private work, and in felect hands, few of your readers may have an opportunity of ever seeing it.

It is divided into three parts; the first and fecond confift of a thousand words alphabetically arranged, and the third of as many fentences, alfo arranged alphabetically from a leading word. The original work was printed with one part only; the fecond and third are now added.

The first number of the first part begins with 26; the preceding 25 comprize the letters of the alphabet, from A to Z, and numbers from 1 to 25. Flags are made to reprefent these.

The words in the first part are thofe moftly made ule of in converfation and writing. The fecond begins with 1026, and confifts of words next useful to thofe in the firit, or which have been forgot.The third part begins with 2026, and is made up of fhort fentences, applicable to military or general converfation. Thefe are intended to fave the ufe of many fignals; as by one flag a whole meffage may be conveyed.

I have already mentioned, that flags reprefent the alphabet and figures: there are alfo the following nade ufe of a cypher-flag, a fubftitute-flag, a preparative-flag, and flags to diftinguifh a mef. fage, finished, understood, not understood, or meffage to be answered, and a numerical-p -pennant. A flag hoisted alone, or under another, reprefents units; when two flags are hoifted, the upper reprefents tens; when three are hoifted, the uppermoft is to reprefent hundreds, the next tens, and the loweft units. The thoufands are denoted by balls, or pennants, as may appear most likely to be feen, inferior and fuperior; fuperior 1000, inferior 2000; as for exemple:

No. 1026-Aback.

No. 2016-Shall I leave off action ? When the fubftitute-flag is hoifted under other flags, it is to reprefent the fame figure as the flag immediately above it. For example: to reprefent the number 35, the fubftitute-flag must be placed under that representing 3. When the cypher is put under other flags, it reprefents the cypher; as under 3, it ftands for 30.

Words not in the vocabulary may be fpelt by the numerical-alphabet from 1 to 25. When it is neceffary to express numbers in a meffage, the numerical-pennant must be hoifted with the fignal. Ships names are to be made with the Unionjack and the number, as in the Lift of the Royal Navy.

When much fail is fet, or in blowing weather, it may be inconvenient to hoift three flags and a pennant at the fame place; the two upper may be at one place, and the two others at another; taking places progreffively, as follows: firft, main; fecond, fore; third, mizen; fourth, gaft; fifth, enfign-staff.

It fometimes happens, that, from blowing weather and a high fea, a boat cannot be hoifted out; by means of this invention, a correfpondence may at all times be kept up with the commander in chief, or the fhores and fecret keys, nun bered, to be opened according to signals, to communicate fecret orders with any particular fhips. For example, if it thould be neceffary to detach a frigate lying at Spithead, under fecret orders, to fail immediately to the West Indies, and from too great a fea, or fevere gale of wind, a boat cannot go from Portimouth, the Port Admiral may, by fignal known only to that frigate, communicate his wishes.

All fignals thrown out must be kept flying till they reach the commander in chief, and that by the fhips of a fquadron in fucceffion when he is not in a pofition to fee them when firft made. In cafes of doubt, a fhip is to repeat the signal inftead of the answering-pennant; or when any particular number in a message is not understood, it is to be expreffed by hoisting the numerical-pennant with the word or fentence, beginning from the first word. For example: if it was the fifth word, when the meffage was finished, the nume rical-pennant (4) must be hoifted by the hip not understanding. The fhip making fignal is then to repeat that word; and if then not comprehended, to change it for one nearest and fynonymous. When the cypher-flag is hoisted fingly, it is to annul the fignal made or making.

As there are a fet of fignals established by the Admiralty for his Majefty's Navy, and ordered to be made ufe of, it may be neceffary to remark, that Sir Home Popham's marine-telegraph does not in any degree interfere with them. Befides thefe there are compaís fignals, the flags of which are not in his numerical-code, but may be made use of occasionally.

Such is the plan for a sea telegraph, of which this is meant as a fketch; and from the very ingenious efforts of this enterprizing officer, whofe fervices during the late war with the army on the continent under his Royal Highness the Duke of York, the expedition to Oftend with General Sir Eyre Coote, his voyage up the

Red

Correfpondent in the Gentleman's

A Magazine for February last, (ligned

D. H.) gives a hint about the MS. Dinte alluded to by Mr. Pennant, which will, I hope, be attended to. Every illuf.. tration of Dante, either graphic or otherwife, fhould be brought to light. I with Mr. Fufeli could be prevailed on to fupply the lofs of the marginal-drawings which Michael Angelo drew in his Dante. (Vid. his Lectures on Painting, p. 129.) There is, perhaps, no artit living better qualified to wield the mighty pencil of that wonderful painter. A Dante Gallery by this great mafter-for fo Mr. Fufeli deferves to be termed could not fail of being highly interefting. Perhaps, too, the horrors of hell, depicted by him after Dante, would render a more important Service to morality than all the thunders of the pulpit. I hope, Sir, fome of your ingenious Correfpondents will take this hint into confideration, and expatiate on it. I hope alfo that it will be attended to by the admirable artist in queftion. If it fhould, I fhall be proud and happy at having fuggefted it.

