Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/305

276 1838, and Eawliiison's correspondence with Burnouf and Lassen did not beijin till the summer of that vear.^ From that period Rawlinson himself accounts for all the letters in question. Writinir after Jacquet's death, he tells us in a letter to Burnouf that lie had just found the value of 16 (^) ch. Two other values, 20 (j^ th and 41 (X^^) /^ ^^^ lixed still later in the winter 1838-9 ; another, 27 (\i^^ Ih 1^^ acknowledjjfes he received from Lassen.- The siirn 10 i^^ he also fixed in 1838-0 ; but he gave it the same value as Lassen had done hi 1830, viz. u\ In Germanv v was no doubt equivalent to its correct value r, but scarcely so to an Enjrlish-speaking man, especially as he distin- guishes it from his v {^ Xo. 15. The other letter, 40 (»-^^) >\ was known correctly to Grotefend in 1837. With reference, therefore, to the six letters attributed to Jacquet, it is seen that none of them were due to the influence of Eawlinson, either throui>h his ^lemoir or subsequently by coi-respondence. One letter (/•) was fixed l)efore Rawlinson was known. Three others were first announced after Jacquet was dead (10, 26, 41V One was wrong (1\ and the other (27) he acknow- ledged to have borrowed from Lassen. It is imi)ossible, therefore, to admit the pretension put forward by UawHnson, that he could 'fairly claim the paternity, either directlv or indirectlv, of at least ten cliaracters' on the ground that Mt was imi)0ssible to sav by whom each individual letter l^ecame identified.' On the contrary, the history of the identification is plahi enough, and there is no difiiculty in assigiung the pro- ])ortin of merit du(* to each discoverer. It was not till nfi(M' the essays of Jacqut^t iliat liawlinson Ixm'c any

' lijis>«'ii's Jirst letter to Ilawlin^oji is dated Aunruat 10, 1838. See Memnir by Canon iJawlinson, y. -in). - J. l: A. S. X. 8, 0, \{),7iut('<.