by the inhabitants; we have reason to conclude, even from this circumstance alone independent of a great many others, that the Nubian, for instance, read the hieroglyphic inscriptions on the monuments in his country in the Nubian language, and understood them without a knowledge of the Egyptian tongue. Still I, by no means, object to the expression, written language of the Egyptians, as applied loosely to their writing, without being intended to indicate any thing of its nature. But the question at issue is not at all how the words, written language may be used; but how they actually are used in the passages I quoted from B. And here it is perfectly clear from the context (in spite of all the interpo lations and notes of admiration em used by him in this sense. a We are above told expressly, that the discovery of the phonetic signifiwhich B supposed Champollion had cation of the Egyptian hieroglyphs, at arrived, would have been made long before, if a certain remark of Warburton's had been prosecuted to its consequences. Now, I request the reader to ployed by A), that they are to be examine this profound observation of the taken in their strict sense, and denote bishop, which has been quoted by A a species of writing which has an im- with all the emphasis that capitals and mediate reference to some one particular done so, I rather think he will concur italics can give it; and when he has language, and which, therefore, must be alphabetic, or at least phonetic. At with me that it cannot possibly lead the time when B wrote his article on to Champollion's theory, unless we the Egyptian hieroglyphs, the learned attribute to the words written language, world was imposed upon by the boast (which have been subjoined by way of ing pretensions of M. Champollion, paraphrase) the meaning of alphabetic who maintained that he had discovered or phonetic writing immediately exIndeed the the true method of deciphering those pressive of language. characters, and that the texts written whole drift of the reviewer's argument in them were for the most part alpha-words in question must have been makes it as clear as day, that the betic [I said wholly phonetic in my former allusion to this subject, in which I was not strictly right, as Champollion admitted that some of the characters are ideagraphic; and I am obliged to A for correcting my inaccuracy of expression in this instance, although I think he might as well have done so in terms less harsh]. By these pretensions the Edinburgh reviewers were just as much imposed upon as other people; and B, participating in the general delusion, is loud in his praises of Champollion's supposed discovery of the phonetic nature of the old Egyptian writing. He is, however, not content with extolling the French author in a very extravagant manner for a discovery which has never been made, but he forces in by the head and shoulders Bishop Warburton for a share of the panegyric; and speaks of "the important observation," made by the bishop which is "now completely verified," namely, that the hieroglyphs "constitute real written language; in reference to which important observation he goes on to say a "Had Warburton's profound remark And here it is amusing to observe, that there is not the slightest connexion between the adduced passage of Warburton, unaccompanied by its paraphrase, and the position of Champollion to which it is said to lead; and the reviewer has placed himself in somewhat a curious light by attempting to deduce the latter from the former, the sole connecting link being one of his own manufacture. This link seems to have been very strangely introduced for the purpose of giving some pretext for B's praise of the bishop on account of the admirable "sagacity which led him to divine a truth so far beyond the reach of an ordinary mind”—a truth (as the reviewer is pleased to call it) of which the bishop never had the least conception. Champollion held that most part of each of the hieroglyphic legends is alphabetic; Warburton, on the other hand, thought it a manifest absurdity to suppose that any part of them is of that nature. The opinion, therefore, of the English author, could never have led to that of the Frenchman, except through the ingenious contrivance of the "Edinburgh Review." A closes this part of his subject with a long quotation from Dugald Stewart, which is altogether irrelevant. The fondness of Scotch authors to quote from the literary productions of their countrymen, is often the result of an amiable feeling, which, when kept Iwithin due bounds and exercised on fit occasions, is rather creditable than otherwise. But with all the respect which I entertain for the Scotch as a nation—and no one admires more than I do their sterling worth; their gallant bearing abroad; their love of peace and good order at home; their strict integrity of principle; their attachment to the honour and the interests of their country;-yet I must say that the mode of manifesting this last mentioned sentiment which is adopted by some of their writers, has a very ludicrous appearance. The case before us affords an amusing illustration of my remark; for by the way in which the critic has here indulged his national vanity he has been betrayed into a whole mass of puerilities and inconsistencies. Dugald Stewart undoubt edly was an able