XVI 



expressed by Horace. The picture of transmutation given in these verses, 

 however severe and contemptuous the strictures lavishly bestowed on it 

 by Christian commentators, accords singularly with the train of thought 

 which the modern doctrine of progressive development has encouraged." 

 Those Comparative Grammarians, then, who accept this theory may still 

 find something to do ; and they may try to explain the slow steps from 

 imitation of natural sounds to the state in which language has existed and 

 exists now among nations named civilized, and also among other nations 

 where it is still near to its supposed original and rude condition. Mr. 

 Key has done something towards this end ; but future students of lan- 

 guage may and ought to do more. 



Mr. Key left an unfinished Latin Dictionary, the work of many years, 

 for the Latin Language was the chief subject on which he was employed 

 as a student and teacher. In the Preface to his work on Language (March 

 1874) he describes the Dictionary as filling more than 2400 pages of 

 quarto MS., and including nearly all those words in which he thought 

 himself able to make some improvement. In the interval between 1874 

 and his death he made large additions to the MS., and his friends hope 

 that the work may be published. It will probably contain things which 

 some scholars may not accept ; but it will certainly contain much valuable 

 and original matter, such as may be expected from the long labours of an 

 excellent Latin scholar and a student of language generally. 



Mr. Key was tall, and his personal appearance was very striking and 

 agreeable, especially when he was animated. His countenance expressed 

 great force of character and penetration. A marble bust of him by T. 

 Woolner, B>.A., was presented to University College a few months before 

 his death by some of his old pupils and friends. 



The character of Mr. Key may be partially known by those who read 

 what he has written. It was as elevated as his intellectual powers. He 

 was singularly modest and unaffected, but bold and free in his opinions. 

 He was a very good-tempered man, and an agreeable companion, an af- 

 fectionate husband and father, a teacher beloved by his pupils, a faith- 

 ful and generous friend, and a man of unspotted integrity. JNo person 

 knew him so well and so long as the writer of this notice, who for more 

 than half a century enjoyed his friendship without one moment of inter- 

 ruption. 



Chaeles Wheatstone was born in February 1802, in the vicinity 

 of Gloucester, and was educated at a private school in his native 

 city, at which he evinced his predilection for Mathematics and Physics. 

 In 1823, at the age of 21, we find him, in conjunction with his 

 brother, long since deceased, engaged in the manufacture and sale of 

 musical instruments in London. But his genius was not long in finding 

 opportunities of development ; for in the same year he made his first con- 

 tribution to science in a paper published in Thomson's ' Annals of Philo- 



