iB ACCOUNT or A BOY 



to quote from the Latin version, not having the Philosophical 

 Transactions at hand. 



After having thus paid the tribute of my sincere respect to 

 the enlijilitened and benevolent exertions of a celebrated fo- 

 reigner, I feel myself called on to lay hold of the only oppor- 

 tunity that may occur to me, of rescuing from oblivion the 

 name of a Scottish writer, whose merits have been strange- 

 ly overlooked both by his contemporaries and by his suc- 

 cessors. The person I allude to is George Dalgarno, who, 

 more than a hundred and thirty years ago, was led by 

 his own sagacity, to adopt, a priori, the same general conclu- 

 sion concerning the education of the dumb, of which the expe- 

 rimcntid discovery, and the happy application, have, in our 

 times, reflected such merited lustre on the name of Sicard. 

 I mentioned Dalgarno formerly, in a note annexed to the Phi- 

 losophy of the Human JNIind, as the author of a very ingenious 

 tract entitled Ars Signoiniin, from which it appears indisputably 

 that he was the precursor of Bishop Wilkins in his specula- 

 tions concerning a Real Character, and a Philosophical Lan- 

 guage ; and it now appears to me equally clear, upon a farther 

 acquaintance with the short fragments which he has left be- 

 hind him, that, if he did not lead the way to the attempt 

 made by Dr Wallis to teach the dumb to speak, he had 

 conceived views with respect to the means of instructing them, 

 far more profound and comprehensive than any we meet 

 "with in the works of that learned writer, prior to the dale 

 of Dalgarno's publications. On his claims in these two 

 instances I forbear to enlarge at jwesent ; but I cannot deny 

 myself the satisfaction of transcribing a few paragraphs, 

 in justification of what I have already stated, \<rith respect to 

 the remarkable coincidence between some of his theoretical 

 ' deductions, 



