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402 translation, which two years later he still considered was suHiciently accurate. On February 12, he also contri- buted a Memoir on the lloval Xanies at Nimrud.^ These two publications appeared between Major Eawlhi- son's lectures of January 19 and February 10. In the iirst lecture, liawlinson gaVe the earliest translation of a purely Assyrian inscription that had ever appeared, wdth the exception of the few lines rendered by Longperier and Hincks. Tt was taken from the Black l)elisk, and he promised to read at the next sitting a precis of the Khorsabad inscaiption.- It was clear, therefore, that he had already prepared it. Meanwhile, after this announcement was made, and thirteen days l^efore it was carried ijito execution, De Saulcy's trans- lation appeared. This forms the second long Assyrian inscrij)tion to be translated, and it can scarcely be denied that De Saul(*y and liawlinson had worked upon it independently of each other. The report of l?awlin- son\s second lecture was uiven in the SVthena^um' on March 2. It is, as we have said, impossible to estimate the comparative merits of the two works, because we liave not seen De Pauley's pamphlet. It can only be judged ])y what wc know of that writer's later acquire- ments.

The transliteration from which we have quoted made its appearance in February lS-")4, having ap- parently ])een sent to ])ress in June 18-33, or some three years after Ivawlinsorrs version of the same text.^ It camiot, therefore, claim the induli>vnce so willini>'lv accorded to a first effort : on the contrary, it is dis- tinctly put forward as a rival Essay, intended to prove ' the essential error of Rawlinson's method of readini^:.'

^ Sn' l(\< III ^crijtt ions (Ic Ninive (Paris, 1S;>0); Heme Orienfalej lSo2^ ii. 168. Cf. Meiiant, Les Ecritiiren, y, ^'Jiy ; Lfuv/ups jx'rduesy'^. 150.

- Ailunawtij Jan. l^t), ISoO, p. 105. ' Jounial Asiatif/ite, 1854, iii. 93.