Homer, or any other lines that may be still more familiar to me,
I cannot get through them much, if at all, more rapidly than I can
pronounce them, even when I fix my undivided attention on them.
The rapidity of sensation is also intimately connected with that
of memory and of muscular action. To cast the eye over a sentence,
attending to every letter, is an operation which is capable of equal
rapidity with the saying it over mentally: but it cannot be made much
more rapid. It required four seconds to look over a sentence which
occupied six in rapid reading.
The operations, which succeed each other with this limited rapidity,
are not incompatible with a partial attention to other subjects: just
as in running or walking, we may have our feelings very strongly
interested by the sight of surrounding objects without interrupting
the train of voluntary motions, which seems thus to be so linked
together in a continued chain, as to become almost involuntary. And
we may certainly be saying a thing over as rapidly as possible to
ourselves, and may at the same time be seeing, and hearing, and even
reasoning, so as to keep up what amounts very nearly, though not
completely, to a continuity of attention to several distinct trains
of ideas: in the same manner as the nerves of involuntary action
are notoriously employed in several distinct trains of concatenated
muscular motions and vascular actions, and as the ear of a musician
is able to follow and retain a dozen different melodies in harmony
with each other at the same time.
Dr. Darwin mentions an experiment which has a similar tendency to
show the close connexion between thought and sensation. He says, that
if we think intensely of a deep colour, for instance red, with the
eyes closed, we shall see a tinge when we open them of the opposite
colour, or green; just as if we had actually looked at a red colour
instead of thinking of it. But I confess that I have never been able
to satisfy myself completely of the success of the experiment.
These very hasty observations appear to me to be in great measure
original; and the results of such experiments are certainly more
calculated to illustrate the nature and powers of the human
mind, than the fanciful hypothesis of the fashionable [p310]
craniologists, with all their measurements of the heads of
murderers, are likely to become.
ZMINIS.
_London_, 20 _Oct._ 1827.
POSTSCRIPT.—I find that some similar remarks have been made by the
late Sir William Watson, in his Treatise on Time. He estimated,
from some experiments made in company with his friend Herschel, the
greatest possible velocity of sensation, such as to admit of about
three hundred distinct impressions on the eye or the ear in a second.
“It is true,” he observes, “that whoever attends to what passes
in his imagination on particular occasions, will be struck at the
apparent rapidity with which ideas appear to flow at times, and will
be apt to suspect them far to exceed sensation in that respect. But
it is probable that we are ourselves deceived in such cases.” P. 38.
But there are no direct experiments to prove this opinion. On the
other hand, a sound may be continuous, and yet consist of only about
twenty vibrations, or still fewer, in a second.
HIEROGLYPHICAL _Fragments, illustrative of Inscriptions preserved
in the_ BRITISH MUSEUM, _with some remarks on_ Mr. CHAMPOLLION’s
_opinions_. In _a Letter to the Cavaliere_ SAN QUINTINO. By a
Correspondent.
My dear Sir,
You will be glad to hear that I have made some little progress in
study of the Enchorial inscriptions which I had lately the pleasure
of showing you: my steps have, as usual, been guided by no _system_
whatever: they have been wholly _empirical_, and though very slow, I
trust they are so much the more sure: and I hope they will at least
serve as an excuse for my reminding you of the expectations you
kindly allowed me to entertain, that you would send me copies of any
thing of the kind that you might find among the objects entrusted
to your care at Turin. What I have lately done has only been to
ascertain the dates of many of the tablets sent by Mr. Salt [p311]
from Sacchara, all of them about the time of the last Cleopatra:
to identify the Enchorial name of Ptolemy DIONYSUS, and to make
out a passage relating to a donation of MUCH GOLD AND SILVER AND
GEMS TO THE SANCTUARY OF THE GREAT GOD AT MEMPHIS. The different
forms of the characters employed by the writers, in the same words,
constitute also a valuable addition to be means of deciphering any
new inscriptions of a similar nature, and I have already incorporated
many of them with my little Enchorial Dictionary.
The 48th and 49th plates of the Hieroglyphics, already published,
contain two tablets, apparently funerary, but without any dates of
the reigns: the ages of the persons seem to be expressed in the
hieroglyphical lines. In the 49th we find the name Berenice twice in
the Enchorial letters, and once in hieroglyphics; followed here by
Arsinoe, possibly as her mother.
