Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1864 Excerpt:...of M. Simonides, which extend over nearly twenty years, and the scenes of which are laid variously in Abyssinia, Siberia, Mesopotamia, Persia, Arabia, and the site of those ancient nations who dwelt at the foot of the Himalayah range. Everywhere the same fatality has attended him. He has been abused, vituperated, and denounced in nearly every civilised language; books have been written against him, newspapers have continually been striving to expose him; he has been accused of literary forgery, imposture, and swindling, but in every case the accusation has fallen through, for though accused and condemned he has never been convicted, nor, indeed, has the evidence against him ever risen to anything definite and precise. In each case of accusation the verdict of impartial men has been "not proven," and Simonides has gone his way. No sooner has he been crushed out of one place than he appears in another with almost pantomimic rapidity, and, with an extraordinary pertinacity, instantly renews his charges of ignorance against the learned men of the land, and re-asserts his declaration that he alone possesses the key to all the mysteries and lore of the ancient world. His declaration he supports with considerable skill, and, in the numerous publications that he contrives to issue, he displays a large amount of learning of the most abstruse character. It is with one of these,' upon the subject of Egyptian hieroglyphics, that we have now to do. "Two years since Simonides was introduced, in Liverpool, to a gentleman named Mayer, who has collected one of the finest museums in the country. In fact, the Mayer Museum is one of the curiosities of Liverpool. Mr. Mayer conducted Simonides over his collection, and, aware of his great reputation as a decipherer...