olving myself in difficulties, from which the
ablest interpreter would find it no easy matter to get free.

Being, therefore, convinced, upon an attentive and deliberate review of
these observations, and a consultation with my friends, of whose
abilities I have the highest esteem, and whose impartiality, sincerity,
and probity, I have long known, and frequently experienced, that my
conjectures are, in general, very uncertain, often improbable, and,
sometimes, little less than apparently false, I was long in doubt,
whether I ought not entirely to suppress them, and content myself with
publishing in the Gazetteer the inscription, as it stands engraven on
the stone, without translation or commentary, unless that ingenious and
learned society should favour the world with their own remarks.

To this scheme, which I thought extremely well calculated for the
publick good, and, therefore, very eagerly communicated to my
acquaintance and fellow-students, some objections were started, which,
as I had not foreseen, I was unable to answer.

It was observed, first, that the daily dissertations, published by that
fraternity, are written with such profundity of sentiment, and filled
with such uncommon modes of expression, as to be themselves sufficiently
unintelligible to vulgar readers; and that, therefore, the venerable
obscurity of this prediction, would much less excite the curiosity, and
awaken the attention of mankind, than if it were exhibited in any other
paper, and placed in opposition to the clear and easy style of an author
generally understood.

To this argument, formidable as it was, I answered, after a short pause,
that, with all proper deference to the great sagacity and advanced age
of the objector, I could not but conceive, that his position confuted
itself, and that a reader of the Gazetteer, being, by his own
confession, accustomed to encounter difficulties, and search for
meaning, where it was not easily to be found, must be better prepared,
than any other man, for the perusal of these ambiguous expressions; and
that, besides, the explication of this stone, being a task which nothing
could surmount but the most acute penetration, joined with indefatigable
patience, seemed, in reality, reserved for those who have given proofs
of both, in the highest degree, by reading and understanding the
Gazetteer.

This answer satisfied every one but the objector, who, with an obstinacy
not very uncommon, adhered to his own