 every Turn the Engine was so contrived, that the Words shifted
into new Places, as the square Bits of Wood moved upside down.
    Six Hours a-Day the young Students were employed in this Labour; and the
Professor shewed me several Volumes in large Folio already collected, of broken
Sentences, which he intended to piece together; and out of those rich Materials
to give the World a compleat Body of all Arts and Sciences; which however might
be still improved, and much expedited, if the Publick would raise a Fund for
making and employing five Hundred such Frames in Lagado, and oblige the Managers
to contribute in common their several Collections.
    He assured me, that this Invention had employed all his Thoughts from his
Youth; that he had emptyed the whole Vocabulary into his Frame, and made the
strictest Computation of the general Proportion there is in Books between the
Numbers of Particles, Nouns, and Verbs, and other Parts of Speech.
    I made my humblest Acknowledgments to this illustrious Person for his great
Communicativeness; and promised if ever I had the good Fortune to return to my
native Country, that I would do him Justice, as the sole Inventor of this
wonderful Machine; the Form and Contrivance of which I desired Leave to
delineate upon Paper as in the Figure here annexed. I told him, although it were
the Custom of our Learned in Europe to steal Inventions from each other, who had
thereby at least this Advantage, that it became a Controversy which was the
right Owner; yet I would take such Caution, that he should have the Honour
entire without a Rival.
    We next went to the School of Languages, where three Professors sat in
Consultation upon improving that of their own Country.
    The first Project was to shorten Discourse by cutting Polysyllables into
one, and leaving out Verbs and Participles; because in Reality all things
imaginable are but Nouns.
    The other, was a Scheme for entirely abolishing all Words whatsoever: And
this was urged as a great Advantage in Point of Health as well as Brevity. For,
it is plain, that every Word we speak is in some Degree a Diminution of our
Lungs by Corrosion; and consequently contributes to the shortning of our Lives.
An Expedient was therefore offered, that since Words are only Names for Things,
it would be more convenient for all Men to carry about them, such Things as were
necessary to express the particular Business they are to discourse on. And this
Invention would certainly have taken Place, to the great Ease as well as Health
of the Subject, if the Women in Conjunction with the Vulgar and Illiterate had
not threatned to
