Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/434

Rh signs, according to De Saulcy, also express ha, and one eitlier e or i, lla lias four signs, none correct. They are really the signs for a, it, i and //. He was correct in supposing the language contained two diphthongs, ai and la \ but neither of his signs for ai is correct: one has, in fact, the value of tu\

It may be said in conclusion that on all points of difference between Kawlinson and De Saulcv, both as rcLiards the theory of the lani>uaire and the details of its expression, liawlinson was right and De Saulcy hope- lessly wrong. De Saulcy was not only unable to teach Eawlinson anytliing, but, as we have already o])served, he was incai)al)le to a very remarkable degree of appre- hending the truth from otliers. He lived for many years afterwards, l)Ut his P]ssay on the Behistun inscrip- tion seems to have been the last occasion on which he meddled with cuneiform studies. lie probably re- cognised more clearlv tlian some of his admirers liow incompetent he was to make any useful contribution to the subject. It is impossible to refrain from sympathy with him. He tells us he spent a whole year hi ' com- paring sign by sign and transcribing all the Achaemenian texts without ex(,*eption.' ^ Nothing is more calculated to overwhelm the mind with despondency than to pass vears of fruitless toil amid such arid wastes as these and to discover in the end that the natural ability to make useful ai)plicatin of the knowledge acquired is wholly wanting. For the true genius of a decipherer is a rare gift, and no amount of industry or learning can compensate for its absence. Hincks and liawlin- son possessed it with exceptional intensity. Many of the other scholars whose labours we have reviewed were endowed to a less degree — Grotefend, Jacquet and Lassen. Even Longperier, in the few lines he

^ Re rue Or lent ale y loc. cit.