[fragment]
B M <1>
Jan 9. 1863
My dear Mr Talbot
I was very sorry to be obliged to defer reading your translations till our next Meeting as our whole time last Wedny Evg was taken up by an examination & discussion of certain Papyri inscribed with Greek writing – now in Mr Mayer’s Museum <2> – at Liverpool – and which have been interpreted by the too notorious Greek, Simonides who was himself present – We came to no formal conclusion but I dont think there were 3 people in the room who believe in any of them – Many thanks for your notes on the Ph śnician Inscription – I think you are quite right about [Hebrew text] – in deed the last letter was a printers error [Hebrew character] for [Hebrew character]. I had written in my copy & revise [Hebrew character] and but the Printer’s devil changed it after it left my hands to [hebrew] – I feel less sure about [Hebrew text] – as I cannot trace the loss of the limb in the [Hebrew character] and do not know of any Ph śn. Inscr. where you find [Hebrew Text] [illegible deletion] though there may be one – Malek-itan – may of course be translated king God & not king – and the whole name would then as you say answer to [Greek text] – but this seems hardly necessary to suppose – On the Inscrs I have been editing for the Museum we have Malek-itan Baal Malák, Baalmalek, Abdmelearl Amt Melearl, [Meltarl?]-Halats, Hatmeleal &c These I take to be simple name [sic] – resolvable, however, if Ewald likes into the primary names of the Gods – but this is scarcely required –
I have not yet seen Ewald’s paper but I have heard from him & he promises to send it to me – I dont agree with him that the D and R are so alike as to be easily confounded (at all events not in all cases) on this Inscr. and therefore I stick to my own
Notes:
1. The British Museum.
2. The Liverpool silversmith, Joseph Mayer (1803-1886) was an avid collector and philanthropist. His private "Museum of Antiquities" was open for the benefit of the public in Liverpool from 1852-1867, at which time he donated the collections to the Liverpool Museum. He establshed the Bebington Free Library in 1866 and it once owned an original copy of WHFT's The Pencil of Nature (now in the John Rylands Library in Manchester).