at the roof and working downward to the foundation; which he justified to me by the like practice of those two prudent insects, the bee and the spider. In another department, I was highly pleased with a projector who had found a device of ploughing the ground with hogs, to save the charges of ploughs, cattle, and labor. The method is this: In an acre of ground you bury, at six inches distance, and eight deep, a quantity of acorns, dates, chestnuts, and other mast or vegetables, whereof these animals are fondest. Then you drive six hundred or more of them into the field, where in a few days they will root up the whole ground in search of their food, and make it fit for sowing. It is true, upon experiment, they found the charge and trouble very great, and they had little or no crop. However, it is not doubted that this invention may be capable of great improvement. I went into another room, where the walls and ceilings were all hung round with cobwebs, except a narrow passage for the artist to go in and out. At my entrance he called aloud to me not to disturb his webs. He lamented the fatal mistake the world had been so long in, of using silkworms, while he had such plenty of domestic insects, who infinitely excelled the former, because they understood how to weave as well as spin. And he proposed, further, that by employing spiders, the charge of dyeing silks would be wholly saved; whereof I was fully convinced when he showed me a vast number of flies most beautifully colored, wherewith he fed his spiders, assuring us that the webs would take a tincture from them, and as he had them of all hues, he hoped to fit everybody's fancy, as soon as he could find proper food for the flies, of certain gums, oils, and other glutinous matter, to give a consistence to the threads. There was an astronomer who had undertaken to place a sundial upon the great weathercock in the town-house by adjusting the annual and diurnal motions of the earth and sun so as to answer and coincide with all accidental turnings of the wind. I visited many other apartments, but shall not trouble my readers with all the curiosities I observed, being studious of brevity. We crossed a walk to the other part of the academy, where, as I have already said, the projectors in speculative learning resided. The first professor I saw was in a very large room, with forty pupils about him. After salutation, observing me to look earnestly upon a frame which took up the greatest part of both the length and breadth of the room, he said perhaps I might wonder to see him employed in a project for improving speculative knowledge by practical mechanical operations; but the world would soon be sensible of its usefulness, and he flattered himself that a more noble, exalted thought never sprang in any other man's head. Every one knows how laborious the usual method is of attaining to arts and sciences; whereas, by his contrivance, the most ignorant person, at a reasonable charge, and with a little bodily labor, may write books in philosophy, poetry, politics, mathematics, and theology, without the least assistance from genius or study. He then led me to the frame about the sides whereof all his pupils stood in ranks. It was twenty feet square, placed in the middle of the room. The superficies was composed of several bits of wood, about the bigness of a die, but some larger than others. They were all linked together by slender wires. These bits of wood were covered, on every square, with papers pasted on them; and on these papers were written all the words of their language, in their several moods, tenses, and declensions, but without any order. observe, for he was going to set his engine at work. The pupils, at his command, took each of them hold of an iron handle, whereof there were forty fixed around the edges of the frame; and giving them a sudden turn, the whole disposition of the words was entirely changed. He then commanded six-and-thirty of the lads to read the several lines softly, as they appeared upon the frame; and where they found three or four words together that might make part of a sentence, they dictated to the four remaining boys, who were scribes. This work was repeated three or four times, and at every turn the engine was so contrived that the words shifted into new places as the square bits of wood moved upside down. The professor then desired me to Six hours a day the young students were employed in this labor; and the professor showed me several volumes in large folio, already collected, of broken sentences, which he intended to piece together, and out of those rich materials to give the world a complete body of all arts and sciences; which, however, might be still improved, and much expedited, if the public would raise a fund for making and employing five hundred such frames in Lagado, and oblige the managers to contribute in common their several collections. He assured me that this invention had employed all his thoughts from his youth; that he had emptied the whole vocabulary into his frame, and made the strictest computation of the general proportion there is in books between the number of participles, nouns, and verbs, and other parts of speech. I made my humblest acknowledgment to this illustrious person for his great communicativeness, and promised, if ever I had the good fortune to return to my native country, that I would do him justice as the sole inventor of this wonderful machine. I told him, although it were the custom of our learned in Europe to steal inventions from each other, who had thereby at least this advantage, that it became a controversy which was the right owner, yet I would take such caution that he should have the honor entire, without a rival. We next went to the school of languages, where three professors sat in consultation upon improving that of their own country. The first project was to shorten discourse by cutting polysyllables into one, and leaving out verbs and participles; because, in reality, all things imaginable are but nouns. The other was a scheme for entirely abolishing all words whatsoever; and this was urged as a great advantage in point of health as well as brevity. An expedient was therefore offered, that since words are only names for things, it would be more convenient for all men to carry about them such things as were necessary to express the particular business they are to discourse on. And this invention would certainly have taken place, to the great ease as well as health of the subject, if the women, in conjunction with the vulgar and illiterate, had not threatened to raise a rebellion, unless they might be allowed the liberty to speak with their tongues, after the manner of their forefathers; such constant irreconcilable enemies to science are the common people. pro jec'tors, those who form schemes or stu'di ous, here, very desirous. designs. her met'ic al ly, so as to admit no air. mal le a bil'i ty, capability of being the ol'o gy, the science which treats of su per fic'i es, surface; outer part. pol y syl'la ble, a word of several syl- MY MIND TO ME A KINGDOM IS EDWARD DYER My mind to me a kingdom is; Such perfect joy therein I find As far exceeds all earthly bliss That God or nature hath assigned; Though much I want that most would have, Yet still my mind forbids to crave. Content I live; this is my stay I seek no more than may suffice. I see how plenty surfeits oft, And hasty climbers soonest fall; I see that such as sit aloft Mishap doth threaten most of all. These get with toil, and keep with fear; Such cares my mind could never bear. No princely pomp nor wealthy store, No wily wit to salve a sore, No shape to win a lover's eye, -- Some have too much, yet still they crave; |