character of each of the seventeen names immediately preceding it, and indeed of every other in the catalogue, that remains unmutilated at the beginning. I am therefore sorry to say that I cannot hitherto congratulate Mr. Champollion on the success of his attempts to carry his system of phonetic characters into the very remotest antiquity of Egypt: he appears, however, to have a better prospect of elucidating some of the Persian names, having, as he informs me, been able to identify that of XERXES, both in the hieroglyphics, and in the nail-headed characters, by means of a vase of alabaster, on which both are found together. This is, indeed, a wonderful opening for literary enterprise; and I am even inclined to hope, from Mr. Champollion’s latest communications, that he will find some means of overcoming the difficulties that I have stated respecting the Pharaohs, for he assures me, that he has identified the names of no less than THIRTY of them, and that they accord with the traditions of Manetho, and, as far as he can judge, with the notes that I had sent him of an attempt that I had formerly made to assign temporary names to the kings enumerated at Abydos, in which those of all the later ones began with the syllable RE. He will easily believe that I wish for a satisfactory answer to my own objections: and, in fact, the further that he advances by the exertion of his own talents and ingenuity, the more easily he will be able to admit, without any exorbitant sacrifice of his fame, the claim that I have advanced to a priority with respect to the first elements of all his researches; and I cannot help thinking that he will ultimately feel it most for his own substantial honour and reputation, to be more anxious to admit the just claims of others than they can be to advance them. CHAPTER V. ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE MANUSCRIPTS BROUGHT FROM EGYPT BY MR. GREY. I am impatient to turn, from every thing of a polemical or personal nature, to a field that has hitherto been exclusively in my own possession, in consequence of an event, which is the most important, considered as a single occurrence, that has taken place since the commencement of my Egyptian researches. It was very soon after my return from France, that George Francis Grey, Esq. of University College, Oxford, having been at Naples upon his return from Egypt, was so good as to bring me a few lines from my old friend Sir William Gell, himself a very successful traveller, and who has always pursued with ardour the last vestiges of the interesting remains of antiquity, both by his personal exertions, and by assisting and directing the enterprises of others.