Vol. I - The Coptic Orthodox Church

An English
edition of
Bunsen's
" Aegyptens
Stelle " called
for.
A fount of
hieroglyphic
type cast in
London.
Birch edits
the fifth
volume of
Bunsen's
work.
XXXIV
Introduction.
Universal History," which excited general interest not only
Continent, but in England, and an English
on the
edition was called for.
Negotiations with Messrs. Longman were entered into, presumably
by Bunsen himself, and the outcome of them was that, at a very
heavy cost, they undertook to cast a fount of hieroglyphic type
in order to print Birch's Egyptian Sign-List, Grammar, Dictionary
and Chrestomathy as essential portions of the English edition
of the first and fifth volumes of Bunsen's work. 1 Thus a firm of
publishers undertook to perform, at their own private expense,
a task which abroad would have been heavily subsidised by the
Government. The designs for the bold, handsome type (see a specimen
page of the Dictionary on p. xxxvii) were drawn by Mr. Joseph
Bonomi, the matrices were cut by Mr. L. Martin, and the casting
was carried out by Mr. Branston, all under Birch's direction.
When the printing of Birch's Egyptian Dictionary began I have
been unable to find out, but I remember his saying that it took
nearly three years to pass the sheets through the press, even after
the greater number of the types were cast and ready for use.
The English translation of the fifth volume of "
Egypt's Place
"
in Universal History
appeared in the first half of the year 1867,
and the official date stamp of the copy in the British Museum
reads " n Ju[ly] 67." It was seen through the press by Birch
after the death of Bunsen and Cottrell, the English translator,
and in the Preface Birch says that " a few words are required to
indicate the additional labours which have been bestowed upon
it, and the introduction of certain portions which are not to be
found in the German Edition." The first 122 pages were revised
by Bunsen, who was enabled to use the English translation of the
Turin Codex of the Book of the Dead which Birch had made and
placed in his hands. The Hieroglyphic Grammar, Chrestomathy
and Dictionary, which according to the original plan of the work
1
Writing at Highwood on September 27th, 1847, Bunsen says in the
Postscript to the first English edition of Vol. "
I, This English edition owes many
valuable remarks and additions to my learned friend, Mr. Samuel Birch, par-
ticularly in the grammatical, lexicographic, and mythological part. That I
have been able to make out of the collection of Egyptian roots, printed in the
German edition, a is complete hieroglyphical dictionary, owing to him. To him
also belong the references to the monumental evidence for the signification of an
Egyptian word, wherever the proof exhibited in Champollion's dictionary or
grammar is not clear or satisfactory. Without any
addition to the bulk of the
volume, and without any incumbrance to the text, the work may now be said to
contain the only complete Egyptian grammar and dictionary, as well as the only
existing collection and interpretation of all the hieroglyphical signs ; in short,
all that a general scholar wants to make himself master of the hieroglyphic system
the monuments."
by studying