stated with a clearness and force which must carry conviction to every mind, and enable the most careless reader to trace a broad line of distinction between the province of rational enquiry, and the fantastical domain of archæological empiricism :

L'intelligence que nous avons des monumens littéraires des Grecs et des Romains est venue jusqu'à nous par une tradition non interrompue ; nous possédons la plus grande partie des livres de ces peuples avec une suite d'explications et de commentaires destinés à en dissiper les obscurités, et pourtant à l'époque de la renaissance des lettres, que d'immenses travaux n'a-t-il pas fallu faire? combien d'hommes patiens et laborieux ont usé leur vie pour achever d'éclaircir ce que les anciens textes présentaient à chaque pas d'embarrassant, d'obscur ou d'inintelligible pour les modernes ? Quand une inscription grecque se présente à nous pour la première fois, quelle habitude ne faut-il pas pour la lire, la restituer, en expliquer le contenu, développer les circonstances auxquelles elle se rapporte? La langue que de profonds philologues ont si bien approfondie est ici la moindre difficulté; mais les choses, les faits, les particularités de date ou de localité, les institutions, les titres des magistrats, les usages, les préjugés, les opinions religieuses; tout enfin n'exige-t-il pas de la part de nos savans une rare application et une sagacité merveilleuse? Cependant que de travaux préparatoires n'a-t-on pas faits pour diminuer leur peine? que de recherches, de tables, de dictionnaires n'a-t-on pas accumulés depuis trois siècles pour éclairer tout ce qui fait partie du domaine de l'archéologie? En Egypte, au contraire, une vaste solution de continuité, un abime immense sépare les événemens d'autrefois de la critique des tems modernes. Tout la littérature a disparu avec la religion, la philosophie et le système entier de la civilisation; les livres, s'il y en eut jamais, ont été complétement anéantis; les papyrus, que quelques personnes peu éclairées prennent pour des livres, n'offrent qu'une perpétuelle répétition des mêmes formules toujours relatives au même sujet, la mort et ses conséquences. Les inscriptions hieroglyphiques sont les seuls livres que nous aient légués les Pharaons; mais là se présente à l'instant cette double difficulté, insoluble si l'on ne parvient à la diviser; tout est inconnu dans ces inscriptions, la langue et les faits, l'écriture et le fond des choses. On arriverait à l'intelligence du contenu si l'on avait à sa disposition l'explication des mots, et vice versa on reconnaîtrait aisément la valeur des signes si l'on savait d'avance le sens qu'ils représentent. Mais pour opérer ce dernier prodige, il faudrait recréer à-la-fois l'Egypte des Pharaons avec son système idolâtrique, les noms des dieux et de toutes les choses sacrées, les détails du culte et toute la série des opinions philosophiques, la vie civile avec ses innombrables particularités, et, par-dessus tout cela, la prononciation matérielle de tous les mots qui s'y appliquaient, leur synonymie et leurs nuances, et la valeur spéciale d'une foule d'expressions de figures, de métaphores, d'emblêmes, d'attributs, que l'usage chez une nation vivante introduit, re

VOL. LVII. NO, CXVI.

2 H

nouvelle et modifie sans cesse. Ce n'est pas la critique humaine, c'est l'intuition de la divinité qui pourrait opérer un tel miracle; et l'on voudrait qu'un savant, de quelques facultés qu'on le supposât doué, eût fait seul, en peu d'années, ce que la raison et le bon sens démontrent impossible à des générations littéraires qui se succéderaient pendant des siècles !'