This tablet, coarse as it is, abundantly shows that Horapollo and
Champollion are both correct, independently, as it seems, of each
other, in considering the rings, or cartouches, as chiefly confined
to the names of royal personages; and that I inferred the contrary
somewhat too hastily, from observing that the _imitations_ of those
rings were attached in the Enchorial inscription of Rosetta, to
several names not royal, and from having found such rings in other
hieroglyphical inscriptions, without the usual epithets of kings.
I had, indeed, remarked, that a “mysterious” name was _sometimes_
observable in the manuscripts without a ring, and I had pointed out
the same group as _a_ name in Lord Mountnorris’s manuscript, which
Mr. Champollion considers as the true name: but I am perfectly ready
to admit that Mr. Champollion has materially _improved_ on this hint,
as he has on many others.
The same line of hieroglyphics, however, contributes to add to my
reluctance in admitting Mr. Champollion’s reading of P.T.H; a group
which I considered as very probably representing these letters
long before the date of his publications; though I had only fully
identified the two first characters; it seems to me to agree better
with PETEH than with PHTAH; and I am inclined to think it was the
beginning of the names Petosiris, Peteharpocrates, and other similiar
words, [p312] as it is here annexed to the names of two or three
other deities. But I am by no means confident on the subject; and
beg only to be allowed a few years more to collect further evidence,
without being accused of _resisting_ conviction.
I must also claim a similar indulgence for my opinion respecting
the bird and the disc; which is so constantly found between two
names, that I could not avoid supposing it to mean simply _son_; I
confess that the arguments which Mr. Champollion has drawn from the
application of this character to some of the Roman names, as well as
those which Mr. Salt has deduced from the inscriptions which he has
published, are at least sufficient to silence me; I had, indeed, long
before observed that the first name of one pair of rings scarcely
ever found as the second of another, though I fancied the Minervean
obelisk might afford an exception. On the other hand, I cannot
explain, upon Mr. Champollion’s theory, the order of the names in
the tablet of Abydus, which might be supposed to have been purposely
intended to perpetuate this discussion.
It is admitted that this tablet contains the names of a chronological
series of kings, each characterized by one ring, containing what I
have always considered as the true names of the persons in question.
It is easy to grant to him that they are the praenomens only; as is
common in all modern chronology. But how comes it that there is one
exception to this, and that the reigning monarch is characterized
by his second name only, where he first occurs, and where we should
expect to find his father? This is precisely what would have been
required if the document had been forged to support my opinion;
though I should certainly have been very ungrateful for an argument,
which is more calculated to increase the difficulty than to remove it.
An objection of a similar nature may be deduced from the tablet found
between the legs of the sphinx, and copied by Mr. Salt, H. 80. The
“Mesphres son of Thuthmosis” of the Article Egypt is represented
naturally enough as doing homage to his deified father, under the
form of an Androsphinx; had he been doing homage to himself, the
names would scarcely have been so divided. They also occur repeatedly
afterwards in the inscription, but never together. [p313]
The tablet represented in Plate 51, is remarkable for the
confirmation which its date affords of the accuracy of our chronology
of the Ptolemies. It has no _pure_ hieroglyphics. It begins
immediately with “_The year 19, otherwise 4, of Cleopatra [Neotera],
and Ptolemy surnamed Caesar_: that is, the year 34 B. C.; and the
same date is repeated in a form somewhat more distinct, four times,
in the 10th, 11th, 12th, and 15th lines. In the last it is followed
by _the Queen gave to the Priests and High Priests_ . . then _Ptolemy
[Auletes?] . . Queen Cleopatra and King Ptolemy surnamed Caesar_.
It has before been observed, that the word _surnamed_, as it occurs
in these tablets, and in Mr. Grey’s manuscripts, comprehends the
characters which answer to the NEO of Mr. Champollion’s NEOCAESARIS.
