TALBOT322

D^r Birch
B. Mus^m

Lacock Abbey Chippenham
May 23

Dear Sir

I have not been able hitherto to come up to London to study in the British Museum, as I had intended, and I must therefore ask you for some news, if you have a leisure moment for writing.

Is M^r Smith ¹ returned from Assyria and has he met with a tolerable amount of success? I do not know whether you have seen Professor Schrader’s new work, Die Höllenfahrt der Istar, ² which will be very useful in spreading a knowledge of the Assyrian language among the German literati, who have hitherto neglected it in a way not usual in so learned a nation.

I expect that the Egyptian volume of Records of the Past ³ will be very interesting. Mess^rs Bagster ⁴ inform me that they are ready to commence printing the 2^d vol. of Assyrian Records ⁵ and I am going to send them next week my translation of the inscription of Tiglath Pileser I. ⁶

Believe me Truly yours
H. F. Talbot