to the India Office in 1868. He fell a victim to influenza in 1895, at the age of eighty-five. During his life he was gradually overwhelmed with honours bestowed upon him by learned Societies in various quarters of the globe;[1] but a grateful country was long reluctant to confer its seal of recognition. Military authorities are naturally unwilling to acknowledge the merits of distinguished officers who descend to civil employments; and in 1851, after the publication of the Behistun inscription, he had to sue in somewhat humble terms for promotion to the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel. On his return from Bagdad in 1855, when the walls of the Museum were lined with the trophies he had accumulated and the country was enraptured with the new arcana of knowledge his genius had unveiled. Lord Clarendon thought a knighthood worthy of his acceptance. This he hastened to decline, and shortly afterwards he received the more appropriate honour of K.C.B. (1856).
The dignities to which he subsequently rose were due to political services and social position, and seem to have been entirely unconnected with the achievements we have recounted.
As for Dr. Hincks, he appears never to have obtained any reward whatever, unless the Gold Medal of a provincial academy can be regarded as such.[2] He had the misfortune to be born an Irishman, and to fill the obscure position of a country clergyman, so that he was,
- ↑ For a list of these see Memoir, p. 170.
- ↑ He received the Conyngham Medal of the Royal Irish Academy in 1848 (Athenœum, May 1850). Layard has well said: 'In any other country but England a man of such attainments and so eminently calculated to confer honour upon the nation to which he belonged, would have received some reward, or would have been placed in a position of independence to enable him to pursue his studies. But in spite of numerous representations to Government and of the European reputation he had established, he was allowed to remain without any public recognition of his literary and scientific acquirements.'—Nineveh and Babylon, new ed. p. xlvi, note.
