Note 6 — Chapter VII

The resemblance between the inventions of Sir Thomas as described in the Jewel, and of the Marquis as intimated in the Century, is singularly close. The following passages, selected chiefly for their brevity as specimens, may serve to show how very much the minds that produced them must have been of a piece.

From the Jewel. From the Century.

“In the denominations of the fixed stars, the Universal Language affordeth the most significant way imaginary; for by the single word alone which represents the star you shall know the magnitude, together with the longitude and latitude, both in degrees and minutes, of the star that is expressed by it. “Such as will hearken to my instructions, if some strange word be proposed to them, whereof there are many thousands of millions devisable by the wit of man, which never hitherto by any breathing have been uttered, shall be able, although they know not the ultimate signification thereof, to declare what part of speech it is; or if a noun, to what predicament or class it is to be reduced; whether it be the sign of a real or natural thing, or somewhat concerning mechanic trades in their tools or terms; or if real, whether natural or artificial, complete or incomplete.” “To write by a knotted silk string, so that every knot shall signify any letter, with a comma, full point, or interrogation, and as legible as with pen and ink upon white paper. The like by the smell, by the taste, by the touch, by these three senses, as perfectly, distinctly, and unconfusedly, yea, as readily as by the sight. “How to compose an universal character, methodical, and easy to be written, yet intelligible in any language; so that if an Englishman write it in English, a Frenchman, Italian, Spaniard, Irish, Welch, being scholars, yea, Grecian or Hebritan, shall as perfectly understand it in their own tongue, distinguishing the verbs from the nouns, the numbers, tenses, and cases, as properly expressed in their own language as it was in English.”