direction, and force of his stroke. One important exception, however, still remained. Although, as in writing Greek, the tendency towards the adoption of tied letters was inevitable, yet to the last the enchorial or demotic writing was mainly executed in detached characters, and does not, therefore, constitute a true current handwriting, such as in our own continuous penmanship leaves no room for doubt as to the hand by which it was executed. Any sufficiently ambidextrous penman, attempting to copy a piece of modern current writing with either hand, would determine beyond all question its right-handed execution. But no such certain result is found on applying the same test to the Egyptian demotic. I have tried it on two of the Louvre demotic MSS. and a portion of a Turin papyrus, and find that they can be copied with nearly equal dexterity with either hand. Some of the characters are more easily and naturally executed, without lifting the pen, with the left hand than the right. Others again, in the slope and the direction of the thickening of the stroke, suggest a right-handed execution; but habit in the forming of the characters, as in writing Greek or Arabic, would speedily overcome any such difficulty either way. I feel assured that no habitually left-handed writer would find any difficulty in acquiring the unmodified demotic hand; whereas no amount of dexterity of the penman compelled to resort to his left hand in executing ordinary current writing suffices to prevent such a modification in the slope, the stroke and the formation of the characters, as clearly indicates the change.