First among his Inventions is one which, revived in modern times, meets the eye of every one daily on the face of every letter. As he designed it, it was, however, very elaborate, embracing 'several sorts of seals, some showing by screws, others by gauges, fastening or unfastening all the marks at once: others by additional points and imaginary places, proportionable to ordinary escutcheons and seals at arms, each way palpably and punctually setting down (yet private from all others but the owner, and by his assent) the day of the month, the day of the week, the month of the year, the year of our Lord, the names of the witnesses, and the individual place where anything was sealed, though in ten thousand several places, together with the very number of lines contained in a contract, whereby falsification may be discovered and manifestly proved.' Upon these seals, too, one could keep accounts of receipts and disbursements, from one farthing to millions, and, finally, as a climax to their mystery, by their means any letter, 'though written but in English, may be read and understood in eight several languages, and in English itself, to clear contrary and different sense, unknown to any but the correspondent, and not to be read or understood by him neither, if opened before it arrive unto him.' It is believed that the secret of these seals is simply this: a number of movable metallic circles are made to slide within each other, on one common centre, the whole being enclosed in an outer frame. Within these circles may be placed either movable types, or letters and figures may be engraved on the circles themselves, and these, according to a key, of which the corresponding parties must possess a duplicate. To fully understand the secret of the composition of a sentence 'in eight several languages,' we must have recourse to invention No. 32 of the 'Century,' teaching 'how to compose an universal character, methodical and easily to be written, yet intelligible in _any_ language .... distinguishing the verbs from the nouns, the numbers, tenses, and cases, as properly expressed in their own language as it was written in English.' Such a system was composed by the Bishop Wilkins already referred to; Bacon had busied himself with a 'pasigraphy' long before; Leibnitz, Dalgaru, Frischius, Athanasius Kircher, Pére Besnier, and some twenty others have done the same. The most practical solution of the problem seems to have been that of John Joachim Becher, who in 1661 published a Latin folio, which, apart from its main subject, is valuable from its observations on grammar, and on the affinities existing between seven of the ancient and modern tongues. With this he gives a Latin dictionary, in which every word corresponds with one or more Arabic numerals. 'Every word is assumed as distinctive, or denoting the same word in all languages; and consequently nothing more is required than to compose a dictionary for