax, her whole body may be seen in the northern parts of Norway, within the sun's disk; while on the coast of Peru and Chili she will seem to ride on the disk of the setting sun with a small segment of her body; as in like manner in the Molucca islands, and the neighbouring parts, at sun-rising. But if the nodes of Venus be found to have a retrocession, as there is reason to suspect from some later observations, then her whole body being every where seen within the sun's disk, the greatest differences of these eclipses will afford a still more evident proof of the sun's parallax.

The transit of Venus in 1761 proved much less favourable to the proposed purpose than Dr. Halley expected. The motion of Venus's node not being well known, she passed much nearer the sun's centre than he supposed she would; which made the places he pointed out for observing the total duration not proper for the purpose; indeed the entrance of Venus on the sun could not be seen at Hudson's Bay. He made a mistake too in the calculation, in taking the sum instead of the difference, of the angle of the ecliptic with the parallel to the equator, and the angle of Venus's path.


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Rh Millennium on the banks of the Wissahickon. Later on Whitefield set the whole town of Philadelphia to singing psalms, and Philadelphia refrained from interfering with what must have been an intolerable nuisance. Even Jews were welcome—their names are among early legislators and on early Assembly lists. Catholics, alone, they all agreed, had no right to any portion of Penn's gift, and popular opinion is often stronger than the law. Whatever ill will they had to spare from the Catholics, they reserved for the Friends to whom they owed everything—if Pennsylvania was "a dear Pennsylvania" to Penn, a good part of the blame lay with the "drunken crew of priests" and the "turbulent churchmen" whom he denounced in one of those letters to Logan, which are among the saddest ever written and published to the world.

After religious passions had run their course, the religious prejudice against the Catholic was handed down as social prejudice, which was all it was in my day when Philadelphians, who would question the social standing of a Catholic in Philadelphia simply because he was a Catholic, could accept him without question in the Catholic town of Baltimore or New Orleans simply because he was one. The Catholic continued to pay a heavy price socially for his religion in Philadelphia where it was not the thing to be a Catholic, where it never had been the thing, where it got to be less the thing as successive Irish emigrations crowded the Catholic churches. I fancy at the period of which I am writing Philadelphians, if asked, would have said that


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178 Catholicism was for Irish servants—for the illiterate. I remember a book called Kate Vincent I used to read at a Protestant Uncle's, where it may purposely have been placed in my way. Does anybody else remember it?—a story of school life with a heroine of a school girl who, in the serene confidence of her sixteen or seventeen summers, refuted all the learned Doctors of the Church by convicting a poor little Irish slavey of ignorance for praying to the Blessed Virgin and the Saints. I think I must have forgotten it with many foolish books for children read in my childhood had not Kate Vincent been so like Philadelphians in her calm superiority, though, fortunately, Philadelphians did not share her proselytising fervour. They went to the other extreme of lofty indifference and for them the Catholic churches in their town did not exist any more than the streets of little two-story houses south of Pine, a region into which they would not have thought of penetrating except to look up somebody who worked for them.

II

I might have learned as much during my holidays at my Grandfather's had I been given to reflection during my early years. My Father was a convert with the convert's proverbial ardour. He had been baptised in the Convent chapel with my Sister and myself—I was eight years old at the time—and many who were present declared it the most touching ceremony they had ever seen. However, to the family, who had not seen it, it was anything but


text: San Tzu Ching

title: San Tzu Ching


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Rh two; and conversely he allowed that several characters might express the same value. lie accepted fifteen of Westergaard's correct syllabic values and added nine of his own, to which we may add fifteen others nearly correct, or thirty-nine in all ; thus, including his three vowels and five consonants, he had forty-seven signs available for transliteration, as opposed to the twenty- nine of Westergaard. Singularly enough he made little improvement in the misleading syllabic signs of his ])redecessor. Some of them, indeed, he made con- siderably worse, and added others of his own, so that, notwithstanding a few corrections, their number rose to seventeen. He, however, pointed out that there was a determinative before the words for ' ufod,' * Ornmzd ' and ' heaven,' contrary to the opinion of Westergaard ; and that the group the latter had mistaken for the vowel a was precisely that sign. He was less successful in his classification of the language, which he could not accept as Scythic. He considered its affinity was with the Aryan family, but he could not .find that any of the Indo-European languages had similar inflections.^

