DOI Page / Citation link:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.3720#0219
202 HIEROGLYPHS.
said to have aided or competed with liim in the task. He
more feared, it appears, rivals of his glory than detractors of his
fame; but the Orientalists of his day for the most part beheld
his labours with suspicion or indifference, if they did not attack
them with asperity. The general public, however, received
them with wonder and delight; and the French government,
ever alive to the interests of learning, sent him at the head of a
scientific mission to Egypt, to rescue the rapidly vanishing
monuments of the country from oblivion, by copying them, and
to illumine the world by explaining them. Provided .with a
simple and efficacious system, and the experience of an examina-
tion of a great number of texts, Champollion translated with a
marvellous facility the inscriptions submitted to him. He' at
once saw the purport of the hieratic manuscript of M. Sallier at
Aix, containing the campaign of Eameses against the Sheta.
He read with fluency the different inscriptions on the monu-
ments, and gave life to their mute forms. His most remark-
able reading was the name of Judah Malcha (the Kingdom of
Judah), on the wall of Karnak, amidst the prisoners of Sheshak.
His "Lettres Ecrites" are full of new translations, illustrative
of the mythology, history, ethnography, manners and customs
of the Egyptians as they were, and declare themselves. ■ His
great philological work, his Grammar, which he called his
visiting-card to posterity, was not finished till his return, nor
published till after his death.
If the process of Young inspired confidence, although it led
to error, by the mathematical precision with which it was con-
ducted, that of Champollion, more literary, more perfect in its
application and astounding in its results, found a host of oppo-
nents on the one hand, and supporters on the other. Salt, the
British Consul-General of Egypt, known for his travels, ex-
cavations, and collections, had embraced the new theories, and
said to have aided or competed with liim in the task. He
more feared, it appears, rivals of his glory than detractors of his
fame; but the Orientalists of his day for the most part beheld
his labours with suspicion or indifference, if they did not attack
them with asperity. The general public, however, received
them with wonder and delight; and the French government,
ever alive to the interests of learning, sent him at the head of a
scientific mission to Egypt, to rescue the rapidly vanishing
monuments of the country from oblivion, by copying them, and
to illumine the world by explaining them. Provided .with a
simple and efficacious system, and the experience of an examina-
tion of a great number of texts, Champollion translated with a
marvellous facility the inscriptions submitted to him. He' at
once saw the purport of the hieratic manuscript of M. Sallier at
Aix, containing the campaign of Eameses against the Sheta.
He read with fluency the different inscriptions on the monu-
ments, and gave life to their mute forms. His most remark-
able reading was the name of Judah Malcha (the Kingdom of
Judah), on the wall of Karnak, amidst the prisoners of Sheshak.
His "Lettres Ecrites" are full of new translations, illustrative
of the mythology, history, ethnography, manners and customs
of the Egyptians as they were, and declare themselves. ■ His
great philological work, his Grammar, which he called his
visiting-card to posterity, was not finished till his return, nor
published till after his death.
If the process of Young inspired confidence, although it led
to error, by the mathematical precision with which it was con-
ducted, that of Champollion, more literary, more perfect in its
application and astounding in its results, found a host of oppo-
nents on the one hand, and supporters on the other. Salt, the
British Consul-General of Egypt, known for his travels, ex-
cavations, and collections, had embraced the new theories, and