nded, worked out by the light of a lantern in a gale of wind off a lee
shore, this simple and useful change might at this moment have been in the
hands of its tenth Government Commission.

[_Aug. 14, 1866._ The Committee was appointed in the spring of 1830: it
consisted of forty members. Death, of course, has been busy; there are now
left Lord Shaftesbury,[307] Mr. Babbage,[308] Sir John Herschel,[309] Sir
Thomas Maclear[310] (Astronomer Royal at the Cape of Good Hope), Dr.
Robinson[311] (of Armagh), Sir James South,[312] Lord Wrottesley,[313] and
myself].

{182}

THE TONAL SYSTEM.

Project of a new system of arithmetic, weight, measure, and coins,
proposed to be called the tonal system, with sixteen to the base. By
J. W. Mystrom.[314] Philadelphia, 1862, 8vo.

That is to say, sixteen is to take the place of ten, and to be written 10.
The whole language is to be changed; every man of us is to be
sixteen-stringed Jack and every woman sixteen-stringed Jill. Our old _one_,
_two_, _three_, up to sixteen, are to be (_Noll_ going for nothing, which
will please those who dislike the memory of _Old Noll_) replaced by An, De,
Ti, Go, Su, By, Ra, Me, Ni, Ko, Hu, Vy, La, Po, Fy, Ton; and then Ton-an,
Ton-de, etc. for 17, 18, etc. The number which in the system has the symbol

28(13)5(11)7(14)0(15)

(using our present compounds instead of new types) is to be pronounced

Detam-memill-lasan-suton-hubong-ramill-posanfy.

The year is to have sixteen months, and here they are:

Anuary, Debrian, Timander, Gostus,
Suvenary, Bylian, Ratamber, Mesudius,
Nictoary, Kolumbian, Husamber, Vyctorius,
Lamboary, Polian, Fylander, Tonborius.

Surely An-month, De-month, etc. would do as well. Probably the wants of
poetry were considered. But what are we to do with our old poets? For
example--

"It was a night of lovely June,
High rose in cloudless blue the moon."

Let us translate--

"It was a night of lovely Nictoary,
High rose in cloudless blue the (what, in the name of all that is
absurd?)."

And again, _Fylander_ thrown into our December! What is {183} to become of
those lines of Praed, which I remember coming out when I was at
Cambridge,--

"Oh! now's the time of all the year for flowers and fun, the Maydays;
To trim your whiskers, curl your hair, and sinivate the ladies."

If I were asked which I preferred, this system or that of Baron
Ferrari[315] already mentioned, proceed