knows that when the holy alliance, in labour for twenty years, was at last delivered of a victory, still trembling before its prisoner, it gave him up to the English, who at first, thought of INTERRING HIM ALIVE AT DUMBARTON; but, reflecting that this would embarrass the navigation of the Clyde, and that it would be odious to kill him in Europe, they preferred sending him to be assassinated in AFRICA. We have since seen the terrible conformity which reigns between Dumbarton and St. Helena' pp. 200, 201. Lochleven reminds M. Blanqui of the POET Smollett; a title to which he has just as much right as the author of the Commentaries on the Laws of England: But he is recalled from his visions by a visit to a family in the Highlands, where he sees the pas des montagnes danced, which lofty phrase being interpreted, means "the highland fling." He now gets quite poetical, fancies he hears harps in the air, and sees "lutes, laurels, seas of milk and ships of amber;" thinks that Loch Lomond is the Egean; the "grampians hills," as he calls them, the Alps, and many other things equally reasonable. M. Blanqui quits Robert Gray, esq., of Carntyne, and all these visions, and is fairly set down at Macgregor's hotel, in Prince's street, Edinburgh. He goes to call on sir Walter Scott, and is quite astonished not to find on his door-plate "The Great Unknown"" The Mighty Minstrel," or some other such title. On the contrary (says he)" le nom du maître est modestement écrit sur la poste, Sir Walter Scott, Baronet." Here is his account of his reception. At last of At the first sound of the bell, which I pulled with a trembling hand, a servant came. Her polite and affable air gave me a good augury the reception I should meet with from her master. She introduced me into the drawing-room with a smile of gratitude and joy for the homage I had come so far to render to her master. She replied to all my questions with great readiness and sagacity, as if she enjoyed her share of the visit. A volume of Guy Mannering lay on the table, among a quantity of papers which I had great difficulty to refrain from reading. On the back of one of them I expressed the regret I felt at the absence of the author. The worthy servant insisted on my going to Abbotsford, "Go, Sir," said she, " my master is always happy to receive Frenchmen; he will be delighted to see you, and you will find that his daughters speak your tongue as well as their own." This was very seducing, but I had not time for the journey'-pp. 240, 241. On leaving Edinburgh he enters into a long and unintelligible disquisition on the superstitions, the manners, and the visions of the Highlands. After this, he sets out for London, though quitting with infinite regret the capital of the country of "Wallace, of Bruce, and of......... Robertson"-p. 330. At York, M. Blanqui finds the folks preparing for the musical festival, and thus addresses the shades of Mozart and Rossini: "O divine children of harmony! if any thing on earth could lead to doubts of the future, it would be your office to touch the hearts of the unbelieving! it is you who prove the existence of God," &c. After this speech, so worthy to introduce the subject, M. Blanqui describes the madhouse near York (the Retreat), from which, by an easy transition, he passes to the history of some other madhouses about Paris. He arrives, at last, in London, and the first valuable remark we find in his account of it occurs in his 307th page, in which he complains much of the bizarrerie that has "induced the English to place in the very centre of their capital, Smithfield-market!" M. Blanqui is also extremely indignant at being obliged to pay the enormous sum of two-pence for the privilege of entering St. Paul's; and we are sorry to find that the interior of this grand edifice has met with the reprobation of a person of his refined taste. The sight of the great bell costs him two-pence, and the cupola of the dome two shillings more. But though the situation of St. Paul's displeases him, he is " dédommagé" by the sight of Newgate, which "se développe avec bien plus d'avantage au milieu d'une belle rue." Afterwards he sees the Exchange, the Mansion-house, the Post-office, the India-house and Guildhall, and he does not see the Bank. To make up for this, however, he does see the Tower; takes the attendants for baboons escaped from a menagerie; and pathetically describes the eagerness with which they demanded the fee he is always so unwilling to pay. He describes the lions as sneeringly as their keepers, but is vastly delighted with two boas, and extols their dexterity in swallowing two live rabbits. The sight of the armoury awakens his contempt, for no other reason, that we can imagine, than that it is the most splendid exhibition of the kind in the world; but he is delighted at seeing the French trophies brought from the field of Waterloo, and cries out, in a sentence too characteristic to be omitted; "Yes, the English have reason to be proud of these spoils of the brave; they have cost them some of their best blood; and, as I gazed on them, I thought with pride of the fine lines of Casimir Delavigne : On dit qu'en les voyant couchés sur la poussière, Les regarda sans peur pour la première fois !"-p. 143-4. At last M. Blanqui and his friends are allowed to leave the Tower, but not before they have paid about twelve shillings-a fact which he has recorded in his immortal octavo, to horrify and inform the French nation. He next goes to Westminster Abbey, where "une chose afflige, et c'est encore la triste nécessité des complimens, comme dans la Tour et à St. Paul." He visits the Haymarket Theatre, and there sees Frankenstein (which, by the way, he says is imitated from a German novel), a piece never performed at that Theatre. At the Lyceum, they act a piece taken from the French, and the cause of its success is, that it finishes with a boxing-match, and "a play which finishes thus, never fails to succeed in England." After having seen all the fine and curious things which we have mentioned, and many more, M. Blanqui takes leave of England, and arrives safely at Dieppe. We have not noticed the introduction in which the author's political creed is expounded, as we intended, and now we have no room for a long notice of it. It is mostly made up of lamentations about Ireland, describing it (though the country, perhaps, the most thickly-peopled in Europe) as a desert; and quoting an account of its misery from an author, whom he speaks of among "les voyageurs les plus modernes." This very modern author, our readers will be surprised to find, is none other than sir William Petty, who wrote in the days of Charles 2nd. So much for M. Blanqui's candour, information, and acquaintance with English subjects. ART. IV. Lettre à Monsieur Dacier sur l'Alphabet des Hieroglyphes Phonetiques. Par M. Champollion. Paris. 