The beginning of the group occurs elsewhere in the sense of _called_,
and can scarcely be read “ETO,” whether we consider the sacred or
the enchorial characters; nor do we find any thing nearer to this in
Coptic than ETE, meaning “_that is_,” while the characters are more
like TENE. Such are the uncertainties which continually beset us in
the application of the best established alphabetical characters even
to words of which we know the sounds: to investigate the unknown by
them is at present almost hopeless.
There are two tablets, from the caverns at Sacchara, about to appear
in Plates 70 to 74 of the Hieroglyphics, which Mr. Salt sent over
with particular interest, as being likely to contain some useful
materials for the comparison of the different kinds of characters
with each other. In this point of view, however, his well-directed
zeal has failed of its object: for the sacred characters relate
almost entirely to the gods and priests of the temple, while the
enchorial inscriptions below them contain dates and records of the
successive donations made to those temples. And this seems to be
equally true of the generality of double inscriptions, which are
scarcely ever identical in this sense, although they may greatly tend
to illustrate each other.
The first in order of these tablets (H 70, 71, 74 A) was marked
number 50 by Mr. Salt; it has seven stars at the edge of the wings
overshadowing the figures. It is first dated very distinctly _In the
year 6 of Cleopatra_; which ought to have [p314] been 6 _otherwise_
2; but the second date was perhaps omitted after an interval of more
than 20 years, which must have elapsed at the time of putting up the
tablet, as the subsequent dates demonstrate. The queen seems to be
styled _Isis_, but the name of the “younger goddess,” which is found
on her medals, does not appear in these inscriptions. In the 4th line
the word _Memphis_ occurs, though less distinctly than elsewhere.
It seems to be formed of characters meaning _Temple_, and _Good_,
and might naturally be read PHE-NUF; which agrees sufficiently well
with the NOPH of Jeremiah, translated Memphis by the Septuagint, as
well as with the Coptic PANUF, said to have been _Momemphis_. It is
possible that Phthah may have been meant by the Good god, NUF; but
there is here no character at all resembling the Enchorial name of
Phthah, which approaches to that of a figure of 4.
We next find a notice of the change of dynasty (Line 5) . . year
7: the _Gods Phre and “Horus” and Phthah? gave the victory to_
AUTOCRATOR CAESARIS _the Munificent_. The number 7 is indistinct;
if correct it must belong to the later of the double dates of
Cleopatra’s reign, which terminated the 22nd or 7th, the year of
the Battle of Actium, in which the _victory_ was obtained by the
_Emperor_ Augustus _Caesar_. Then follows a date of the _year_ 6,
probably of Caesar: and the seven stars of the wings may possibly
relate to the erection of the tablet in the subsequent year. We have
also a donation of _gold and silver gems_.
The second tablet (H 72, 73, 74 B) has first the date of the _year
19 of King Ptolemy_ [Auletes] the _Defender of the sacred rites_ (L.
3) . . _The year 4 of Cleopatra ‘Neotera?_ (4) . . _many years_ . .
(5) The year 7? _the gods ‘Phre and Horus and Phthah? gave the
victory to the Emperor Caesar_, ‘and Phthah and Horus who loved him
gave the dominion all men to? _Caesar_. (6) . . _gold and gems and
silver in abundance, gave them to the sanctuary of the great god in
the temple of Memphis_ . . The year 7 of Caesar: ‘Mechir 18? gave
to the sanctuary of the great god in . . (8) . . _gold and gems and
silver_ . . (9) _Memphis_.
We have here no subsequent year 19 to which the stars of the margin
can refer: and it seems therefore most natural to [p315] suppose
that they belong to the earliest date, with which the tablet
commences: and perhaps the seven stars of the former may have been
marked by mistake for six. The interpretation of the marginal stars
will be easily brought to the test of future observations.
Plates 75 and 76 contain portions of a large tablet from Sacchara,
very fairly written on chalk, of which the upper part is broken off,
leaving only a few traces of a hieroglyphic inscription, which seems
to have contained a date at the end, perhaps the 12th of Mechir.
(1) [In the . . year of Queen Cleopatra] and _Ptolemy surnamed
Caesaris_; the divine king . . living for ever. (7) . . _The year_ 9,
Athyr or Mechir 9, _of the great King Ptolemy_ the god ‘Brother of
Apis? DIONYSUS ‘the awful? living for ever . . (19) . . _the great
King_ Ptolemy the god ‘Brother of Horus? DIONYSUS . . . mighty as the
sun? . . . (20) . . . living for ever . . (21) In the year 7 Mechir
the 14 . . _The Queen Soter and King Ptolemy surnamed Caesaris_
living for ever . . gave . . (25) . . children, for ever. (28) . .