metaphysician, but he was totally ignorant of the manner in which the Egyptian hieroglyphs were significant, and all he ever wrote would not, in the remotest degree, assist us to arrive at the meaning of even one single hieroglyphic character. Yet because he, in a certain passage, alludes to Egyptian symbols, our Scotch critic, as if his imagination had been caught by a watchword, quotes and extravagantly praises the entire passage; although it neither has the least connexion with the point under discussion, nor conveys any information of the slightest value or interest. The main purport of this passage is contained in the two following sentences: on “The symbols which still remain in that celebrated country, inscribed eternal monuments, have long lost the correspondent minds which reflected upon them their own intellectual attributes. To us they are useless and silent, and serve only to attest the existence of arts, of which it is impossible to unriddle the nature and objects." If I rightly understand these sentences, the first of them conveys a mere truism-that the persons who formerly were able to read the Egyptian hieroglyphic records are long since dead; and the second tells us that the author not only did not himself know anything whatever of the signification of the symbols alluded to, but also that he considered the deciphering or unriddling them to be an absolute impossibility. I now request the reader's attention to the Scotch commentary on the above extract, it runs in the following strain: "This is the language of a true philosopher, who, even while hopeless of ever seeing the mystery unveiled, comprehends the true character of the difficulty to be overcome, and perceives that the symbols which still remain in that celebrated country, inscribed on eternal monuments,' might again become significant and intelligible if we could conjure up the correspondent minds which reflected upon them their own intellectual attributes;' or in other words, if by some fortunate discovery, we should ever be enabled in some measure to place ourselves in the situation of those minds,' and to apply the principles of interpretation with which they were familiar. Nor is such a consummation at all beyond the limits of rational probability. Enough has already been done to warrant a well-founded belief that more will ere long be achieved; and that, by pursuing a cautious inductive method of investigation, the most untractable texts may at length be resolved." Here, in the eagerness to give his countryman credit to which he was not at all entitled, the Scotchman contradicts himself; for he at first admits that Dugald Stewart was "hopeless of ever seeing the mystery unveiled ;" yet he afterwards, by a strange perversion of this author's words, attributes to him the penetration and sagacity of foreseeing the present state of the hieroglyphic problem, and the final success of the investigation. By "the principles of interpretation," applied to the production of this paraphrase, it is evident that our critic might extract any meaning he pleased out of any assigned proposition. Bishop Warburton has sometimes so treated a Greek sentence, and taken chance for the reader's not going to the trouble of analysing the original and comparing it with his translation. But it was reserved for the Edinburgh Review to place an English passage before the English reader, and to attempt to impose upon him a meaning of it directly the reverse of the true one. Upon the modesty of this attempt it is unnecessary to dilate, and I shall merely ever The observe that in the course of my literary experience, I have scarcely met with its parallel. language of Stewart in the extract above given is not very clear, and so far it is unlike that of a "true philosopher;" but enough may be collected from his expressions to render it perfectly certain that he did not " comprehend the true character of the difficulty to be overcome" in the case referred to; and that he did not "perceive," or even entertain the most distant hope that the Egyptian symbols "might again become significant and intelligible." The steadiness of this Review is pretty much on a par with the modesty displayed in it. In the first article which A wrote upon hieroglyphs, (for I now drop the imaginary distinction I made between the persons designated A and B, as there can be very little doubt of their identity,) he was quite in raptures at the abilities and success of Champollion, and talked of the quæstio vexata respecting the Egyptian hieroglyphs, as if it had been completely resolved by this writer. a subsequent number, however, he quite altered his tone and declared: In adopted conjectures and fancies of his own, without a tittle of evidence, or even of probability to support them."-p. 475. But now he appears to be relapsing into his first opinion, and tells us 66 warrant a well-founded belief that more Enough has already been done to will ere long be achieved; and that, by pursuing a cautious inductive method of investigation, the most untractable texts may at length be resolved." His description, indeed, of the method from the use of which a successful result may be expected, does not at all accord with that of Champollion and his followers; nor is it, I believe, by any of their investigations that the idea of such a method was suggested to him. Still, however, the compliment conveyed in the above quotation, certainly was not intended for me, but must be referred to the phonetic system at present acted on, and consequently to its founder.