1822. An Account of some recent Discoveries in Hieroglyphical Literature and Egyptian Antiquities. By Thomas Young, M. D. London. 1823. Letters à M. Le Duc de Blacas d'Aulps relatives au Musée royal Egyptien de Turin. Par M. Champollion le Jeune. Paris. 1824. 8vo. An Essay on Dr. Young's and M. Champollion's Phonetic System of Hieroglyphics; with some additional Discoveries, by which it may be applied to decipher the Names of the ancient Kings of Egypt and Ethiopia. By Henry Salt, Esq., F. R. S., His Britannic Majesty's Consul General in Egypt. London. 1825. 8vo. WE E ought, perhaps, to apologize to our general readers for bringing before them a subject, which never can be a popular one, whatever interest it may possess in the minds of classical antiquaries. And yet a kind of curiosity on all sub jects connected with Egypt, excited during our contests in that country, has been perpetuated, even in the feelings of the public at large, by the daily sight of our trophies, and by the exhibitions of the unfortunate Belzoni. Be that as it may, a sense of justice, partly personal and partly national, induces us to examine the respective claims, of Dr. Young, and of M. Champollion, to the discovery of the nature and meaning of the Phonetic Hieroglyphics. For the sake of our non-antiquarian readers, we ought, however, to premise, that the meaning of the hieroglyphic writings had been hitherto involved in almost complete obscurity, and that numerous antiquaries had long laboured in vain to discover an alphabet in those sculptures. It had been suggested, more than once, that they did conceal an alphabet, or that there were phonetic signs; that all the hieroglyphic figures were not pictures, nor emblems (not rebuses, to use a word well understood), but were an alphabetic writing; a real writing to the ear, not to the eye alone, and therefore phonetic, or audible sounds. Though Dr. Young's own statement is ample, his work is not of a nature to find its way into the hands of those persons which ours will reach, and who ought to be taught to set a due value on their countryman. It is among the misfortunes of our elevated populace, that its general reading is nothing, or worse than nothing, and that, ignorant of the talent and learning it contains within its own reach, it is always ready to believe in the exclusive knowledge or superiority of that to which currency is given, by the journals or fashions or prejudices of the day. The point at issue between Dr. Young, and M. Champollion is, simply, which of the two is the discoverer of the phonetic value of any sign or signs. Thus at least we apprehend it; since a discovery is the discovery of a fact, or of more, and does not cease to be so, because other facts have been added by pursuing the original hint, or by following in the same track. Columbus is thus only the discoverer of America. M. Champollion has done what the Vespucci, the Magalhaens, and the Hudsons did; and thus much merit we begin by granting him, while we must still vindicate the discovery of our countryman and for our country. We must use this last term, since both these antiquaries, alternately, have made it a national question. Dr. Young, indeed, says, in a very tranquil manner, "I was desirous of securing for my country, what is justly considered as a desirable acquisition to every country, the reputation of having enlarged the boundaries of human knowledge, and of having contributed to extend the dominion of the mind of man, over time, and space, and neglect, and obscurity." There are persons who might imagine, that they saw national characters here; but heaven forbid us from thinking that there is any such a betraying" in the counter-declaration of Monseigneur le Duc d'Orleans. We quote his royal highness's oration to the Asiatic Society. 66 Quel heureux présage de l'importance de leur résultats que la brillante découverte d' un alphabet hieroglyphique; décou, verte honorable, nonseulement pour le savant qui l'a faite, mais pour notre nation qui doit s'enorgueillir qu' un Francais ait commencé à pénétrer ces mystères que les anciens ne dévoilaient qu'à quelques adeptes bien éprouvés, et à dechiffrer ces emblémes dont tous les peuples modernes désespéraient de découvrir la signification." We are, indeed, puzzled to conjecture what notion M. Champollion attaches to the term discovery, when he admits that Dr. Young has been the first to give a phonetic value to the hieroglyphics of the names Berenice, and Ptolemy, but that his success has been limited. If that be not priority in discovery, we know not what is. No one contests the priority of Newton's general theory, though he did not complete that of the moon. Though we admit that M. Champollion has served the cause, by making good use of the hint of Clement of Alexandria, and by his attention to the syllabic consonants of the Shemitic languages, in decyphering the hieroglyphic writing, that is no foundation for his vain announcement, where he says that if "his New Theory" shall be confirmed by the comparison of the facts already determined with those which shall hereafter be discovered, even England must acknowledge, that these important results are the consequences of his researches. We, at least, as far as we can represent England, will not acknowledge this; for we shall have no great difficulty in showing, that the merit of discovering the phonetic value of a certain number of the hieroglyphics, belongs entirely to Dr. Young, and that M. Champollion has done little more than follow the course pointed out to him by our more modest countryman. Former critics had failed in explaining the hieroglyphic characters, it was because they had not perceived that these were, in many cases, the mere representations of sounds, or of letters; unaware of the indications to this effect contained in the remarks of Clement. Without perhaps more truly appreciating the meaning of this author than others had done before him, Dr. Young's natural sagacity led him to the discovery; that discovery, of which the French antiquary would willingly rob him. |