William Bond - The History of the Life and Adventures of Mr. Duncan Campell

And in like manner, for, off, on, upon, to, unto, till, until, from, at, in, within, out, without, into, out of; about, over, under; above, below; between, among; before, behind, after; for, by, with, through, against, concerning; and by this time he will be pretty well enabled to understand a single sentence.

In the last place, he is in like manner to be taught conjunctions, which serve to connect not words only, but sentences; as and, also; likewise, either or whether; neither, nor, if, then, why, wherefore, because, therefore, but, though, yet, &c.; and these illustrated by convenient examples in each case, as, Because I am cold, therefore I go to the fire, that I may be warm, for it is cold weather.

If it were fair, then it would be good walking, but however, though it rain, yet I must go, because I promised; with other like instances.

And by this time his book, if well furnished with plenty of words, and those well digested under several heads, and in good order, and well recruited from time to time as new words occur, will serve him in the nature of a dictionary and grammar.

And in case the deaf person be otherwise of a good natural capacity, and the teacher of a good sagacity, by this method, proceeding gradually step by step, you may, with diligence and due application of teacher and learner, in a year's time, or thereabouts, perceive a greater progress than you would expect, and a good foundation laid for farther instruction in matters of religion and other knowledge which may be taught by books.

It will be convenient all along to have pen, ink, and paper, ready at hand, to write down in a word what you signify to him by signs, and cause him to write, or show how to write what he signifies by signs, which way of signifying their mind by signs deaf persons are often very good at; and we must endeavour to learn their language, if I may so call it, in order to teach them ours, by showing what words answer to their signs.

It will be convenient, also, as you go along, after some convenient progress made, to express, in as plain language as may be, the import of some of the tables; as for instance: —

The head is the highest part of the body, the feet the lowest part; the face is the fore part of the head, the forehead is over the eyes, the cheeks are under the eyes, the nose is between the cheeks, the mouth is under the nose and above the chin, &c.

And such plain discourse put into writing, and particularly explained, will teach him by degrees to understand plain sentences; and like advantages a sagacious teacher may take, as occasion offers itself from time to time.

This extract is mostly taken out of the ingenious Dr. Wallis, and lying hid in that little book, which is but rarely inquired after and too scarcely known, died in a manner with that great man. And as he designed it for the general use of mankind that laboured under the misfortune of losing those two valuable talents of hearing and speaking, I thought it might not be amiss (in the life of so particular a dumb person as I am writing) to give them this small but particular fragment of grammar and syntax.

It is exactly adjusted to the English tongue; because such are the persons with whom the Doctor had to deal, and such the persons whose benefit alone I consult in this treatise.

One of the chief persons who was taught by Dr. Wallis was Mr. Alexander Popham, brother-in-law (if I am not mistaken) to the present Earl of Oxford; and he was a very great proficient in this way; and though he was born deaf and dumb, understood the language so well as to give under his hand, many rare indications of a masterly genius.

The uncle of his present Sardinian Majesty, as I have been credibly informed, had the want of the same organs, and yet was a perfect statesman, and wrote in five or six different languages elegantly well.

Bishop Burnet, in his book of travels, tells us a wonderful story, almost incredible; but tells it as a passage that deserves our belief. It is concerning a young lady at Genoa, who was not only deaf and dumb, but blind, too, it seems, into the bargain; and this lady, he assures us as a truth, could, by putting her hand on her sister's mouth, know everything she said.

But to return back to England. We have many rare instances of our own countrymen, the principal of whom I shall mention, as their names occur to my memory. Sir John Gawdy, Sir Thomas Knotcliff, Sir – Gostwick, Sir Henry Lydall, and Mr. Richard Lyns of Oxford, were all of this number, and yet men eminent in their several capacities, for understanding many authors, and expressing themselves in writing with wonderful facility.

In Hatton garden, there now lives a miracle of wit and good nature, I mean the daughter of Mr. Loggin, who, though born deaf and dumb, (and she has a brother who has the same impediments), yet writes her mind down upon any subject with such acuteness as would amaze learned men themselves and put many students that have passed for wits, to the blush, to see themselves so far surpassed by a woman amidst that deficiency of the common organs. If anybody speaks a word distinctly, this lady will, by observing narrowly the motion of the speaker's lips pronounce the word afterwards very intelligibly.

As there are a great many families in England and Ireland that have several, and some even have five or six dumb persons belonging to them; and as a great many more believe it impossible for persons born deaf and dumb to write and read, and have thence taken occasion to say and assert that Mr. Campbell could certainly speak, I could never think it a digression in the history of this man's life to set down the grammar by which he himself was taught, and which he has taught others (two of which scholars of his are boys in this town), partly to confute the slander made against him, and partly for the help of others dumb and deaf, whose parents may by these examples be encouraged to get them taught.

Our young boy, now between six and seven years of age, half a Highlander and half a Laplander, delighted in wearing a little bonnet and plaid, thinking it looked very manly in his countrymen, and his father, as soon as he was out of his hanging sleeves, and left off his boy's vest, indulged him with that kind of dress, which is truly antique and heroic. In this early part of his nonage he was brought to Edinburgh by his mother-in-law, where I myself grew afresh acquainted with her, his father being then but lately dead, just after the civil commotion, and off and on, I have known him ever since, and conversed with him very frequently during that space of time, which is now about three or four and thirty years, so that whatever I say concerning him in the future pages I shall relate to the reader from my own certain knowledge, which, as I resolved to continue anonymous, may, perhaps, not have so much weight and authority as if I had prefixed my name to the account. Be that as it will, there are hundreds of living witnesses that will justify each action I relate, and his own future actions while he lives will procure belief and credit to the precedent ones, which I am going to record; so that if many do remain infidels to my relations, and will not allow them exact (the fate of many as credible and more important historians than myself), I can however venture to flatter myself that greater will be the number of those who will have a faith in my writings than of those who will reject my accounts as incredible.

Having just spoke of the decease of Mr. Archibald Campbell, the father of our young Duncan Campbell, it will not be amiss here to observe how true the predictions of his Lapland mother were, which arose from second-sight, according to the notices given by the child's father, to his grandfather, in his letter from Lapland, even before it was born, which shows that the infant held this second-sighted power, or occult faculty of divination, even by inheritance.