great weapons of all ancient Eastern warfare; and would seem to be indicated, almost to be described, in that passage of the 37th Psalm, "whose teeth are spears and arrows, and their tongue a sharp sword." At least, had the Psalmist meant allusion, here, to the Assyrian characters, he could not have more graphically described them, than under this image of those weapons of their Assyrian enemies, with which the Israelites, subsequently, were only to well acquainted. But whatever the differences of opinion as to the origin of the characters, the silence of learned Europe, down to the close of the last century, seemed unequivocally to acknowledge their illegibility as an alphabet, and the consequent impenetrableness of the language.

With the opening of the present century, this silence, at length, was broken. In the year 1802, the first serious attempt at decypherment and interpretation was made, and made, as usual, in Germany; the country generally foremost in every meritorious effort to penetrate the mists of time. As this attempt is the sole basis of all that has been subsequently essayed towards the unravelment of the arrow-headed characters and inscriptions in all their ramifications, whether Assyrian, Babylonian, or Persian, a short and clear account of it, for the information of the

general reader, is indispensable at the outset of any fresh investigation. To this object, therefore, I shall address and confine myself in the first instance.

In the year 1802, the ingenious author of this attempt, Professor Grotefend of Halle, first announced to the world the discovery which he conceived himself to have made of a key to the alphabet of the simplest species of the arrowheaded inscriptions of Persepolis, obtained by the detection of the proper names DARIUS and XERXES, and the patronymic, HYSTASPES,* on two tablets in this character, published by Niebuhr (vol. ii. tab. xxiv. B. and G.). These elements of the alphabet, the Professor, subsequently, stated himself to have enlarged, by the recovery of the name of CYRUS in a cuneiform inscription, copied by Sir Gore Ouseley, and by James Morier, Esq., from a pillar at Morghâb,

* The statement of the confessed groundwork of the whole system of discovery, originating with Grotefend, and adopted and enlarged only by his successors, brings the question of its soundness, or unsoundness, to a very narrow issue. The whole question turns upon the one point, viz. whether Grotefend has, or has not, found out the names, Cyrus, Darius, Xerxes, &c., upon the arrow-headed tablets. If he has not, or even if the point be doubtful, his groundwork, and with it the entire superstructure subsequently erected on it, is gone. It is not enough for readers to be apprized of this; they must, if they would guard themselves against the illusive influences of the developed theory, keep it constantly in mind.

believed by Mr. Morier (and with high probability) to be the ancient Pasargada.

To obviate any possibility of mistatement, the process by which the learned Professor arrived at these results shall be given in his own words.

Before following any guide, however, into an unknown country, it is obviously desirable that we should acquaint ourselves with the amount of his qualifications, and with the measure of his experience. It may be well, therefore, to preface his own account of his process, with his own representation of his title, from previous acquirements, and prolonged investigation, to anticipate or promise success in such an undertaking.

1. His antecedent qualifications for the task before him, Mr. Grotefend thus modestly describes:"I shall only observe, that if I flatter myself with having succeeded in deciphering the first specimen of Persepolitan character, it can scarcely, in fairness, be required of me to furnish, also, a satisfactory explanation of the writing itself, though it is too much the general custom to confound the business of a decipherer with that of an interpreter. Being little acquainted with the Oriental languages, I have merely endeavoured to determine the value of each sign by a species of logical induction, founded on a