appearance of M. Menant, in 1858, as the writer of a ‘Notice sur les Inscriptions cunéiformes de la Collection de M. L. de Laval.’[883] Soon afterwards (1860) he published the ‘Ecritures cunéiformes,’ an ‘Exposé des Travaux qui ont préparé la Lecture des Inscriptions,’ which is still a useful apology for the science.[884] For, notwithstanding all the magnificent results already obtained, the science was still in need of an apologist.[885] In 1852, Professor Wilson, the President of the Royal Asiatic Society, went so far as to regard the Assyrian Inscriptions as still ‘merely dumb memorials of antiquity.’[886] Very great discrepancies were indeed yet to be found in translations of the same passages by different scholars, and the true meaning of a large number of words continued to be warmly disputed. It was found, in fact, that M. Stern of Göttingen still maintained that the language was entirely alphabetical; that there were no ideographs; and he read every syllable of one inscription differently from De Saulcy, except the proper names.[887] Mr. Fox Talbot attributed the prevailing incredulity ‘to the fact that each cuneiform group represents not always the same syllables, but sometimes one and sometimes another’: in other words, to the existence of polyphones. Hence it was inferred that the system adopted ‘cannot be true, and the interpretations based upon it must be fallacious.’[888] He proposed, therefore, to submit the whole matter to a practical test. He accordingly translated the inscription of Tiglath Peleser, recently found at Kaleh Sherghat, and forwarded it in a sealed envelope to the President of the Asiatic Society. Three other scholars—Rawlinson, Hincks, and Oppert—were then invited to make independent versions of the same inscription, and to communicate them under cover to the Society. Carefully lithographed copies had been executed for this purpose, so that there might be no variation in the text. A competent jury of examiners were selected, among whom were Professor Wilson (the President), Mr. Grote, Dean Milman, Sir Gardner Wilkinson, and Whewell; and on the day appointed the sealed packets were opened in their presence. It was found that Dr. Hincks had not had time to translate the whole, and that Oppert had committed the double blunder of working from a copy executed by himself, and of making his translation in English, a language with which he was imperfectly acquainted. A careful comparison was, however, undertaken, and the Jury issued their report on May 29, 1857. Grote and Milman were of opinion ‘that the coincidences between the translations, both as to the sense and the verbal rendering, were very remarkable.’ Wilkinson made a separate report, and stated that ‘the similarity is quite equal to what it would be in the translation of an ordinary historical inscription in Egyptian hieroglyphics.’ ‘Indeed,’ he adds, ‘the resemblance is so great (very often exactly the same, word for word)