Plates 75 and 76 contain portions of a large tablet from Sacchara, very fairly written on chalk, of which the upper part is broken off, leaving only a few traces of a hieroglyphic inscription, which seems to have contained a date at the end, perhaps the 12th of Mechir. (1) [In the . . year of Queen Cleopatra] and _Ptolemy surnamed Caesaris_; the divine king . . living for ever. (7) . . _The year_ 9, Athyr or Mechir 9, _of the great King Ptolemy_ the god ‘Brother of Apis? DIONYSUS ‘the awful? living for ever . . (19) . . _the great King_ Ptolemy the god ‘Brother of Horus? DIONYSUS . . . mighty as the sun? . . . (20) . . . living for ever . . (21) In the year 7 Mechir the 14 . . _The Queen Soter and King Ptolemy surnamed Caesaris_ living for ever . . gave . . (25) . . children, for ever. (28) . . ‘Written and engraved by? . . . In the 79th plate there are four enchorial lines very distinctly written, and beginning with a date, which must be either 24 or 28, and most probably the latter, as there are 28 stars in the margin: perhaps the 11th of the month, in the reign of _Ptolemy the son of Ptolemy, may he live for ever_. The rest is not intelligible. * * * * * In this manner, my dear Sir, I have been creeping, while others have been flying, though perhaps a little too near the sun. Possibly my friend Champollion, and _your friend_ Seyffarth, would be able to decipher much more of these inscriptions; and it is probable that their versions might differ in almost every particular. In this case it is unnecessary for me to say which of the two explanations I should be inclined to prefer: for it is impossible to deny to Champollion the merit of great industry, and deep, as well as extensive research. I object only to his precipitation, and his love of system, which, I think, cause him to be led away by his own ingenuity, through a series of conclusions unsupported by sufficient evidence. [p316] As an instance of a hasty and undemonstrated assertion, I shall mention his explanation of the group of characters which he considers (Système, p. 82) as “forming the third person plural of the future in all the verbs of the last nine lines of the hieroglyphical text of Rosetta, expressing the different dispositions of the decree, and answering to Greek verbs, which are always in the infinitive,” and which he naturally enough reads SNE.