6, Michaels Grove
12 Feby 1863.
Dear Sir,
Mr Redhouse <1> is mistaken in supposing that I have seen your last paper sent to the Society. I have been for some time past suffering from tic douloureux, and as a consequence, have been very rarely at the Society; I had not seen him for some [time] until last Tuesday he called on me at the Foreign Office, and told me what he had written to you. I at once informed him that he was in error, but do not know if he is convinced; the paper was sent to Sir Henry Rawlinson <2> as a matter of course, he having been elected at our last anniversary meeting Director of the Society. I do not even now know certainly what inscription you have translated, for bodily pain sadly lessens one’s interest in all matters not selfish, but as you allude to Ménant’s <3> copy, which Mr Coxe <4> shewed me at the Museum on Monday last, I suppose you mean Hammurabi’s. On the same day I saw Rawlinson, who told [me] he had your paper, and that he was of opinion that if printed, it ought to be accompanied by observations from himself as Director, if you had no objection, which he had directed Mr Redhouse to ascertain from you. I have now a copy from Ménant’s, but I fear hardly correct. I find some difficulty in reading it, and still more in understanding it, and when I get your version, I hope to get help from it. I will however candidly say, that I believe no two persons will agree in the translation of many parts of any one monument; there are many parts, perhaps three-fourths of every inscription, on which all will agree, but for the remainder all will differ, and I am partly of opinion that this difficulty will never be wholly removed. Is not this the case even in Hebrew, in spite of the joint labours of so many learned men, during so many centuries? It is true we have the help of original grammatical and glossarial notes, but our scraps are all but fragmentary, and unless we get more perfect slabs from ruins not yet laid open, (and I am sanguine that such will be found) they will not forward us much.
Sir Henry has copied several of the cursive notes upon the small slab, mere scratches on the sides in a Phœnecian character, and he finds they refer to the subject of the slab itself. This is interesting and may be a source of help.
I ought to apologise for the length of this roundabout note, but I must have recourse to the old excuse that I had not time to make it shorter
I am Sir yours faithfully
Edwin Norris
H. Fox Talbot Esq
&c &c
[envelope:]
H. Fox Talbot Esq
N. 11 Great Stuart Street
Edinburgh.
Notes:
1. Sir James William Redhouse (1811–1892), orientalist.
2. Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson, 1st Baronet (1810–1895), orientalist.
3. Joachim Menant (1820–1899), French Assyriologist & magistrate.
4. William H. Coxe, who was to die on 18 December 1869 after an illness of three years; son of Rev. H. O. Coxe, Bodley's Librarian; Asst. to Birch at the British Museum and, briefly, Prof of Sanskrit at Kings College, London.