But, as it often happens to those who are too eager to monopolize, he has now outstood his market, and the pearl of great price, which six months ago I would have purchased for much more than its value, is now become scarcely worth my acceptance. I was principally anxious to obtain from it a collateral confirmation of my interpretation of the enchorial inscription of Rosetta; but having fortunately acquired materials, from other sources, which are amply sufficient for this purpose, I can wait, with great patience, for any little extension, which my enchorial vocabulary might receive from this source. I had inferred from a note, that had been sent me several years before, respecting the stone of Menouf, by Mr. Jomard, that the first words of the Greek inscription must have been ΒΑΣΙΛΕΙ ΠΤΟΛΕΜΑΙΩΙ ΝΕΩΙ ΔΙΟΝΥΣΩΙ, but this was all that the gentleman, who described it, had even attempted to copy. The first circumstance, that repressed my eagerness to obtain a copy of Drovetti’s inscriptions, was the arrival of Mr. Casati at Paris, with a parcel of manuscripts, among which Mr. Champollion discovered one that considerably resembled, in its preamble, the enchorial text of the pillar of Rosetta: and the value of this discovery was afterwards almost miraculously multiplied, by the existence of a Greek translation of the same manuscript, which has been brought to London by Mr. Grey. Having had occasion, in the month of September last, to accompany some friends in a short visit to Paris, I was very agreeably surprised with several literary and scientific novelties of uncommon interest, and all of them such as either had originated, or might have originated, from my own pursuits. I had first the pleasure of hearing, at a meeting of the Academy of Sciences, an optical paper read by Mr. Fresnel; who, though he appears to have rediscovered, by his own efforts, the laws of the interference of light, and though he has applied them, by some very refined calculations, to cases which I had almost despaired of being able to explain by them, has, on all occasions, and particularly in a very luminous statement of the theory, lately inserted in a translation of Thomson’s Chemistry, acknowledged, with the most scrupulous justice, and the most liberal candour, the indisputable priority of my investigations. In the course of the same week, I was invited to sit next to Mr. Champollion junior, while he was reading, to the Academy of Belles Lettres, a Memoir on the Analysis of the Inscription of Rosetta: he, also, had been partly anticipated in his results by what had been done in this country: though I could not help fancying, that he had not so completely forgiven the injury, as his countryman Mr. Fresnel appeared to have done. But Mr. Fresnel is the friend of Arago, and nothing more requires to be said of his character and sentiments.