I am, Sir, your's, &c. W. P. S. Dante has been lately rendered familiar to the English reader by the excellent verfion of the Rev. Mr. Boyd.

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

A Correfpondent in a former Number

of your Magazine, requires to be informed where he may learn the origin of the cuftoms which prevail on the aft of April, and on St. Valentine's day. If he will turn to Mr. Brand's edition of the Popular Antiquities of Mr. Bourne, (Newcastle upon Tyne and London, 1777) he may be fully fatisfied on this point.

In return for the information which I give, I fhall beg to receive fome.

Who was the author of Curfory Re

marks on Tragedy, on Shakespea London, 1774 ?

Is there any English translation thio's. novel of Othello to old as feare's time? If not, where did the story?

Who was Mr. Spence, the tranf Varillas ?

Can any of your Correfpondent my notice to the Philodoxics of Alberti, or favour me with the arg of that piece?

I am, Sir, yours, &c.

To the Editor of the Monthly Maga Sir,

P

Nanfwer to the inquiry of a C May laft, refpecting a Dictionary Reader in the Monthly Magaz Symbolic Character, there is a now engaged in compiling fuch a tionary, and the work is in config forwardness; but whether on the commended by Dr. Anderson, the piler does not know, having never heard of that plan before; and wo glad if the Inquirer would favo with a fketch of that plan throu medium of your Magazine. The A intends to publish his work by ful with the liberality of the public. tion, when completed, and hopes t

I am, Sir, your's, &c.
June 15, 1803..

X

To the Editor of the Monthly Magazine.

SIR,

AVING read with some attention

dialectic which, in our opinion, is at once weak and arbitrary."

1. Ideas are faint images, veftiges or

Magazine for January last the 24th number of the Enquirer, and the remarks on it with which the ingenious and most refpectable Mr. CAPEL LOFFT has enriched the fame Magazine for March, I am induced to throw my mite into this treafury of abftract fpeculation. The observations which I have to offer are not, indeed, connected into any regular feries of arguments or criticifmus, nor do they bear immediately on any fubject of proof; yet they will perhaps be found to have no diftant relation to the most important parts of the question agitated by these able writers, who will, I am persuaded, give them neither more nor less attention than they deferve.

I must begin with one or two propofitions which to many readers will have the appearance of mere affertions; for the na-. ture of my defign and the limits of this paper will not permit me to prove them, or even to adduce the arguments by which I am led to think them probable. I believe inded that as much probability belongs to them as can in general be made out on fubjects of this nature, on which they who feek for conviction either by an appeal to the fenfes external or internal, or by a series of identical propofitions like thofe of a mathematical demontration, feek for what they will never find.

It appears to me that those who contend for the existence of what is called an immaterial principle or fubftance in the frame and conftitution of man distinct from his corporeal organization, employ arguments founded on the want of information and of clear ideas on the fubject: an unavoidable want, which reflects no difgrace: but as thefe arguments are the illue of ignorance, it is not to be wondered at, that the progeny is found to have all the infirmity of the parent.

On the other hand, thofe who deny the existence of an immaterial principle in man labour under the fame ignorance; but they make a better use of it.

"We

fre no reafon, (they fay) to have recourse to a principle of which we neither have nor can have an idea, because it has never been the object of any of our fenfes; and we are unwilling to confine our apprehenfions of the power and operations of the Author of Nature within bounds prescrib. ed by the definitions and fyllogifms of a MONTHLY MAG. No. 104.

either the immediate effects of impreffions made on the external fenfes, and have therefore been called fenfations of impresfion; or they arife from fome change, action, or affection of the internal organs of fenfe, and have, on that account, been termed fenfations of consciousness.* The reader will have no difficulty in properly referring his fenfations to one of thefe two claffes, if he only recollects that every fenfation which (popularly fpeaking) has not a correfponding external impreffion, is, in truth, a fenfation of confcioufness.

