g different. My Chinese work is tolerably far advanced. I
have arranged the 214 keys alphabetically, and have examined about 100 of
them historically--that is, I have separated the oldest (entirely
hieroglyphic and ideographic) signs, and as far as possible fixed the
relationship of identical or similarly sounding roots. Then I laid aside
the work, and first began a complete list of all those pronominal,
adverbial, and particle stems, arranged first alphabetically and then
according to matter, in which I found the recognizable corpses of the
oldest Chinese words. The result repays me even far more than I expected.
I hope to have finished both works before Christmas; and at last, too, the
alphabetical examination of the 450 words (of which about 150 are hidden
in the 214 keys; the 64 others are similarly sounding roots). Naturally
all this is only in reference to ancient Chinese, which is at least as
different (grammatically) from modern Chinese as Egyptian is from Coptic.

At the same time, I am reading the translation of the three "Kings," and
transliterate some passages. And now I must ask you to examine the
inclosed system of transliteration. I have devised it according to my best
powers after yours and Lepsius' system. Secondly, I want you to tell me
whether I ought to buy the Leipzig translation of Eichhoff's "Parallele
des Langues Sanscrites." My own copy of the French edition has
disappeared. Pauli works at an Index of the Egyptian hieroglyphics and
words, which I can send you by and by.

"The days and times are hard," says an old song.

[10.]

TOTTERIDGE PARK, _Tuesday Morning, October 16, 1850._

MY DEAR FRIEND,--So it seems that I am really not to see you this time. I
am truly sorry, and count all the more on your calling on your return, if
I am still in England. I should like to have thanked you at once for your
affectionate letter for my birthday. But you know, if you altogether trust
me, that a lifelong love for you lies deep in my heart.

I had expected more from the great programme of New Oxford. It is not,
however, much more unsatisfactory than the article on Plato, the writer of
which now avows himself. It is only possible to excuse the milk-and-watery
treatment of the subject through the general mental cowardice and
ignorance in intellectual matters which is so predominant in this country.
I find a comfort in the hope that this article is the prologue to able
exegetical works, combined with