‘Written and engraved by? . . .
In the 79th plate there are four enchorial lines very distinctly
written, and beginning with a date, which must be either 24 or 28,
and most probably the latter, as there are 28 stars in the margin:
perhaps the 11th of the month, in the reign of _Ptolemy the son of
Ptolemy, may he live for ever_. The rest is not intelligible.
* * * * *
In this manner, my dear Sir, I have been creeping, while others have
been flying, though perhaps a little too near the sun. Possibly my
friend Champollion, and _your friend_ Seyffarth, would be able to
decipher much more of these inscriptions; and it is probable that
their versions might differ in almost every particular. In this
case it is unnecessary for me to say which of the two explanations
I should be inclined to prefer: for it is impossible to deny to
Champollion the merit of great industry, and deep, as well as
extensive research. I object only to his precipitation, and his
love of system, which, I think, cause him to be led away by his own
ingenuity, through a series of conclusions unsupported by sufficient
evidence. [p316]
As an instance of a hasty and undemonstrated assertion, I shall
mention his explanation of the group of characters which he considers
(Système, p. 82) as “forming the third person plural of the future
in all the verbs of the last nine lines of the hieroglyphical text
of Rosetta, expressing the different dispositions of the decree, and
answering to Greek verbs, which are always in the infinitive,” and
which he naturally enough reads SNE.
There is nothing absolutely incorrect in this statement, but the
reader naturally infers from it that the group in question occurs
either exclusively or principally in these nine lines. The fact is,
however, that in the first five lines, or rather half lines, the
group is found ten times, and in the remaining nine, only eighteen,
that is, about half as frequently, in proportion to the actual length
of the lines: nor can I find any where a context that favours Mr.
Champollion’s interpretation; though I have lately observed that an
Enchorial group, resembling ´O, is found almost uniformly to answer
to the Greek infinitive: being read perhaps MNR or MARE: but I
cannot make these characters agree either with the hieroglyphics in
question, or with the sounds SNE, which Mr. Champollion attributes to
them.
So little is Mr. Champollion in the habit of distinguishing _proofs_
from _assertions_ in his own case, that it is the less surprising
that he should sometimes confound them with respect to others.
He says, for example, with respect to the nature of the Hieratic
characters, which he explained to the Academy of Belles Lettres
in 1821, “_je me suis convaincu depuis que M. le Dr. Young avait
publié avant moi ce même résultat, et de plus, que nous avions été_
PREVENUS _de quelques années, l’un et l’autre, quant au_ principe de
cette découverte et sa définition, par M. Tychsen de Goettingue.”
(p. 20.) Professor Tychsen had _asserted_ this agreement as a
probable opinion: it was amply _demonstrated_ in 1816; _five years_
afterwards Mr. Champollion thinks he has a right to consider himself
as a new inventor of the doctrine, because he chose to neglect what
was done in a neighbouring country, and to undervalue the actual
_proof_, in which he had been anticipated, by classing it with a bare
_assertion_ to be found in a German publication. [p317] Precisely
in the same spirit he remarks, in the next page, that Barthélemy
and Zoëga had _pointed_ out the rings as containing proper names:
they had, indeed, _said_ that they might be proper names, _or_ moral
sentences, _or_ something else; but the only question was, if it
was worth questioning at all, to whom belonged the priority of the
_demonstration_ that they actually were proper names: which, before
the publication of the Archaeologia for 1814, was no where to be
found. This publication was the first great step after the discovery
of the pillar of Rosetta: the second was the identification of the
different kinds of characters, in 1816, by means of the Déscription
de l’Egypte: the third, the application of that identification to the
names of Ptolemy and Berenice: the fourth, perhaps, was Mr. Bankes’s
discovery in Egypt, of the name of Cleopatra, which he sent to Paris:
and on these grounds is certainly _founded_ ALL that is at present
known of Egyptian literature, for a very considerable proportion of
which we are unquestionably indebted to Mr. Champollion.
