MH 10 Jan 57

Dear Sir

This morning I received your most interesting Translation of the Cylinders, with your Letter announcing your receipt of the Copy of my Cylinder & I have already written for the 4^th Vol. of the Transactions. I will copy as well as I can a part of mine w^ch I know to be exactly copied in the Sheet w^ch Rawlinson lent me. It is that line where a character s occurs with large blank spaces before & after it in short lines 53 & 56 col. 3. Also the crowded line in Col. 2 numbered 52, I have compared . The best plan however will be to send you one of my best negatives which I enclose. How stupid I am! It has only just struck me that to do so will be only explaining obscurum per obscurius. – I have now examined & compared my Cylinder & as well as I can decipher it, it corresponds but the middle of the line appears so jammed together that I cannot distinguish many of the characters, but at the end the large Down stroke is clear & so is the line downstroke & 4 strokes horizontal in the line below & the line below N^o3 ends with & at the end of line 4 is another large perpendicular with 4 horizontals. In line 7 is the same large blank in the middle. In Col. 1 line 9 is the same large blank as in the printed with only 3 characters isolated in it, besides those in the beginning. There can be no doubt I think that the printed is an exact copy of mine, but how Bellino could decipher them so clearly is incomprehensible to me, unless he had long, very long, been in the habit of writing & reading the Characters.

I exhibited my Cylinder several years ago (before 1850 I think) at the Marquis of Northampton’s Soirèe, when he was President of the Royal Society, but scarcely any body took any notice of it!!! I am delighted to find you think so highly of it, as it is some compensation to me after the refusal of Rawlinson to come & see it.

Did I recommend you to buy Ibn [sic] Haukal's Geography by Sir W^m Ouseley? If not, I advise you to do so. I wish you w^d publish all these Cylinders with the words in European letters under each Assyrian word, & under that again, the English Translation, word for word. It w^d enable us to learn the language.

I am Dear Sir yours Truly
T Phillipps

P S Would it not be worth to execute some Copies in your excellent mode of Photography? I have just bought Botta.

[envelope]
H. F. Talbot Esqr
Lacock Abbey
Chippenham
Wilts

[copy in TP's hand in his letter book - the Bodleian Library, Oxford]

To Henry Fox Talbot Esq Lacock Abbey

MH 10 Jan 57

D^r Sir

This morning I received y^r most interesting Translation of the Cylinders with y^r Letter announcing your receipt of the Copy of my Babylonian Cylinder & I have already written for the 4th Vol of the Transactions of RS Gottingen. I will copy as well as I can a part of mine w^ch I know to be exactly copied in the Sheet w^ch Sir Henry Rawlinson lent me. It is that line where is a character with large blank spaces before & after it, in short lines 53 & 56 Col. 3. Also the crowded line in Col 2 line 52 I have compared .X. I have now examined & compared my Cylinder & as well as I can decipher it, it corresponds but the middle of the line appears so jammed together that I cannot distinguish many of the Characters, but at the end the large down stroke is clear & so is the down stroke & 4 horizontals in the line below [cuneiform] & line 3 ends with & at the end of line 4 is another large perpendicular with 4 horizontals In line 7 is the same large blank in the middle. In Col 1 line 9 is the same large blank as in the printed with only 3 characters isolated in it, besides those in the beginning. There can be no doubt I think that the printed is an exact copy of mine but how Bellino c^d copy them so clearly is incomprehensible to me, unless he had long, very long, been in the habit of reading & writing the Characters. I exhibited my Cylinder several years ago (before 1850 I think) at the Marquis of Northampton's Soirèe, when he was President of the Royal Society, but scarcely any body took any notice of it!!! I am delighted to find you think so highly of it, as it is some compensation to me, after Rawlinson's refusal to come & see it.

Did I recommend you to buy Ibn [sic] Haukal's Geography by Sir W^m Ouseley? If not, I advise you to do so. I wish you w^d publish all these Cylinders with the words in European letters under each Assyrian word, & under that again the English Translation, word for word. It w^d enable us to learn the language. Would it not be worth while to execute some copies in your excellent mode of Photography? I have just bought Botta's Ninevah.

I am d^r Sir y^rs truly
T Phillipps