A few years later De Saulcv wrote two articles in the 'Journal Asiatique' on the Median, without, how- ever, making any important contribution to the subject.- His papers deserve notice chiefly on account of his eminem.'e in other departments of study, and because he was the only Continental writer whose attention was directed at that time to this special branch of inquiry.^ He thought he could recognise that it bore a close relationship to Persian, suflicient to justify the opinion of Strabo that the two lan^^ua^^es were the same. Both

^ Transactions J ib. p. 129. J. R. A, S. xii. 483.

' Journal Asiatique (4* s6rie), vols. xiv. xv. August 1849, ^lay 1850.

^ De 8aulcy was distinguished for his success in reading the Egyptian demotic cliaracter, which Mohl regarded as the greatest achievement since Champollion {Itapports Annuela ii la Societe Asiatique^ 1844, p. 36).


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310 Westergaard and liavvlinsou had already observed that some of its ^/ramiuatical forms and vocal)ulary could be best explained by reference to the modern Georj^ian and Turkish; and De Saulcy, notwithstanding his opinion of its afllnity with Aryan, fully recognised that it had left traces in other ([uarters, including Kurd, Mongol, Armenian and the Gipsy tongue, but no- where to • a greater deizree than in Turkish. He supports his opinion with a wealth of illustration drawn from these sources that nmst ha\e fairly distracted his printer, and the indiscriminate use of the mechanism of philological dictionaries has in fact led the writer into many serious errors. He does not refer to Hincks, and notwithstanding all the resources at his command, he has fallen far short of the Irish writer whose country rectory was ill provided with these artificial appliances. De Saulcy has not, in factt, added a sintde correct value to those already known, and has failed to recognise several already established as correct. The utmost generosity caimot concede to him the possession of more than twenty-one correct vaUies and nine nearly correct, all previously known; so thai he had not more than thirty availaljle for transliteration, as opposed to the twenty-nine of Westergaard and the forty-seven of Hincks. But he introduced a host of errors that are wholly his own. He assigned no less that thirty values that are absohitely wrong, although he only attempted sixty-two out of the eiulity-two in Westeriraard's list. But it is not only in the details of deci})herment that he went astray; his error covers the whole conception of the structure of the lan^ua^c*. He lias no less tlian fifteen dillerent signs for vowels re})resenting many fantastic irradations of sound. Diflerent modifications of a and off monopoHse each three signs, besides the concession of one each for /tan and o. A simple u is not


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Rh suffered to appear; but ha, he or e ?, ya, di ?, and oiti are classified among the vowels. Some difference still exists as to the treatment of the vowels. The latest authority limits them to a, e, i and u^ and excludes o} M. Oppert ranks a or ha among the consonants ; and in addition Xo e^ i and il he admits o and such sounds as yi^ ya^ ah among vowels.^'

But it is in the treatment of the consonants that De Saulcy has most departed from the earliest and the latest scholars. He fully admits the syllabic character of the language, but he has done the utmost under the circum- stances to conceal this peculiarity.^ In his list the only sign that appears in syllabic form is the semi-vowel av attributed to a defective sign (No. 10), and the eye already accustomed to the appearance of syllabic com- binations is struck l)y the singular bareness produced by purely alphabetical letters. He admits altogether twenty-one distinct consonantal sounds, of which fourteen are ' quiescent ' or simple consonants, and each is repre- sented by one sign only, except m^ ?r, to which three are allotted. He allows six gutturals to a language that has at most but two, and fills the other classes with scarcely less profusion. He recognises that the signs for m and ir are interchangeable, and that d and /, as well as b and /s have several signs connnon to both ; but he gives both p and t the exclusive use of others ; and de and dh have each a sign reserved to themselves. His con- sonantal sounds are given different signs according as they are supi)Osed to be followed by a, by e or z, and by o or oa^ an idea no doubt suggested by the restricted use of the same principle in Old Persian. These letters may be said to be practically syllabic signs, as they are

' Weisbacb, <>/;. cit. p. 47.

- Le Pcuplo ft la Lajv/ue dcs yii'dcs (1879), p. 41.

