on the 28th of August 1687, aged sixty or more, was buried in the north body of the church of St. Mary Magdalen.”—Ath. Oxon. vol. ii. pp. 506, 507.

The obscurity in which Dalgarno lived, and the complete oblivion into which his name has fallen, are not a little wonderful, when we consider that he mentions among the number of his friends Dr. Seth Ward, Bishop of Sarum; Dr. John Wilkins, Bishop of Chester; and Dr. John Wallis, Professor of Astronomy at Oxford. It is still more wonderful, that no notice of him is taken in the works either of Wilkins or of Wallis, both of whom must have derived some very important aids from his speculations.

This unfairness on the part of Wilkins has not escaped the animadversion of one of his own biographers. "In the prefatory epistle (he observes) to the Essay towards a Real Character, Dr. Wilkins mentions several persons who assisted him in this work, particularly Willoughby, Ray, and Dr. William Lloyd and others; but it is remarkable that he does not mention Dalgarno, and the more, because Dr. Wilkins's own name is printed in the margin of King Charles II.'s letter prefixed to Dalgarno's book, as one of those who informed his Majesty of Dalgarno's design, and approved it, as a thing that might be of singular use to facilitate an intercourse between people of different languages; which prevailed with his Majesty to grant his said letters of recommendation to so many of his subjects, especially of the Clergy, as were sensible of the defectuousness of art in this particular."-Biog. Britan. Art. Wilkins.1 1 In Grainger's Biographical History of England, mention is made of a still earlier publication than the Ars Signorum, entitled, 'The Universal Character, by which all Nations in the World may understand one another's conceptions, reading out of one common Writing their own Tongue. By Cave Beck, Rector of St. Helen's, in Ipswich, 1657."

This book I have never seen.

The name of Dalgarno (or Dalgarus, as it has been sometimes written) is not altogether unknown on the Continent.

His Ars Signorum is alluded to by Leibnitz on various occasions, and also by Fontenelle in the Eloge of Leibnitz. His ideas with respect to the education of the Dumb, do not seem to have attracted any notice whatever. In fact they were much too refined and enlightened to be duly appreciated at the period when he wrote. [For an account of the earlier attempts at educating the Deaf and Dumb, see Discussions on Philosophy, &c. 2d ed. pp. 178-183.-Ed.]

That Dalgarno's suggestions with respect to the education of the Dumb, were not altogether useless to Dr. Wallis, will I think be readily admitted by those who take the trouble to compare his Letter to Mr. Beverley (published eighteen years after Dalgarno's treatise) with his Tractatus de Loquela, published in 1653. In this Letter some valuable remarks are to be found on the method of leading the dumb to the signification of words; and yet the name of Dalgarno is not once mentioned to his correspondent.

If some of the details and digressions in this note should be censured, as foreign to the principal design of the foregoing Memoir, I can only plead in excuse, my anxiety to do justice, even at the distance of a century, to the memory of an ingenious man, neglected by his contemporaries, and already in danger of being totally forgotten by posterity. To those whose curiosity may lead them to study his book, the originality of his conceptions, and the obvious application of which some of his principles admit to the peculiarities of the case now before us, will of themselves suggest a sufficient apology.

SOME

ADDITIONAL COMMUNICATIONS RELATIVE ΤΟ JAMES MITCHELL, RECEIVED AFTER THE FOREGOING MEMOIR WAS READ IN THE ROYAL SOCIETY.

No. I.-Extract of a Letter from DR. GORDON to MR. Stewart.

Edinburgh, March 30, 1812.

A few days after you returned to the country, I wrote to a friend of mine near Forres, putting several queries respecting Mitchell, which I requested him to get answered by Miss Mitchell if possible. I wished in particular to be satisfied as to the lad's behaviour on his father's death, as what I had myself seen of his conduct at the funeral, had led me to differ from Mr. Glennie's information on this point. From

Miss Mitchell directly, I have obtained the following curious particulars:

At his sister's request, Mitchell was allowed to touch his father's body. As soon as he felt it, he shrunk away. This was the first time he had ever touched a dead human body. He has been seen amusing himself with a dead fowl; placing it repeatedly on its legs, and laughing when it fell.

He has not shown any signs of grief in consequence of his father's death.

When a tailor was brought to make a suit of mournings for him, the boy took him into the apartment where his father had died, stretched his own head and neck backwards, pointed to the bed, and then conducted him to the church-yard, to the grave in which his father had been interred.

Being lately very ill, he was put into the same bed where his father had died. He would not lie a moment in it, but became quite peaceable when removed to another.

On one occasion, shortly after his father's death, discovering that his mother was unwell, and in bed, he was observed to weep.