2. Of the various and almoft innumerable tribes of these fenfations few, comparatively speaking, leave behind them thofe images, veftiges or relics which are properly called ideas. Vifible figure, whether at reft or in motion, and colour in the firft degree, and articulate and musical founds in the next, make up the far greater part if not the whole number. "Inter eas eæ (idea) eminent et diftinctius confervantur, quæ per vifum, deinde quæ per auditum receptæ fuerunt. Reliquæ confufæ funt, et a voluntate_minus revocabiles.”† Hence words written or fpoken are the fource of fo large a portion of our ideas and our knowledge. If any one be difpofed to controvert this limitation of the term idea, let him appreciate as well as he can the ideas he fuppofes himself to have of taftes, of odours, of the objects of the fenfe of touch, of innume rable pains and pleafures, which, while they exist, affect him in the most fenfible manner, but, when they have ceased, can be recalled by no effort of the imagination fimply exerted, and only by means of their affociation with ideas properly fo termed, that is with ideas of vifible figure, articulate founds, &c. As an inftance

of this we may remark that the actual fenfation of fickness can be produced by the fight, mention, or recollection of a loathio me object much more readily than idea can be formed of that unpleasant feeling at a time when it is not actually prefent.

any

3: That the ftate or condition of the nervous fyftem produced either by exter

nal impreffions, or internal changes, and • conftituting sensation, is motion of fome fort or other, and particularly a vibratory motion in the extremities, courfe, and origin of the nerves, is an opinion which, in common with the ideal fyftem, has had fome. times to encounter the pleafantry, and fometimes to sustain the infolence of ridicule. This opinion is nevertheless rendered to a certain degree probable by feveral facts relative to fenfation, of which an account may be feen in the writings of the most eminent phyfiologifts. In particular, the late illuftrious and unrivalled Haller thus expresses himself, "Quid ergo ad mentem venit, et quomodo? Quando de fenfationibus nobis notis ea detrahimus, quæ habent pecu'iaria, ut ea fola fuperfint, quæ habent communia, motus erit in mollem nervum impreffus. Et motum ad cerebrum venire credas, cum a fragore metallorum pulvere pyrio oneratorum commotiones in cerebro adeo manifeftæ et violentæ fuccedant: earum fimiles, quæ ab itu aliquo capiti ipfi inflicto fequuntur. Iterum idem confirmatur exemplo fimillimæ fcintillæ, et a filicis et chalybis vero confli&tu, et alterius imaginariæ fcintille, tum a frictione oculi natæ, tum abfque oculi vitio, in epilepfia et convulfivis malis. Motus ubique folus eft, qui et in cerebro mentem, et in objecti externi fenfatione nervum fentientem adficit*." But when the Enquirer afferts that "a fenfation is a motion at the external extremity, and an idea a motion at the internal extremity of the organ o ffenfe," if he means that in the cafe of fenfation the motion is confined to the external extremity, he afferts what will hardly be found confiftent with the ftate of the fact, A divifion of the nerve or a ligature on it will prevent the fenfation (whatever be the impreffion) from being felt; that is, there will, in these circumstances, be no fenfation at all; while a very vivid fenfation is often felt long after the external extremity of the organ has been removed: a man who has loft his leg has often, from fome con. dition of the nerve in the ftump, been heard to complain of acute pain in the toe of the amputated limb.

4. The Enquirer lays, "Ideas may be compared to a landscape, and the mind to the fun." This comparison, I believe, will hardly prove acceptable either to the Liritualift or to the material st. The former, if he compare ideas to the landfcape, will compare the mind to the eye, which may be fit or tured afide, and

* Elem. Phyfiolog. vol. v. p. 530.

confequently have the objects loft the latter, if driven to explain his by fome fenfible image, will be litt pofed to admit of any powerful e agent, but will perhaps imbue wi Enquirer calls "the latent but pr able forms," with fomething like a phoric quality occafionally exerting and rendering visible to the ment what was before unperceived and ceivable: for the materialift willing cedes to that propofition of the which afferts that the existence idea confifts in its being perceived, he is reluctantly forced to prefe charge of great inconfiftency again ler, who thus expreffes himself on t fcure fubject. "Diverfæ ergo res

1. Objecta externa, cum fuis veris butis: 2. eorum in fenfuum organ preffiones: 3. harum impreffionum i brum tranflatarum effectus corp 4. hujus effectus in mente repræf

.....

... Incipimus hic animam a diftinguere ; quod enim in cerebro motus eft fibræ medullaris: quod i ma, id eft idea ab eo motu diver Eam anima et habet fibi obverf et omnino appercipit, nempe conf fibi repræfentari; motus interim al aut in cerebro fa&tæ mutationis, nervo, penitus ignara... Non omn videntur appercipi, fed ex folæ, qua fortiores funt, aut minus per confi nem nobiscum familiares."** Now be effential to an idea that "eam et habet fibi obverfantem, et omni percipit," how can it be faid that omnes ideæ videntur appercipi, fed læ, &c.? and how can this incon be avoided but by ending with the preffionum in cerebrum tranflatar fectus corporeus?" that is, the "m cerebro fibræ medullaris."

