WAL 
and all peisoiis born in Wales shall enjoy 
all liberties and privileges as the subjects in 
England do. And the lands in Wales shall 
be inheritable after the English tenure, and 
not after any Welsh laws or customs ; and 
the proceedings in all the law courts shall 
be in the English' tongue. A session is also 
to be held twice a year in every county, by 
judges appointed by the King, to be called 
the Great Sessions of the several counties in 
Wales, in which all pleas of real and per- 
sonal actions shall be held, with the same 
form of process, and in as ample manner, 
as in the Court of Common Pleas at West- 
minster ; and writs of error shall lie from 
judgments therein to the Court of King’s 
Bench at Westminster. But the ordinary 
original writs, or process, of the King’s 
courts at Westminster, do not run into the 
principality of Wales, though process of 
execution does, as also all prerogative writs; 
as, writs of certiorari, quo minus; manda- 
mus, and the like. Murders and felonies in 
any part of Wales may be tried in the next 
adjoining English county; the judges of as- 
size havinga concurrentjurisdiction through- 
out all Wales, with the justices of the grand 
sessions. All local matters arising in Wales, 
triable in the King’s Bench, ai e, by the 
common law', to be tried by a jury, re- 
turned from the next adjoining county in 
England. No sheriff or officer in Wales 
shall, upon any process out of the courts at 
Westminster, hold any person to special 
bail, unless the cause of action be twenty 
pounds, or upwards. 11 and 12 William, 
c. 9. 
AVALL, in architecture, the piincipal 
part of a building, as serving both to inclose 
it, and support the roof, floors, &c. See 
Building. 
WALLENIA, in botany, so named in 
honour of Matthew Wallen, a genus of the 
Tetrandria Monogynia class, and order. 
Essential character : calyx four-cleft, infe- 
rior ; corolla tubular, four-cleft ; berry one- 
seeded. There is but one species, viz. W. 
laurifolia, a tall tree growing naturally in 
Jamaica and Hispaniola. 
WALLIS (Dr. John), in biography, an 
eminent English mathematician, was the 
son of a clergyman, and born at Ashford, 
in Kent, November 23, 1616. After being 
instructed, at different schools, in gi-ammar 
learning, in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew, 
with the rudiments of logic, music, and the 
French language, he was placed in Ema- 
nuel College, Cambridge. About 1640, he 
entered into orders, and was chosen Fellow 
VOL. VI. 
WAL 
of Queen’s College. He kept his fellow- 
ship till it was vacated by his marriage, but 
quitted his college to be chaplain to Sir 
Richard Darley : after a year spent in tliis 
situation, he spent two more as chaplain to 
Lady Vere. While he lived in this family 
he cultivated the art of deciphering, whicii 
proved very useful to him on several occa- 
sions : he met with rewards and prefer- 
ment from the government at home for de- 
ciphering letters for them ; and it is said, 
• that the Elector of Brandenburg sent him 
a gold chain and medal, for explaining for 
him some letters written in ciphers. 
Academical studies being , much inter- 
rupted by the civil wars in both the Univer- 
sities, many learned men from them re- 
sorted to London, and formed assemblies 
there. Wallis belonged to one of these, 
the members of which met once a week, to 
discourse on philosophical matters ; hnd this 
society was tlie rise and beginning of that 
which was afterwards incorporated by the 
name of llie Royal Society, of which Wallis 
was one of the most early members. 
The Sivilian professor of geometry at 
Oxford being ejected by the parliamehtary 
visitors, in 1649, AVallis was appointed to 
succeed him, and he opened his lectures 
there the same year. In 1653, he published, 
in Latin, a Grammar of the English Tongue, 
for the use of foreigners; to which was 
added, a tract “ De Loquela sen Sonorum 
formatione,” &e. in which he considers phi- 
losophically tlie formation of all sounds used 
in articulate speech, and show's how the or- 
gans being put into certain positions, and 
the breath pushed out from the lungs, the 
person will thus be made to speak, whether 
he hear himself or not. Pursuing these re- 
flections, he was led to think it possible, 
thata deaf person might be taiight to speak, 
by being directed so to apply the organs of 
speech, as the sound of each letter re- 
quired, which children learn by imitation 
and frequent attempts, rather than by 
art. 
In 1657, he collected and published his 
mathematical works, in two parts, entitled, 
“ Mathesis Universalis,” in quarto ; and, in 
1 658, “ Commercium Epistolicum de Ques- 
tionibus quibusdam Mathematicis nuper ha- 
bitum, in quarto ; which was a collection 
of letters written by many learned men, as 
Lord Brounker, Sir Kenelni Digby, Fer- 
mat, Schooten, Wallis, and others. 
Upon the Restoration he met with great 
respect ; the King thinking favourably of 
him on account of some services he had done 
M m 
