Killyleagh
18th Jan 1859
Dear Sir,
I have just received your letter. I should like to see C de Gobineau’s work. I saw the advertisement but did not like to buy it till I know something of its character – What you tell me of it leads me to think that a brief perusal of it will suffice. I will return it when I give it this. Oppert has, I fear, has the field to himself. I see nothing that is published at Paris; so I cannot criticise him; but the mistakes that he made in his version of the Tiglath Pileser cylinder are of such a nature that I have lost all confidence in his judgement – nor have I trust, I am sorry to say, in his integrity. I have done all that lay in my power to exchange with a more favourable position than I am in here, & have now given up the idea as hopeless. And as a consequence of this, I have, I may say, given up the pursuit. My paper just published was partly written to shew how cuneatic investigations ought, in my judgement, to be pursued; & partly to shew the incompetence of those on whom the public in England & France seem disposed to rely.
I am here occupied with a different pursuit & it is not likely that I shall publish anything more in the way of discovery; though I may write a support of my claim to [illegible deletion] discoveries, if others interfere with them –
I remain Yours vy truly
Edw Hincks
H F. Talbot Esqre
It is now 2 ½ years since the cylinder of Sennacherib was exhibited lithographed & ready for publication at Cheltenham: but it is not published, & when will it be so? When I am dead, or when it is known that I have abandoned in disgust the study of cuneatics. Not before if the public will submit to its suppression.
[envelope:]
H. F. Talbot Esqre.
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham