Page:Discovery and Decipherment of the Trilingual Cuneiform Inscriptions.djvu/269

Jacquet's conjectures^[1] This was followed by Memoirs on the languages and literature of Polynesia, including the cabalistic writings of Madagascar. From these subjects Jacquet passed to those affecting India. At the age of twenty-four we find him in correspondence with Mr. James Prinsep, the Secretary of the Asiatic Society of Calcutta, and well known as the first decipherer of the Pali alphabet.^[2] He has already planned the execution of a 'Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum,' and is busily occupied collecting materials from every available source. He is associated with Raoul Rochette in the study of Bactrian and Indo-Scythian medals, and his extraordinary capacity as a numismatist is fully recognised. In the midst of these various occupations he found time to devote himself to cuneiform inscriptions, which his knowledge of Zend and Pehlevi qualified him to investigate. From 1835 he was in constant correspondence with Lassen upon this and kindred subjects; and his singular ability enabled him to overcome many difficulties that had baffled previous inquirers. He not only earned distinction in the somewhat arid fields of philology and ethnology, but he was equally alive to the historical and literary aspects of the subjects he investigated. He was particularly interested in tracing the intellectual relations of the people of China, India, and Upper Asia, and he devoted some interesting papers to the connection between the East and West in ancient and mediaeval times. These were mostly written at the age of nineteen to twenty. At nineteen we also find him translating from the Danish and reviewing a tract by Rask on a Pali and Cingalese manuscript. He amused his leisure moments by translating from Chinese and from Sanscrit,

1. Mémoire, par Néve, p. 74.
2. Rawlinson, J. R. A. S. x. 41, note.