^ Journal Asiatt'f/iWf xiv. 103, xv. i'rJT.


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312 only used in conjunction with a vowel ; l3Ut in reality the classification involves serious error. It is now ad- mitted that, with few exceptions, the same sign never convevs the sound of more than one vowel, and in the isolated cases where it occurs it is generally at the end of a word. In the whole SvHabarium of Weisbach there is only one instance where the same sign is given an optional sound of />^^, 7>a/, and in that of Oppert there are only three where a can be exchanged for %} In neither autliority is there a single instance where e and i are interchanireable. It is therefore a fundamental error of the gravest character to represent the same sign as systematically employed to express either of two vowel sounds, even if the two selected were ever interchange- able. It is, moreover, doubtful whether there was any difference allowed between the sounds of o and ii^ except in the attempt to express foreign words. De Saulcy's svstem also excluded the compound svllables when two consonants are divided by a vowel. While Hincks did ixood service in addinix a third determinative to the two acknowledoed b\' Westeraaard, De Saulcy actuallv refused

«... * */ %' V

to admit the determinative charax^ter of the horizontal wedge, and thereby reduced the number to one. On the other hand, he thought he had detected a sign to indicate the plural, which is in fict nothing but the syllable sin. Perhaps the most useful contribution lie made was the remark that, while a few of the Median signs bore a certain resemblance to those of the same value in Persian, the larger number of them were actuallv ' identical ' with the Assyrian.^' It must be confessed that it was long

^ Weisbach, o;). cit. p. 47. Oppert, Nos. 52, 77, 88.

• Journal Asiafit/ueyXix. iM2: * (^ue ct^rtjiiiis signes de T^^criture m6dique avaient line assez ji^rande ivssemblance avec les sigin-s Persans de meme valeur, mais que la ])lii])art dVntre eiix ctaieiit ideiitiques avec dos signes de I'ecriture Assyrieime.' Hinclis had already pointrd out, in 1845, that then^ were many charactrrs common to both {Trans, li. I, Acad. xxi. 131);


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Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/342

Rh before this identity was detected, and even such a practised copyist as Westergaard declared that the five different species of cuneiform writing then known ' differed from one another in the shape of nearly every letter or group,' ^ and considerable practice is still re- quired before their identity can be brought home to the eye. The similarity — to employ a less emphatic ex- pression — proved, however, of great assistance in enabling future inquirers to fix the value of the signs. Some time had yet to elapse before they could take ad- vantage of this discovery, for when De Saulcy wrote, the Assyrian (characters were themselves still undeciphered. De Saulcy 's work was criticised by Lowenstern in the 'Revue Archeologique ' (1850), where he sought to trace the affinity of Median to the Aramaic branch of the Semitic family, while he admitted that some of the endin<i[s mi^dit l)e traced in Pehlevi and New" Persian. He did not consider it to be the Median language, which, lie maintained, is properly represented by Zend ; and he suggested, as Mr. Rich had done before, that it might have been the dialect of Susa.- Holtzmann fully re- cognised that it contained Semitic elements, l)ut still he considered that it should be regarded as the mother of Pehlevi ; and he subsequently added that it was })robably the language of the court at Susa.^ Still the opinion of

and in June 1849 he added that a * very large proportion of the Median characters can be identified with A ssyrio-Baby Ionian characters, having nearly the samr phonetic values' (xxii. 4). Westergaard thought the writing originated in Babylon, * whence it spread in two branches, eastward to Susiana and northward to the Assyrian Empire, from whence it passed to Media, and last to ancient Persis ' (p. 273, Copenhagen edition). He thought the Median bore most resemblance to Assyrian writing, and Persian to Babylonian writing (if), p. 272 ; rf. Bonn edition, ]). 4).

 * Copenhagen ed. p. 271.

- AVeisbach, ]). 7; Mohl, Vint/t'SPpt ana (TEtwlef^^ i. 419; Atherueumj July 6 and September 7, 1S.*30. Cf. above, ]). 194.

^ Iloltznian's essays appeared in the Zp/Vxc//;*/// D.M.G, between 1851 and lt'o4. They are r»'ported by Weisbach and Mohl, loc. cit.