Note 20 — LEPSIUS IN PARIS AS AN EGYPTOLOGIST.

On the Order and Relationship of the Semitic, Indian, Ancient Greek, Ancient Egyptian and Ethiopian Alphabets. Index of Works No. V. The history of the origin of this treatise is peculiar. At that time the Leipsic Egyptologist, Seyffarth, who, as we know, had advanced a system of his own in opposition to that of Champollion, had brought out a publication which bore the strange title: “Our Alphabet a Representation of the Zodiac, with the Constellation of the Seven Planets, etc., etc. Probably according to the Observations of Noah himself. First Foundation of a True Chronology and History of the Civilization of All Nations.” Leipsic, 1834.—As this work appeared to emanate from some other than the critical world in which Lepsius had become eminent, and as, strange to say, it had found advocates of repute, the young doctor felt himself bound to refute it duly. So he wrote a critique of it for the “Berliner Jahrbücher,—partly also with a view to “presenting himself gradually before the public in his Coptic costume.” “I do not expect,” he writes, “to demolish the work—by which no honor could be won,—but to give a true explanation of our alphabetical system.” As the “Jahrbücher” had meantime made use of another review, he struck out the portion of the dissertation which was directed against Seyffarth, from that in which he “built up,” submitted this latter to the Berlin Academy, and had it printed in their Transactions.