In fact, the discoveries of M. Champollion apply only to a very limited number of hieroglyphical signs; that is, to proper names and some other words incapable of symbolization, which are expressed by means of an alphabet in some measure resembling that of the Semitic languages, in which the consonants of words are written sometimes with only part of the vowels, and very frequently without any vowel whatever. But even in deciphering these names and epithets, M. Champollion had an excellent guide in the list supplied by the tables contained in the Egyptian Dynasties of Manetho and other ancient authors: he knew beforehand what he had to seek for, and he was not the man to be long in finding the precise thing which he wanted. But, notwithstanding this, he never appears to be at one with himself as to the extent of his discovery. In the introduction to his Précis du Système Hieroglyphique, (p. 11,) he says, that his hieroglyphic alphabet applies to the royal hieroglyphic legends of every epoch, that the discovery of the phonetic alphabet is the true key to the whole hieroglyphic system, and that at all epochs the 'ancient Egyptians employed it to represent alphabetically the sounds of their spoken language.' But at the commencement of the eighth chapter of the work, he contradicts this dogma in the most decided manner. 'I admit,' says he, that we do not yet know with any degree of certainty, whether the inscriptions and hieroglyphic texts, in which are found Egyptian words expressed phonetically remontent au tems des 'Pharaons, kings of the Egyptian race; or only to the Greek 'period, as the inscription of Rosetta, the obelisk of Philæ, and the temples of Ombos and Edfou; or merely to the Roman period, as the obelisks of Albani, Borgia, Pamphilius, 'Barberini, that of Benevento, part of the edifices of Philæ, ' and the temples of Esné and Dendera.' As to the alleged universality of the phonetic mode of writing dans toutes les 'époques,' it is therefore clear,-first, that M. Champollion directly contradicts his own fundamental proposition;-secondly, that being at variance with all that the ancient authors, particularly Clemens Alexandrinus, have stated respecting the different classes of Egyptian writing, this proposition cannot be established by their authority ;-and, thirdly, that M. Champollion has not only not demonstrated its truth, but that such demonstra

tion is impossible! All this follows, by necessary consequence, from the foregoing observations. But there is one fact, the bare statement of which must of itself be decisive of the question. The phonetic alphabet consists of a hundred and thirty-four characters, more than one-half of which are purely conjectural. But supposing the whole to have been completely ascertained, the absolute number of hieroglyphs, according to M. Champollion's computation, is 864 (Zoega makes it 958); from which, if we deduct 134, there will remain 730 signs figurative or symbolical, which are not employed phonetically, and the real values of which are as yet altogether unknown! How, then, could M. Champollion, with this fact staring him in the face, venture to affirm that his phonetic alphabet applied to the royal hiero'glyphic legends of all periods; that it was the true key to the 'WHOLE hieroglyphic system; and that the ancient Egyptians ' employed it, at all epochs, to represent alphabetically the sounds of their spoken language?'

We could have wished to follow up these observations, by stating concisely the results of the searching analysis by means of which M. Klaproth demolishes in detail the greater part of the pretended discoveries embodied in the Précis du Système Hieroglyphique: but as this part of the subject would only be intelligible to a very limited number of readers, we shall merely state generally, that different and incongruous values are arbitrarily assigned to the same character;-that the image of an eye, for instance, which was originally set down as the phonetic sign of an S, has been successively employed to represent A, E, and O;-that in numerous other instances, changes still more arbitrary have been made ;-that we are left in equal ignorance of the method or process by which the original values were pretended to have been ascertained, or of the reasons which induced the author to make the numerous changes and substitutions which are to be met with in the second and third editions of the Précis ;- that he attributes values to signs denominated phonetic, which are not contained in his alphabet, and of which no account is given anywhere else; that he is continually betrayed into incongruities and inconsistencies so gross and palpable, as to warrant the suspicion of bad faith, with which M. Klaproth has in fact charged his memory ;that in the interpretation of ideographic characters or symbols, he has adopted conjectures and fancies of his own, without a tittle of evidence, or even of probability, to support them, and drawn upon his imagination, instead of endeavouring to ascertain their equivalents by an inductive series of tentative processes; that, for example, the symbolic group which as far as

p. 265 of his second edition is rendered the goddess Saté, becomes suddenly converted into Tmé, and this name continues to the end of the work, though, in the plates, the goddess reappears under the name of Smé;-that changes of a similar description occur in many other words;-and that, in short, the greater part of his pretended discoveries are merely a heap of conjectures and imaginations, some of them not more rational or better founded than those of Kircher or Palin. For the details and demonstrations, however, we must refer to the Examen itself; by far the ablest and most masterly piece of criticism which has yet appeared on the subject of which it treats.

