vincingly proving that scarcely a single page which had hitherto been written upon Egyptian history or religion deserved the least credit. A splendid work which he had begun on the Egyptian Pantheon was even discontinued in consequence of the fresh information on the Egyptian religion which he was perpetually discovering.
During his lifetime, Champollion had many opponents and detractors, but not a single person can be named who in the slightest degree contributed to the modification or development of his views. Whatever corrections he adopted resulted from his own studies. His immediate disciples did not advance a step beyond what they learnt from him. One of them, Salvolini, was guilty of the infamous wickedness, after his master's death, of using the manuscripts of the latter for the purpose of winning glory for himself at the expense of the generous friend who had lent him his most valuable papers. It was not till 1837, several years after the death of Champollion, that his philological system was subjected to a thoroughly scientific criticism by Dr. Lepsius in his Letter to Rosellini, in which the obviously erroneous portions of the system were eliminated, the relations between the Coptic and the old Egyptian languages were set in a truer light, and a more accurate method of transcription was adopted.