'

5. Where the Enquirer fays, may exift in a latent ftate during 1 abfence of mind," he affixes to th idea a different meaning from what prehend it will bear. It feems pr that the condition of the fenfory in tion, the "motus in cerebro fibræ laris," may admit of feveral grad The loweft degree may correfpond effects of fuch external impreffions unheeded and unfeit, or to "the but produceable forms" of the En the next degree may conftiture v properly called an idea, that is a image of colour or vifible figure fainter echo of some distinguishab

* Elem. Phyfiolog. vol. v. p. 53

appreciable found a higher ftill may be the state of actual fenfation: the higheft degree of all may be violent pain or phrenzy; but that an idea prefent fhould be alio latent, feems to involve no fmall degree of contradiction. It admits of little doubt that in reverie, dreaming, and delirium ideas are dilated and brightened (if I may fo exprefs myself) into a vivid diftinctnefs ufually not inferior and fometimes much fuperior to that of fenfations of impreffion. In thefe cafes they become truly fenfations of consciousness not to be diftinguished from thofe of impreffion. When therefore the Enquirer fays that "the perceptions which in dreams we miftake for fenfations are ideas," he feems to be incorrect in more refpects than one : in the first place, the images prefented in dreams, &c. are far more lively and dif tinct than those faint copies or relics of fenfation of impreffion which we call ideas; and fecondly, in the phrafeology of the Enquirer, perception is made a general term comprehending under it the lefs general terms, fenfation and idea. But what logician or what philologift will agree to fuch a claffification of terms? Senfation is properly the more general term, including under it the terms idea and perception. Ideas as they fpontaneously arife in the mind as well as thofe mental feelings which we term volition, passion, defire, &c. are comprehended under one divifion of fenfations, viz. fenfations of consciousness, as is alfo perception, which chiefly refers to fome judgment of the mind by which fenfations of impreffion are made the foundation, and ideas the materials of knowledge. Following, with a little de viation, the steps of a defervedly admired writer (D. STEWART, Outlines of Moral Philofopby, p. 21.) I would fay, that fen fation implies a change in the state of the mind produced by fome impreffion on the external organs of fenfe, or by fome affection of the internal organs; while per ception implies, in addition to that change, the judgment we form of the objects of tenfe or the fubjects of memory. Certain morbid affections, as tinnitus aurium, fuffufio, vertigo, and others of the tribe of diftales cailed by nofologifts Hallucinationes, are properly fenfations of confcioufnefs; but the mind is not deceived; it forms no erroneous perception or mistaken purpofe in confequence of thefe fenfations. When the perception or judgment is vitiated, and correfponding volitions and actions follow, the diforder, according to its different concomitants and degrees, amounts to delirium or infanity,

6. The Enquirer feems alfo to be miftaken in another affertion. He fays that "Whereas fenfations can imprint ideas, ideas cannot imprint fenfations." I wish to decline using the word "imprint,”which being a metaphorical term, may lead to a mistake; but I would fay that ideas can unquestionably occafion fenfations. I have already obferved that the recollection, i. e. the idea of a loathfome object will in a perfon of an irritable ftomach excite the very unpleafant fenfation of ficknefs. The apprehenfion i. e. the idea of a difeafe affecting a particular part will, in fome conftitutions, produce a very lively fenfation of itching or pain in that part, which at the fame time fhall be perfectly free from any other morbid affection: many other fimilar facts might be adduced.

7. The Enquirer justly obferves that "colour, fmell, and tafte are general terms." Why he was not contented to reft in this obfervation, I cannot imagine. He goes on to remark, that "there are blue, yellow, red, individual fenfations, whofe common phænomenon is called colour; but this impreffion, though it can be imaged in idea, is not itfelf capable of being received apart by fenfe. It is obtained by abstraction. Now I would afk, what is the meaning of a common phenomenon, or of the impreffion of a common phænomenon imaged in idea? If, as the Enquirer truly fays, "Senfation is converfant only with individuals," the fame muit be true of ideas. The generalization, the common acceptation belongs only to the term, colour. In fact, I fhould think I talked as intelligibly when using the expreffions, a general landscape, a general portrait, an abstract map or chart, as when ufing the terms "abstract or general ideas," the existence of which I humbly conceive to be demonftratively impoffible. Towards the conclufion of his effay the Enquirer fays that "whitenefs is an abstract idea :" but he had before faid that "there are blue, yellow, red," (and confequently white) individual fenfations:" the idea of whitenefs then can hardly be called an abstract idea, even in the language of the Enquirer, unlefs he be able to raife in his mind fuch an idea unaccompanied with that of any fubftratum of that colour, as of chalk, fnow, milk, paper, or the like; and if he be thus able, I mult admire in him a difcriminative power of imagination, which I do not myself poffefs, and can never hope to attain.

8. Concurring as I do with much abler philofophers in the perfuafion that it is given to man to view only the furfaces

C 2