which, in my eagerness, I had hitherto overlooked. I opened this volume
with great precaution, not knowing what might jump out, and--guess
my delight--found that it contained a key or dictionary to the
hieroglyphics. Not to weary the reader with an account of my labours,
I am contented with saying that at last I imagined myself capable of
construing the characters, and set to work in good earnest. Still it was
no easy task, and two years elapsed before I had made much progress. I
then, by way of experiment on the public, obtained the insertion of a
few desultory chapters, in a periodical with which, for a few months, I
had the honour to be connected. They appeared to excite more curiosity
than I had presumed to anticipate; and I renewed, with better heart, my
laborious undertaking. But now a new misfortune befell me: I found, as
I proceeded, that the author had made two copies of his work, one much
more elaborate and detailed than the other; I had stumbled upon the
earlier copy, and had my whole task to remodel, and the chapters I had
written to retranslate. I may say then, that, exclusive of intervals
devoted to more pressing occupations, my unlucky promise cost me the
toil of several years before I could bring it to adequate fulfilment.
The task was the more difficult, since the style in the original is
written in a kind of rhythmical prose, as if the author desired that in
some degree his work should be regarded as one of poetical conception
and design. To this it was not possible to do justice, and in the
attempt I have doubtless very often need of the reader's indulgent
consideration. My natural respect for the old gentleman's vagaries,
with a muse of equivocal character, must be my only excuse whenever
the language, without luxuriating into verse, borrows flowers scarcely
natural to prose. Truth compels me also to confess, that, with all
my pains, I am by no means sure that I have invariably given the true
meaning of the cipher; nay, that here and there either a gap in the
narrative, or the sudden assumption of a new cipher, to which no key was