ARTIFICIAL OR ARTICULATE LANGUAGE. 291 



Uaubenton, and almost every other naturalist who has attentively watched 

 his habits, deny that he ever employs even a hissing speech. And every 

 comparative anatomist, who has accurately examined his vocal organs, 

 has declared him to be physically incapable of articulation, from the pe- 

 culiarity of a sac or bag, in some species of the animal single, in others 

 double, immediately connected with the upper part of the larynx, and into 

 which the air is driven as it ascends from the lungs through the trachea, 

 instead of being driven into the glottis, where alone it could acquire 

 modulation and articulate sounds. From this sac or bag it afterwards 

 passes into the mouth by a variety of small apertures or fissures, by which 

 almost the whole of its force, and consequently of its vocal effect is lost. 

 This pecuUar conformation appears first to have been noticed by Galen, 

 who traced it through several varieties both of the ape and monkey fami- 

 lies ; but for the most correct account of it we are indebted to professor 

 Camper, who, in a paper published in the Philosophical Transactions for 

 1779, minutely describes it as it exists in the sylvanus or pigmy, in which 

 Tyson had overlooked it ; in various other species of the ape ; m the 

 cynosurus or dog-tailed monkey ; and in many others of the monkey 

 tribe. At all adventures, the monkey has a peculiar deficiency of natural 

 tongue ; and we hence obtain an insuperable objection, had we no others, 

 but which I have already shown, are suflficiently abundant,* to the decla- 

 ration of Lord Monboddo and Linneus that this tribe are all of the sartie 

 original stock as man ; and their absurd story that man himself is not unfre- 

 quently to be met with in some of the Asiatic islands, with a monkey-tail, 

 varying in length from three or four inches to a foot, possessing as great 

 a fluency of speech as in any part of Europe. 



Marcgrave, in his history of Brazil, has amused us, with an account of 

 a very extraordinary species of American sapajou, which Linneus has 

 called Beelzebub, Buffon, Ouarine, and our own countryman, Mr. Pen- 

 nant, Preacher-monkey, that assemble in large groups every morning and 

 evening, and attentively listen to a loud and long-continued harangue of 

 one of the tribe, whom he seems to suppose a pubHc ofl5cer or popular 

 demagogue. Upon the authority of Marcgrave, this species has been ad- 

 mitted into all our books of Natural History ; but there are some doubts 

 concerning it, and the description is at least without the support of con- 

 current testimony. 



The difl^erent accents of the dog and the horse, when under the influ- 

 ence of rage, desire, or exultation, are too powerful and too common not 



1 to have been noticed by almost every one. It is impossible to describe 

 the different tones of the mastiff more precisely than in the words of the 

 truly philosophical poet I have so lately referred to ; but as it would be 

 improper to quote him in the original before a popular audience, I must 



j request of you to receive a feeble translation of him in its stead ; 



When half enraged, 

 The rude Molossian tnastifF, her keen teeth 

 Baring tremendous, with far different tone 

 Threats, than when roused to madness more eisitrejue, 

 Or when she barks, and fills the world with roar. 

 Thus, when her fearless whelps, too, she with tongue 

 Lambent, caresses, and, with antic paw. 

 And tooth restrain'd, pretending still to bite. 

 Gambols, soft yelping tones of tender love- 

 Far different, then, those accents from the din 

 Urg'd clamorous through the mansion when alone) 



* Scr, II. Lect, III, On the Varieties of the Human Racp= 



