In the first volume of this work there is a note on the two preceding passages, in which the editor observes:--“The plan of these machines was borrowed from the ancients. Various contrivances of this kind were also employed in the middle ages, before and for a considerable time after the invention of fire-arms. Sometimes they used them for undermining the walls. At the siege of Ribadavia in Spain, during the reign of Richard II. similar moveable machines were used. See Froissart, viii. c. 26. Such an engine is also mentioned by the Marquis of Worcester in his Century of Inventions.” 31. A way how safely and speedily to make an approach to a Castle or Town-wall, and over the very Ditch at Noon-day. [_An approaching Blinde._] Vegetius, in “De re militari,” 1535, depicts and describes several kinds of these ancient military blinds, screens, and other contrivances and machines for protecting the attacking party. At page 15 he shows a ponderous advancing screen or shield on four wheels, and at two pages further a side view of the same, covering a large body of soldiers. Some have raised, hinged platforms, to be lowered for crossing a ditch. Grose says:--“The cattus, cat-house, gattus or cat, was a covered shed, occasionally fixed on wheels, and used for covering soldiers employed in filling up the ditch, &c.”--Military Antiquities, 4to. 1801. 32. How to compose an universal Character methodical and easie to be written, yet intelligible in any Language; so that if an English-man write it in English, a French-man,[5] Italian, Spaniard, Irish,[6] Welsh,[7] being Scholars; yea, Grecian or Hebritian shall as perfectly understand it in their owne Tongue, as if they were perfect[8] English, distinguishing the Verbs from the Nouns, the Numbers, Tenses and Cases as properly expressed in their own Language as it was written in English. Footnotes [5] man--omitted. [6] Irish and. [7] or Welchman. P. [8] perfect--omitted. P. [_An universall Character._] In 1668, the Royal Society ordered the printing of “An Essay towards a real Character, and a philosophical language; by John Wilkins, D. D. Dean of Ripon, and F. R. S.,” folio. It is dedicated to the president, William Lord Viscount Brouncker, and consists of a treatise of 454 pages, to which is appended a dictionary of 155 pages. The very extent of such a work is almost fatal to its acceptance, and we must admit that it is questionable whether, with all its learning and ingenuity, it affords a single hint calculated to promote the intended object. In relation to this subject, the reader, desirous of enlarged information, could not do better than consult the recently published “Lectures on the Science of Language,” by Professor Max Müller, M. A.