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, Pere 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
each, similar to that which he has given for the Latin.' Certain
determinate numbers being given for the declensions and conjugations,
and the cases, moods, tenses, and persons, the whole grammar becomes
extremely easy of acquisition. Let us suppose that a Frenchman wishes to
write to