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

P.S. If I cannot bring my wife to change this country for another, I have brought her to that pitch of devotion, that whenever Providence, which, notwithstanding her predictions, I hope will be long yet, shall call her to change this world for another, it will be happy with her there; she joins with me in begging your blessing to me, herself, and our little Duncan, whom we christened so, out of respect to the name you bear.

My dear Father,

I am lost in grief; I had just brought my wife (her that was my wife, for I have none now, I have lost all joy), in the mind of coming over to be a comfort to you. But now grief will let me say no more than that I am coming to beg comfort from you, and by this I prepare you to receive, when he comes, a son in tears and mourning.

P.S. I have a babe, not much above two years old, must bear the hardships of travelling over the ice, and all through Muscovy, for no ships can stir here for many months; and I cannot bear to live in this inhospitable place, where she died, that only could make it easy to me, one moment beyond the first opportunity I have of leaving it. She is in heaven; that should make me easy, but I cannot; I am not so good a Christian as she was – I am lost and ruined.

Mr. Archibald Campbell, having buried his Lapland lady, returned to Scotland, and brought over with him his son, Mr. Duncan Campbell. By that time he had been a year in his own country, he married a second wife; a lady whom I had known very well for some years, and then I first saw the boy; but, as they went into the western islands, I saw them not again in three years. She being, quite contrary to the cruel way much in use among stepmothers, very fond of the boy, was accustomed to say, she did, and would always think him her own son. The child came to be about four years of age, as she has related to me the story since, and not able to speak one word, nor to hear any noise; the father of him used to be mightily oppressed with grief, and complain heavily to his new wife, who was no less perplexed, that a boy so pretty, the son of so particular a woman, which he had made his wife, by strange accidents and adventures, and a child coming into the world with so many amazing circumstances attending his birth, should lose those precious senses by which alone the social commerce of mankind is upheld and maintained, and that he should be deprived of all advantages of education, which could raise him to the character of being the great man that so many concurring incidents at his nativity promised and betokened he would be.

One day, a learned divine, who was of the university of Glasgow, but had visited Oxford, and been acquainted with the chief men of science there, happening to be in conversation with the mother-in-law of this child, she related to him her son's misfortunes, with so many marks of sorrow, that she moved the good old gentleman's compassion, and excited in him a desire to give her what relief and consolation he could in this unhappy case. His particular inclination to do her good offices, made him recollect, that, at the time he was at Oxford, he had been in company with one Doctor Wallis, a man famous for learning, who had told him that he had taught a born deaf and dumb man to write, and to read, and even to utter some sounds articulately with his mouth; and that he told him he was then going to commit to print the method he made use of in so instructing that person, that others, in the like unfortunate condition might receive the same benefits and advantages from other masters, which his deaf and dumb pupil had received from him. A dumb man recovering his speech, or a blind man gaining his sight, or a deaf one getting his hearing, could not be more overjoyed than Mrs. Campbell was at these unexpected tidings, and she wept for gladness when he told it. The good gentleman animated and encouraged her with the kindest promises, and to keep alive her hopes, assured her he would send to one of the chief booksellers in London to inquire after the book, who would certainly procure it him if it was to be got, and that afterwards he would peruse it diligently, make himself master of Doctor Wallis's method, and though he had many great works upon his hands at that time, he would steal from his other studies leisure enough to complete so charitable an office, as teaching the dumb and deaf to read and to write, and give her son, who was by nature deprived of them, the advantages of speech, as far as art would permit that natural defect to be supplied by her powerful interposition.

When the mother came home, the child, who could hear no knocking, and therefore it must be by a strange and inexplicable instinct in nature, was the first that ran to the door, and falling in a great fit of laughter, a thing it was not much used to before, having on the contrary rather a melancholy cast of complexion, it clung round its mother's knees, incessantly embracing and kissing them, as if just at that time it had an insight into what the mother had been doing for it, and into its own approaching relief from its misery.

When the mother came with the child in her hand to the father, to tell him the welcome news, the child burst afresh into a great fit of laughter, which continued for an unusual space of time; and the scene of such reciprocal affection and joy between a wife and her own husband, on so signal an occasion, is a thing easier to be felt by parents of a good disposition, imagining themselves under the same circumstances, with regard to a child they loved with fondness, than to be expressed or described by the pen of any writer. But it is certain, whenever they spoke of this affair, as anybody, who knows the impatience of parents for the welfare of an only child, may guess, they must be often discoursing it over, and wishing the time was come; the boy, who used seldom so much as to smile at other times, and who could never hear the greatest noise that could be made, would constantly look wishfully in their faces and laugh immoderately, which is a plain indication that there was then a wonderful instinct in nature, as I said before, which made him foretaste his good fortune, and, if I may be allowed the expression, the dawnings as it were of the second-sight, were then pregnant within him.

To confirm this, the happy hour of his deliverance being come, and the doctor having procured Mr. Wallis's book, came with great joy, and desired to see his pupil; scarce were the words out of his mouth when the child happened to come into the room, and running towards the doctor, fell on his knees, kissed his hand eagerly, and laughed as before, which to me is a demonstration that he had an insight into the good which the doctor intended him.

It is certain, that several learned men, who have written concerning the second-sight, have demonstrated by incontestable proofs, and undeniable arguments, that children, nay, even horses and cows, see the second-sight, as well as men and women advanced in years. But of this I shall discourse at large in its proper place, having allotted a whole future chapter for that same subject of second-sightedness.

In about half a year, the doctor taught his little dumb pupil first to know his letters, then to name anything whatsoever, to leave off some savage motions which he had taken of his own accord before, to signify his mind by, and to impart his thoughts by his fingers and his pen, in a manner as intelligible, and almost as swift through the eyes, as that is of conveying our ideas to one another, by our voices, through the conduits and portholes of the ears. But in little more than two years he could write and read as well as anybody. Because a great many people cannot conceive this, and others pretend it is not to be done in nature, I will a little discourse upon Doctor Wallis's foundation, and show in a manner obvious to the most ignorant, how this hitherto mysterious help may be easily administered to the deaf and the dumb, which shall be the subject of the ensuing chapter.