By the publication of this work Major Rawlinson at length took his place among the cuneiform scholars of Europe. We have shown that the study was by that time far advanced, and most of the difficulties of the Persian column were already surmounted. Rawlinson did not, therefore, put forward any pretension to original discovery in that department, but was, he said, ‘content to rest my present claims on the novelty and interest of my translations.’[560] He hoped eventually to earn the higher distinction of an original discoverer, ‘according to the success that may attend my efforts to decipher the Median [Susian] and Babylonian inscriptions.’ It was not, however, without an effort that he presented himself in so modest a garb upon this occasion. He was convinced that he had made each step in the tedious process of decipherment by his own unaided effort; and in whatever light he might appear to the public, he was certainly an original discoverer to himself. He had no doubt that if Grotefend and Lassen had never lived the world would have been indebted wholly to him for the discovery, and, although we think he may have been influenced more than he suspected by other scholars, there is no great improbability in supposing that his own ingenuity would have been quite equal to grapple singly with the task. Notwithstanding his avowed disclaimer, he still cherished the opinion that he had really made some important contributions to the determination of the alphabet. On one occasion indeed he went so far as to claim the paternity, directly or indirectly, of at least ten characters, and he referred to his correspondence with Burnouf and Lassen as the medium through which he had made his influence felt. It is clear, however, that in this he was entirely mistaken. According to his own admission, he knew as little of the Continental scholars as they did of him until his first communication to the Asiatic Society, which was received in March 1838. It will be recollected that Burnouf and Lassen had published their Memoirs two years before; so neither of these could have been influenced by Rawlinson. It only remains to inquire whether he could have suggested any of the six values ascribed to Jacquet, whose essay appeared in the course of 1838. Here a comparison of dates is not sufficient in itself to determine the question. Rawlinson’s communication was known in London on March 14, and was submitted to the French Society on April 20. Jacquet began that very month to publish his criticism of Lassen, and his active mind was full of the subject. He was no doubt present at the meeting when Rawlinson’s copy of the inscription was submitted to the Society, and there was ample time for him to profit by any suggestions it contained in his future papers on the subject. We have, however, conclusive proof from Rawlinson’s own admission that the values of these six letters were not then known to him. Nor could they have been communicated to Jacquet