Grotefend’s method of decipherment, when it first appeared, met with a varying degree of success in different quarters. In Germany, as we have seen, it was at once adopted by Tychsen, who became one of its chief exponents; and it also secured the favour of Heeren, who allowed it to share in the wide popularity accorded to his own writings. But even in Germany it was some time before it gained general recognition. The theory of Lichtenstein, absurd as it may now appear, continued to command attention, and even in 1820 Grotefend still thought it necessary to defend his own opinions against those of his rival.[348] His views, however, gradually gained the ascendant, and in 1824 he felt he could now allow the controversy to drop; and in the new edition of Heeren he left out a large portion of the criticism he published in 1815. Since then his merits have been fully acknowledged by his own countrymen, who are rarely disposed to underrate any of the achievements of their kindred. In England his system never had to contend with the rivalry of Lichtenstein. It was received at once with general approval by all who were best qualified to form a judgment. The learned Ouseley, the more brilliant Morier, Sir R. K. Porter and Mr. Rich never doubted for a moment that Grotefend had deciphered the names of Hystaspes, Darius and Xerxes. Very different was its reception in France. De Sacy, who was really the first to introduce it to the notice of Europe, could never feel any real conviction that it rested upon solid grounds. He was quite uninfluenced by the jealousies that blind the judgment of smaller men, and he would gladly have given it his approval if he could have brought himself to accept the evidence. But this he was entirely unable to do; and it was certainly not because he failed to apprehend the process by which it was reached. The explanation he has given of it greatly excels in lucidity and in logical precision the account of Grotefend himself—so much so, indeed, that we are inclined to think that Grotefend never thoroughly understood his own system till it was explained to him by De Sacy. The French scholar was fully acquainted with the subject, for he had himself made frequent attempts at decipherment, always, he frankly acknowledges, with a ‘total absence of success.’ The only point he considers tolerably certain is that the word with seven signs is the title of King.[349] He doubts altogether that the names of the kings had been correctly ascertained, and he points out the difficulty of accepting an alphabet that contains three or four signs for _e_, three for _o_, and so on. The opinion he formed in 1803 he repeats in 1820. In his letter to M. Dorow, he confesses that he is still unable to find the names of the Persian kings or of the god Ormuzd in the cuneiform inscriptions; and he declares he does not believe that anything hitherto published on the subject is worthy of confidence.[350]