attained
in a very few years a distinguished rank amongst the learned societies
of Europe. The name of the illustrious traveller was inscribed in it
at its formation, and he acquired new rights to the academical
honors conferred on him during his absence, by the publication of his
observations On the Climate and Soil of the United States.

These rights were further augmented by the historical and physiological
labors of the Academician. An examination and justification of The
Chronology of Herodotus, with numerous and profound researches on The
History of the most Ancient Nations, occupied for a long time him who
had observed their monuments and traces in the countries they inhabited.
The trial he had made of the utility of the Oriental languages inspired
him with an ardent desire to propagate the knowledge of them; and to be
propagated, he felt how necessary it was to render it less difficult.
In this view he conceived the project of applying to the study of the
idioms of Asia, a part of the grammatical notions we possess concerning
the languages of Europe. It only appertains to those conversant with
their relations of dissimilitude or conformity to appreciate the
possibility of realizing this system. The author has, however, already
received the most flattering encouragement and the most unequivocal
appreciation, by the inscription of his name amongst the members of
the learned and illustrious society founded by English commerce in the
Indian peninsula.

M. Volney developed his system in three works,* which prove that this
idea of uniting nations separated by immense distances and such various
idioms, had never ceased to occupy him for twenty-five years. Lest those
essays, of the utility of which he was persuaded, should be interrupted
by his death, with the clay-cold hand that corrected his last work, he
drew up a will which institutes a premium for the prosecution of his
labors. Thus he prolonged, beyond the term of a life entirely devoted to
letters, the glorious services he had rendered to them.

* On the Simplification of Oriental Languages, 1795. The
European Alphabet Applied to the Languages of Asia, 1819.
Hebrew Simplified, 1820.

This is not the place, nor does it belong to me to appreciate the merit
of the writings which render Volney's name illustrious. His name had
been inscribed in the list of the Senate, and afterwards of the House
of Peers. The philosopher who had travelled in the fou