ART. XI.-1. Le mie Prigioni. Memorie di SILVIO PELLICO, da Saluzzo. 8vo. Torino: 1832.

2. Memoires de SILVIO PELLICO; traduits de l'Italien, et précédés d'une Notice Biographique, par A de Latour, et augmentés de Notes, par P. Maroncelli. 8vo. Paris: 1833. 3. My Imprisonments. By SILVIO PELLICO. Translated from the Italian, by THOMAS ROSCOE. 12mo. London: 1833.

GREAT thoughts, it has been said, come from the heart. This

looks at first like a delightful maxim. But, in truth, nature has dealt more kindly by us than to confine greatness to a single source. The stoutest advocates for the royalty of the human heart should be content with its standing first-first in power, and first in honour-instead of deeming it the privilege of its birthright, to stand alone. For great, read, greatest. Even then, popular notions, on what is meant by greatness and by the heart, will have to undergo vast revisions and reversals; and alas for our vulgar catalogues of great writers and of great men, when the time arrives for bringing our principle and our examples into harmony with each other!

We do not complain of the present times as worse in this respect than those that have gone before them. Quite the contrary; and we have still better hopes for the time to come. It is melancholy, meanwhile, to observe, that the chief competitors for, and awarders of, the admiration of mankind, proceed alike on the supposition that this moral canon, however qualified, is nothing but a flowery compliment paid our nature by hypocrites or dupes. What is the history, for instance, of the two individuals of our age, who sought most to overawe their contemporaries by the airs of colossal superiority-each in his own way-and who succeeded most in doing so? They seldom let a day escape without making it a parade and an enjoyment

to outrage (the one in his writings, the other by his actions and conversation) what ought to be our dearest and most sacred feelings. This was so evidently and so systematically their practice, that many superficial-especially many youthfulminds have fallen into the grievous error of believing, that in their scornful misanthropy lay the elements of their Samson strength. It had not, however, been left for Napoleon or Byron to discover and take advantage, first, of the weakness of their fellow-creatures in worshipping power in all its manifestations. Genius and gentleness, the severe and the tender virtues, have been long thought-too long and too often found -to go ill together. To be amiable, is so far an admitted presumption against being great, that the same symptoms of heartfelt sympathy and kinship with others, which would pass as things of course in the case of humbler mortals, are hailed as splendid exceptions, when they happen to break forth from among the political or the intellectual masters of our race.

The curse of the hardness of heart by which thousands of Pharaohs have been blighted,-a pleasure in carrying on the scoffer's war against all generous and humane emotions, the miserable ambition of rising to supremacy over one's fellowmen, in order that, from a higher point, we may trample their moral nature deeper into the dirt,-is an empire to which but few, whether in arms or in song, can venture to aspire. To speak only of literature:-Its more general vice of late has not been so much that it is opposed to the heart, as that in its ignorance it mistakes what constitutes one; or, 'busied about many “ things,' forgets we have one. Criticism has, justly in the main, insisted, that a poet ought to deal with the universal sentiments of mankind rather than with his own personal peculiarities. It might appear to have taught its lesson too successfully; and that most of the tuneful race had left off all converse with themselves, for fear of contracting idiosyncrasies, which their neighbours could neither follow nor understand. A reserved and noble mind disdainfully shrinks from the suspicion of setting up for sale in a shop window its own or others' secrets. Can this be the reason that so many of our novelists, in the extravagance of the passions, and the folly of the sentiments, which they substitute for the living reality of affections, come prepared with proof beforehand, that they have not taken from the biography of their own bosoms the prototype of their story? We will not call our present literature heartless; but we occasionally feel, that too little of it either rises from, or passes into the heart; and that the mass of it would be infinitely raised by a more stirring moral movement. There is no want among