* * * * *
The French translator of Mr. Browne’s ingenious articles which
appeared in the Edinburgh Review, has certainly gone a good deal out
of his way to find matter of accusation against Mr. Champollion.
He quotes the text of a memoir published in 1821, and afterwards
_suppressed_, in order to show that Mr. Champollion then continued
to believe that the hieroglyphics were signs of things and not of
sounds; and that he disagreed with those learned persons who had
considered the hieratic writing as alphabetical. The date of this
suppressed paper is indeed of some consequence, as determining the
period at which Mr. Champollion made his rediscovery of what Dr.
Young had published in 1816; that is, the fact of the essential
identity of the two systems of writing. But the translator might
have found in the beginning of the letter to Mr. Dacier, dated in
1822, the same opinion respecting these systems of writing; that is,
the _hieratic_ and _demotic_, which, he says, are not alphabetic,
but “_ideographic_, like the hieroglyphics themselves,” expressing
ideas and not sounds: and he adds, that _he_ (!) has deduced from the
demotic inscription of Rosetta a series of characters which have a
“_syllabico-alphabetic_ [p318] value,” by which foreign proper names
were expressed. (p. 2.)
Nothing can possibly agree better than this with the opinions which
Dr. Young had long before published; and which he has since confirmed
in his octavo volume; and if Mr. Champollion’s ideas upon this
subject have sometimes appeared to fluctuate, it has probably been
more from a love of system, and a wish to establish originality, than
from any new discoveries that he can have made respecting these two
modes of writing in particular.
What precise forms of characters may be supposed to answer to the
sense in which Mr. Champollion employs the word demotic, cannot
very easily be ascertained. It is remarkable that his “SNE” is a
group very commonly found in the manuscripts of the Déscription de
l’Egypte, which Mr. Champollion might possibly call demotic; while it
cannot be identified in the Enchorial Inscription of Rosetta. This
is an instance of the difficulty of finding appropriate terms where
we have not exact definitions. The difficulty is not avoided by the
use of the word Enchorial, except that it may with perfect safety be
applied to such inscriptions as are capable of having any of their
words identified with the inscription so called on the pillar itself.
The verification of the chronology of Manetho must naturally be a
work of time, even after the complete identification of the names of
the kings, which cannot _yet_ be admitted to be satisfactory. There
is one discordance that it may be right slightly to point out, as
it is presented by Plate 43 of the Hieroglyphics: we there find the
29th year of the Sesenchosis of Manetho; and Manetho allots but 21
years to this king, who was the first of his dynasty, and could not,
therefore, like Philadelphus, have continued any era from an earlier
period.
It is easy to observe, in comparing Mr. Cailliaud’s copy of the
Tablet of Abydus, as published by Mr. Champollion, with those of our
countrymen, Mr. Bankes and Mr. Wilkinson, contained in the 47th plate
of the Hieroglyphics, or with the manuscript copy of Mr. Burton, how
much more hastily the French traveller had executed his task than
_any one_ of the three Englishmen. [p319]
Another of Mr. Wilkinson’s very valuable inscriptions, from a temple
at Kous, must be allowed to give evidence much more favourable to Mr.
Champollion, as far as it regards the signification of the _plough_,
which seems to enter into the composition of _Philometor_, as applied
to Cleopatra and “Ptolemy Alexander,” who are called Philometores
Soteres, both here and in Anastasy’s Greek Manuscript. The name of
Alexander had never occurred to the author of the article EGYPT, but
he had evidently a foresight in what way it would make its appearance
when he observed, N. 55, “it will appear hereafter, that a knowledge
of the enchorial forms may possibly contribute very materially, at
some future time, to assist us in determining it:” and he immediately
proceeds to the subject of PHONETIC HIEROGLYPHICS.
The plough seems to be exchanged on the Minervean obelisk for the
dentated quadrant and chain, which may hence have been synonymous
with the dentated parallelogram or comb: both perhaps having
represented instruments which bore the same name, and served the same
purposes, though of different forms: they may, for instance, have
been rakes or harrows, and may hence have borne some analogy to the
plough or hoe. Whether they had names beginning with M, may still be
questionable.