WITH NOTES. 519 



its mouth, whilst one speaks through it at a good 

 distance.&quot; He also entertained his visitors with 

 &quot;many other artificial, mathematical, and magical 

 curiosities. 7 



Bishop Wilkins, in his &quot;Mathematical! Magick,&quot; 

 1648, observes : &quot; There have been some inventions 

 also which have been able for the utterance of articu 

 late sounds, as the speaking of certain words. Such 

 are some of the Egyptian idols related to be. Such 

 was the brazen head made by Friar Bacon, and that 

 statue, in the framing of which Albertus Magnus 

 bestowed thirty years, broken by Aquinas, who came 

 to see it, purposely that he might boast, how in one 

 minute he had ruined the labour of so many years.&quot; 

 Proceeding further to consider such inventions, he says, 

 &quot; Walchius thinks it possible entirely to preserve the 

 voice, or any words spoken, in a hollow trunk, or pipe.&quot; 

 P. 176, 177. 



Dr. W. Hooper, in the second volume of his &quot; Ea- 

 tional Eecreations,&quot; has an article on &quot; The Conversive 

 Statue,&quot; requiring the employment of two concave 

 mirrors, a statue, and an interlocutor. In regard to 

 this arrangement, it is remarked : &quot; This recreation 

 appears to be taken from the Century of Inventions of 

 the Marquis of Worcester ; one of those men of sublime 

 genius, who are able to perform actions infinitely 

 superior to the capacity, or even the comprehension, of 

 the mere scholar or man of business ; and though his 

 designs, at the time they were published, were treated 

 with ridicule and neglect, by the great and little vulgar, 

 who, judging by their own abilities, are ever ready to 

 condemn what they cannot comprehend, yet they are 

 now known to be generally, if not universally, prac 

 ticable.&quot; Edit. 1794, pp. 220223. 



The &quot;Athenaeum&quot; of the 6th December, 1862, 