Three months after the death of his father, a clergyman being in the house, on a Sunday evening, he pointed to his father's Bible, and then made a sign that the family should kneel.

Lately, his mother being from home, his sister allayed the anxiety he showed for her return, by laying his head gently down on a pillow, once for each night his mother was still to be away; implying, that he would sleep so many times before her return.1

It would appear that this is the sign which Miss Mitchell usually employs on similar occasions; and the ready interpretation of it by her brother, implies, on his part, no inconsiderable a share of shrewdness and of reflection. I copy the following parallel incident from a paper of Mr. Wardrop's now before me.-(D. S.)

"When his new clothes were all made, I solicited his father not to allow him to put them on, until I was present. It was signified to him accordingly, that in two days he should have them. This was done by shutting his eyes, and bending down his head twice, in order to intimate to him, that he must first have two sleeps."

Whilst he was last in London, he happened to be in the house of a friend of his father's, who was in the habit of smoking; and a pipe being given him, he smoked it, and seemed much delighted. Some little time ago, a gentleman came on a visit to Ardclach, who was also in the habit of smoking, and having tobacco, wished for a pipe. Miss Mitchell gave the boy a halfpenny, and permitted him to smell the tobacco. He understood her signs; went out to a shoemaker's house in the neighbourhood, where pipes were to be had, and returned with one only in his hand. They suspected that he had another about him, and giving him to understand as much, he at last unbuttoned his waistcoat, and, laughing heartily, brought out the second pipe. The Sunday after this occurrence, when his sister gave him a halfpenny, as usual, in church, to put into the poors'-box, he immediately placed the halfpenny between his teeth, like a pipe, and laughed; but his sister checking him, he dropped it into the box.

He is still fond of the trick of locking people into the house or the stable. The patron of the parish, Mr. Dunbar Brodie, (a gentleman who, I have reason to believe, has exceeded all others in acts of substantial kindness to the Mitchell family,) happening lately to visit Ardclach, young Mitchell contrived to make him a prisoner in this manner for a few minutes, laughing and jumping about all the while. On this particular occasion, it was noticed, that he applied his eye to an aperture in the door of the stable, as if to observe the motions of the person within. But although my friend writes me, that the other day upon holding out his hand to Mitchell, the boy took hold of it; it cannot be conceived, that his sight should have suddenly so much improved, as to enable him to see any object in a dark stable, through a hole in the door, without the improvement being extremely obvious in other instances.

No. II.-A Series of Questions respecting JAMES MITCHELL, proposed by Mr. GLENNIE, and answered by Miss JANE MITCHELL.1

Q. 1. Did Mr. Wardrop operate on the eyes only ?. or on the ears also ?

A. Mr. Wardrop operated only on the right eye.

Q. 2. Were the drums of the ears pierced during the first or the second visit to London ?

A. The drums of the ears were pierced during the first visit; the one by Mr. Astley Cooper, the other by the late Mr. Saunders of the London Dispensary.

Q. 3. Was it the case, that a musical instrument was playing in the room when his ears were pierced? and did he attend to it? A. Some days after his ears were pierced, in a friend's house, he applied his ear to a violin, and the sound seemed to afford him pleasure.2

1 Although some of the information contained in this paper has been already anticipated in the communications of Dr. Gordon and of Mr. Wardrop, I have thought it proper to insert it here at full length; on account not only of the new light which it throws on various very interesting and important points, but of the high authority which it derives from Miss Mitchell's name.-(D. S.)

2 The following particulars are mentioned by Mr. Wardrop with respect to the state of Mitchell's deafness at the time when he saw him in London.(D. S.)

When a ring of keys was given to him, he seized them with great avidity, and tried each separately, by suspending it loosely between two of his fingers, so to allow it to vibrate freely; and after tingling all of them amongst his teeth in this manner, he generally selected one from the others, the sound of which seemed to please him most. This, indeed, was one of his most favourite amusements, and it

was surprising how long it would arrest his attention, and with what eagerness he would on all occasions renew it. Mr. Brougham, having observed this circumstance, brought to him a musical snuff-box, (a French trinket, containing a small musical instrument, which played airs by means of a spring,) and placed it between his teeth. This seemed not only to excite his wonder, but to afford him exquisite delight, and his father and sister, who were present, remarked, that they had never seen him so much interested on any former occasion. Whilst the instrument continued to play, he kept it closely between his teeth, and even when the notes were ended, he continued to hold the box to his mouth, and to examine it minutely with his fingers, expressing by his ges tures and by his countenance great curiosity." [This capacity of hearing by the teeth, or rather through the meatus auditorius internus, has been developed, by Father Robertson of Ratisbon, into a mean of educating the Deaf and Dumb.-Ed.]