peculiarity most necessary to emphasise is that in a vast majority of cases the pronunciation of the ideogram has no relation whatever to the name of the object it represents, nor, when it has a syllabic power, to the phonetic value of the syllable. Rawlinson, however, did good service in the present Memoir by laying down the first rudiments of the grammar, a branch of the subject that Hincks subsequently did much to elucidate; and he was also the first to bring into prominence the polyphonic character of the language. Hincks had indeed remarked that ‘many characters admit of two or more kindred values’; but Rawlinson farther shows that ‘certain characters represent two entirely dissimilar sounds—sounds so dissimilar that they cannot be brought into relation with each other.’ He gives as an example the sign for the vowel _a_, which also conveys the sound of ‘bar.’ But the great distinction of Rawlinson lay in his unequalled power of translation. Large numbers of Assyrian inscriptions were now before the world. The ‘Monument de Khorsabad’ had appeared in 1848; Layard’s collection followed in 1849, and included the inscription on the Black Obelisk found in 1846. So far only a few words had been made out with more or less of accuracy; but nothing had yet been done in the way of a connected translation. The few lines of the Khorsabad inscription which Hincks attempted in the Addenda to his paper (Feb. 26, 1850) had not as yet appeared.[821] Rawlinson, however, observed that many of the common expressions used at Behistun were adopted almost verbatim from the Assyrian annals; and it was the discovery of these known passages in the Assyrian inscriptions that first encouraged him to undertake their translation. He disclaimed all pretensions to be ‘a complete master of the Assyrian language’; and he still speaks of it as to a great extent unintelligible. ‘The first outwork,’ he says, ‘has been carried in a hitherto impregnable position, and that is all’ Indeed he is so discouraged by the difficulty of the task that he is sometimes disposed ‘to abandon the study altogether in utter despair of arriving at any satisfactory result.’ In consequence of the profusion of ideograms in proper names, he finds that their ‘pronunciation is a matter of exceeding difficulty, nay, as I think, of absolute impossibility’; and it was in this department that he achieved the least success. He, however, passes in review many of the principal inscriptions that were then known, and analyses the contents of each.[822] He begins with the earliest in date, the one taken from the North West Palace at Nineveh, which he ascribes to King Assur-adan-pal—really Assur-natsir-pal. He passes on to the inscription of his successor, whom he calls Temenbar II. (really Salmaneser II.), which covers the Black Obelisk, and it is to it that he devotes the largest share of attention.[823] His analysis, partly a verbal translation and partly a summary, fills no less than