* How soon A may, by the oscillations of his judgment respecting Champollion, be brought back again to the side of disapprobation and distrust, I cannot venture to determine; indeed, it appears to me as difficult and hopeless an undertaking to calculate the vibrations of this literary pendulum, as it would be to ascertain beforehand the various turnings of a weathercock. Business prevents my pursuing these observations any further at present. In a little time I hope to be able to resume the subject, and bring it to a conclusion. * Though Young was the original discoverer of the phonetic use of hieroglyphs made by the Egyptians, yet Champollion must be considered as the founder of the erroneous system now prevailing, in which the general text of the hieroglyphic records is assumed to be phonetic, since the former author did not approve of this system, but on the contrary held that the whole of the writing in question was ideagraphic, except merely the part of it applied to the designation of names inside the cartouches. Had Young made out the modes used for denoting actions by means of these characters-had he understood the forms of expression which may from analogy be called the hieroglyphic verbs-there can be little doubt but that he would have succeeded in deciphering the hieroglyphic part of the Rosetta inscription. But now I trust it will be found that the disadvantage under which he laboured in this respect has been removed; and, consequently, there is reason to hope that the working of the problem upon right principles will be resumed, and thus at length be brought to a successful issue. GALLERY OF ILLUSTRIOUS IRISHMEN.-NO. VII. JAMES, EARL OF CHARLEMONT.PART IV. IRELAND was now an independent nation. Lord Charlemont's early daydreams were, beyond his expectations, realized. A combination of circumstances such as has never before occurred, and a constellation of great men, such as never before appeared together, compelled the British minister to strike the last link off the chain of restrictive laws and usages, by which this country had been previously fettered, and to suffer its exultant legislature to riot in the unaccustomed enjoyment of an all but unrestricted freedom. During the first excess of that halffrenzied delight, by which the nation was seized, nought was thought of but universal gratulation. In the magical words of Grattan, "the country rose, as it were, from its bed, and got nearer to the sun." And as he was the demigod by whom its liberation was effected, he was treated almost with divine honours. Nor was it forgotten that his illustrious friend was entitled to a large share of the acclamations with which the patriot was greeted, as, without his aid and patronage, he could not have taken his place in parliament. His borough interest Lord Charlemont always considered a sacred trust, to be employed for the benefit of his country.. Never, in any single instance, was he known, or we believe, suspected to bestow his patronage with reference to any personal advantage. And this disinterestedness, on his part, was the more praiseworthy, because he lived in the midst of a very "crooked and perverse generation" of worldly politicians, whose maxims on such subjects were the very reverse of his, and who, instead of employing their power for the good of the country, were ready, at any moment, to sacrifice the country, for what, in their shortsightedness, they believed to be the good of themselves.* The Irish parliament never acted more fully in accordance with the wishes of the Irish people, than when they conferred upon their deliverer a donation of fifty thousand pounds. Nor can we deny that it was a suitable expression of national feeling, on such an occasion, towards the man who was supposed to have laid anew the foundation, and thrown an impregnable bulwark around the citadel of constitutional freedom. He was, himself, perhaps, the only individual in the country by whom this grant was sincerely deprecated; and, had it not been for the determination of his friends, it is highly probable that it would have been declined. "Respecting the grant," Lord Charlemont writes to his friend Dr. Halliday, "I know with certainty, that Grattan, though he felt himself flattered by the intention, looked upon the act with the deepest concern, and did all in his power to deprecate it. As it was found imposand I among others, were employed to sible to defeat the design, all his friends, lessen the sum. It was, accordingly, decreased by one-half, and that, principally, by his positive declaration through us, that, if the whole were insisted on, he would refuse all but a few hundreds, which he would retain as an honourable mark of the goodness of his country." But the days were coming, when both he and Lord Charlemont were to experience something very different from the adulation by which they were now surrounded. There was a small, but active party, at the head of whom was Mr. Flood, who either felt, or pretended to feel, that the constitutional victory was as yet incomplete, and that the repeal of the sixth of George the First, by which the