It was early in the year 1814, that I had been examining the fragments of papyrus brought from Egypt by Mr. Boughton; and that, after looking over Mr. Akerblad’s pamphlet in a hasty manner, I communicated a few anonymous remarks on them to the Society of Antiquaries. In the summer of that year, I took the triple inscription with me to Worthing, and there proceeded to examine first the enchorial inscription, and afterwards the sacred characters. By an attentive and methodical comparison of the different parts with each other, I had sufficiently deciphered the whole, in the course of a few months, to be able to send, as an appendix to the paper printed in the Archaeologia, a translation of each of the Egyptian inscriptions considered separately, distinguishing the contents of the different lines, with as much precision as my materials would enable me to obtain. It is evident that this division of the translation supposes, in general, a distinction of the significations of the single words; and that any person, with a little attention, might retrace my steps, with regard to the sense that I attributed to each part of the two inscriptions. I was obliged to leave many important passages still subject to some doubt, and I hoped to acquire additional information, before I attempted to determine their signification with accuracy; but, having made the first great step, I concluded that many others might be added with facility and with rapidity. In this conclusion, however, I was somewhat mistaken; and when we reflect that, in the case of the Chinese, the only hieroglyphical language now extant, it is considered as a task requiring the whole labour of a learned life, to become acquainted with the greater part of the words, even among those who are in the habit of employing the same language for the ordinary purposes of life, and who have the assistance of accurate and voluminous grammars and dictionaries: we shall then be at no loss to understand that a hieroglyphical language, to be acquired by means of the precarious aid of a few monuments, which have accidentally escaped the ravages of time and of barbarism, must exhibit a combination of difficulties almost insurmountable to human industry. I had thought it necessary, in the pursuit of the inquiry, to make myself in some measure familiar with the remains of the old Egyptian language, as they are preserved in the Coptic and Thebaic versions of the Scriptures; and I had hoped, with the assistance of this knowledge, to be able to find an alphabet, which would enable me to read the enchorial inscription at least into a kindred dialect. But, in the progress of the investigation, I had gradually been compelled to abandon this expectation, and to admit the conviction, that no such alphabet would ever be discovered, because it had never been in existence.