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Document number: 7335
Date: 20 Dec 1856
Recipient: TALBOT William Henry Fox
Author: HINCKS Edward
Collection: British Library, London, Manuscripts - Fox Talbot Collection
Collection number: envelope 20992
Last updated: 12th December 2010

Killyleagh Co Down
20th Decr 1856

Dear Sir,

I this morning received your letter & pamphlet for which I feel much obliged to you. I send you a copy of my paper on the Pronouns. I should wish too that you read a paper of mine on the Annals of Sargon and Sennacherib in the Journal of Sacred Literature 2d Sers vol. 6th a note in which (p.408 or 16 of the separate paper) anticipates some remarks of yours in pages 27 & 31. As I happen to have a separate copy of this paper, & as you may not have the back volumes of the Journal, I send it to you with the others. This paper was dated in January, tho’ not published till July, 1854.

You seem not to have heard of my translations of the Annals of Assur-akh-bal (if that be his name) & of Sennacherib from Bellino’s cylinder. I prepared these with great labour under an agreement with the trustees of the British Museum; and I certainly understood when I parted with the copyright of them to them, that they would publish them. This was not indeed stipulated for; but had I not believed that it would be done, I would never have made the agreement with them that I did. I allowed them to dictate to me on what I was to be occupied; I was kept from studying the all-important tablets, on the ground that the Trustees desired that “I should confine myself to the Inscriptions of Senacherib and those of the North West Palace”; – though the tablets were of the nature of a lexicon & would have enabled me to improve my translations. And when in the summer of 1854 I sent it, as carefully prepared as I could (and certainly beyond all comparison superior to any thing that had previously come out) I found that it was to be kept locked up in the private repositories of the Secretary or Principal Librarian; – not being even put among the “Additional Manuscripts”, where it would be accessible to the public. By whom it was seen I know not; but I know that Dr Oppert published much as his own, [ill. del.] which was contained in my manuscripts; and I certainly think (supposing even that he did not see them) that my delivery of the MSS to a public body like the Trustees of the museum was a publication, so as to entitle me to claim priority.

I don’t suppose that it was with a view to Dr Oppert’s benefit that my MSS were burked; but I am very sure that there is a strong feeling in some influential quarters that I must be kept out of the field of discovery, whatever may occupy it. I am now laid on the shelf; and I never expect to have again the means of pursuing my discoveries.

You have, I think, hit off the meaning in one or two places when I missed it; in others I think you have not been as successful as I think I was; but in more numerous instances we agree.

On the first page you are presented with sumbi chumbi [Hebrew]; or as the observer wrote it [Hebrew] chabbi “lacticæ” – Gesenius p. 1147. this I translated “waggons”.

Dr Oppert is the only continental scholar, as far as I am aware, who has made any progress in Cuneatics. The three you mention seem to have [ill. del] gone far ahead of any in this country as to Hieroglyphics. Birch of late seems to have been asleep. Perhaps, however, he has something great in preparation.

I remain Dear Sir Yours vy truly
Edw Hincks

H. Fox Talbot Esqre

[envelope:]
H. F Talbot Esqre
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham

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