usurped authority of England was suffered to be for ever overthrown, must be regarded as incomplete without a formal act of renunciation. We have, in former Numbers, so fully expressed our own feelings upon the subject, that it must be needless, and it would, indeed, be unjustifiable to introduce any repetition of them here and we shall only say, that the men who now started up to criticise the finished work of Grattan, appeared in an invidious character, and that, al "What!" said a popular orator, at a later period of our history, to one of this class, "will you sell your country?" "Sell my country!" was the reply, "I am very glad to have a country to sell!" though their eloquence was powerful, and their logic keen, yet their policy was questionable, and their view but narrowly bounded. But vain would have been all the efforts of the discontented or the factious to disturb the happy unanimity which now prevailed in the nation respecting the completeness of their constitutional victory, if circumstances had not arisen which gave but too much plausibility to the reasoning by which they were supported. A decision of Lord Mansfield, in the King's Bench, in England, seemed to affirm the continued existence of that foreign judicature, against which such an outcry had been raised, and the establishment of which was regarded as a most injurious and insulting usurpation. An act had, also, passed the British parliament, regulating the importation of sugars "to all his majesty's dominions;" and as the words were construed so as to embrace Ireland, it was regarded as an attempt to bind Ireland by Eng lish statutes, the very grievance which was supposed to have been effectually redressed by the measure which so graciously conferred upon this country perfect legislative freedom. And Lord Abingdon, a member of the British House of Lords, feeling, that, by the late concession, his country was virtually divested of a sovereignty which she had exercised for nearly a thousand years, gave notice, in that assembly of a bill, which it was his intention to introduce, and which would have for its object the affirming of the following proposition, namely, "that the kings of England being masters of the British Seas for eighteen centuries, and the Western Sea, which surrounded Ireland, belonging to the kings of England, the British parliament has the sole right to make laws to regulate the commerce of Ireland." There can be no doubt that Lord Abingdon was fully justified in contending for the position thus laid down. It was, in effect, no other than the position for which Selden contended against Grotius, and which the illustrious English antiquary established, to the utter confusion of the Dutchman, and the entire conviction of enlightened Europe. But neither can there be any doubt, that its assertion, in the manner, and with the view now contemplated, would have humbled the pride, and disappointed the expectations of the Irish patriots, who justly conceived, that little would have been gained, if their power of external legislation was denied, and their hands continued to be shackled by the authority of a British parliament. Accordingly, an outcry was raised, which resounded from one extremity to the other of the kingdom. Never, probably, since Ireland was a nation, was the supposed treachery of England regarded with so loud or so unanimous a shout of execration. Flood was suddenly deified in the popular regards; and Grattan, all at once, hurled from that preeminence to which, for his recent splendid services, he had been exalted. Lord Charlemont, now, for the first time, began to feel the difficulties of managing a wayward and an excited people. All his popularity was not more than sufficient to enable him to maintain his ground against the heady violence of those, who, but a little before, were his warmest and most devoted admirers, and whom, it may be, nothing but the influence which he still possessed prevented from rushing upon courses, which would have led directly to civil war. In the tumult of national gratitude, which was consequent upon the acquisition of their independence, the Irish parliament resolved to raise twenty thousand sailors for the British navy. As soon as Lord Abingdon's notice reached the country, an immediate check was given to this important service; and the Volunteer corps in Dublin, which was under Lord Charlemont's immediate command, entered into very warm resolutions upon the subject, which were transmitted to his Lordship, who was then in the North of Ireland. We cannot better exhibit the difficulties of his position than by extracting from the work of Mr. Hardy, his answer to their communication. It is distinguished by mildness and prudence; and while the refractory, no doubt, to a certain degree, acknowledged his influence, he could not but feel that it was no longer unbounded: the resolutions which you sent me in“SIR, However I may disapprove of closed, I cannot but thank the gentlemen of the corps for their kind conduct with regard to me; and you, for the politeness of your letter. Your wish to apply to me for my approbation, was all the compliment I had any right to expect, and, in my unlucky absence, an application to your lieutenant-colonel was right and proper. It happens, however, unfortu nately that in this instance, my senti |