the state of the text. This was followed by the first two chapters of his ‘Memoir on the Inscription’ to page 53. This portion of the work was reviewed by Hincks, in the January number of the ‘Dublin University Magazine,’ 1847, and by Benfey in a pamphlet published at Leipzig in January 1847. Part II. was published before the meeting of the Society in May 1847, and included the third chapter of the Memoir, treating of the cuneiform alphabet and the important Supplementary Note on the pronunciation, pages 55 to 186.[557] Part III. was at the same time in the hands of the printer, and appeared later in the year (1847). It contains Chapters IV. and V. of the Memoir. The former gives a revised transliteration and translation of the text with an Analysis; and the other a complete revised edition of all the inscriptions previously published by Lassen. Mr. Norris, the Assistant Secretary of the Asiatic Society, saw the whole of this complicated work through the press, and he undertook to alter the transliteration given in Chapter IV. in accordance with the principles laid down in the Supplementary Note. For his services in this matter, he received a vote of thanks from the Society. ‘He unites,’ said the proposer, ‘more varied learning and more rare and extensive research and intelligence than I have ever seen combined in the same individual’;[558] and he subsequently attained an independent position in the first rank of cuneiform scholars. Part IV. was not published till 1849. It included the sixth chapter of the Memoir and treated of the Vocabulary, but the dissertation was never completed. It breaks off in the middle of a sentence, when the writer had not proceeded further than the words commencing with vowels and with consonants of the first three classes. It purports to give a few brief etymological explanations, but in reality it is admirable as a display of learning in many fields of knowledge, and it is especially interesting for the explanation it affords of the reasons that led to the determination of words of doubtful meaning. While he was engaged in this work, he received Lassen’s Second Memoir. It did not reach him till August 1845, when his own translations were completed and already beyond the reach of alteration. He had little cause, however, to regret the delay that arose from the difficulty in those times of ‘communicating between Bonn and Bagdad,’ for he could have derived small benefit from the very inferior translations of his predecessor. In the philological branch of the subject, however, he found the Memoir ‘of the greatest convenience as a manual of reference,’ and his marginal notes show how carefully he consulted it.[559]